The Nets played the Mavericks in Brooklyn last night, which meant no Kyrie Irving. No matter. Brooklyn controlled the game throughout, and pulled away in the third. A jumper by Kevin Durant put the Nets up 14 early in the fourth quarter. The game would not stay a blowout.
Dallas reeled off nine straight points—two buckets by Spencer Dinwiddie, one of which was a three-point play, and two by Jalen Brunson—and suddenly it was a game. Since coming over in the Kristaps Porzingis trade, Dinwiddie has been great for the Mavericks. He scored a career-high 36 points against the Kings early this month. Then on Sunday, he hit a three-pointer with nine seconds left to lift the Mavs over the Celtics. He’s had basically one bad game (when the Knicks blew out Dallas) since coming over.
Last night, he one-upped himself again. Luka Doncic, who led everyone with 37 points, gave the Mavs a two-point lead with 23 seconds left. Durant came right back with a three-pointer to give the Nets the lead. That left time for Dinwiddie’s heroics.
Not the prettiest shot, but it went in. (I chose to embed this clip of it because it had, by far, the weirdest title of any of the clips on YouTube. Other options were “Spencer Dinwiddie hits insane buzzer beater game winner vs Nets 😱”—it wasn’t that wild, honestly, calm down—and “Spencer Dinwiddie says GOODNIGHT! 😱 Drills GAME WINNER at the BUZZER!” That last one was ESPN’s. The one from the NBA had a watch ad in the title. They are basically the same as the ones uploaded by randos. Such is the modern-day Internet.)
Dinwiddie hitting back-to-back game winners is pretty good for a guy who was considered a “deadweight contract” at the time of the trade, huh?
