Mavericks at Bulls
The Dallas Mavericks had no problem getting past one struggling team while playing without star guard Luka Doncic. They'll look to make it two in a row against sub-.500 teams when they visit the Chicago Bulls in the finale of a four-game road trip Monday.
While Doncic sat to rest a sprained thumb, his teammates - led by Kristaps Porzingis' 38 points - raced past the Minnesota Timberwolves 111-91 on Sunday to improve to 2-1 on the trip and 21-10 on the road overall. The Bulls capped a 1-8 February with a 125-115 loss at New York on Saturday to fall a season-high 20 games below .500. "We fight but we obviously don't get the end result that we need," guard Zach Lavine told reporters after a 26-point effort in the loss. "Something (has) got to change. You got to do something to get those wins and stop stockpiling (the) losses. I think there's a lot of things you got to take into consideration. You got to look at it in the offseason." Chicago is two losses away from clinching a third straight losing season on the heels of nine straight in which it finished .500 or better.
TIME: 8 p.m. ET. TV: FS Southwest, NBCS Chicago
ABOUT THE MAVERICKS (37-24): Doncic missed all six of his 3-point tries and turned the ball over six times in a loss at Miami on Friday, and admitted after the game that the thumb was an issue. "It was pretty clear in the Miami game that it's really a problem," coach Rick Carlisle told reporters Sunday. "He'll be out today, and tomorrow we'll see where we are." Porzingis, who also had 13 rebounds and five blocks at Minnesota, averaged 28.8 points in five games during a recent stretch in which Doncic was sidelined with an ankle injury.
ABOUT THE BULLS (20-40): Chicago did get two key players back from injuries Saturday, as Wendell Carter Jr. (ankle) scored six points in his first game since Jan. 6 and Denzel Valentine (hamstring) had eight points off the bench after missing the previous seven games. LaVine chipped in seven assists in a 38-minute effort after tweaking his quadriceps before the game, but he told reporters he did not expect to miss any time. Rookie Coby White saw his string of 30-point efforts snapped at three games, but he still managed 22 points in 29 minutes off the bench.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Bulls PF Thaddeus Young has 17 steals over his last five games after recording a season-high five at New York.
2. Mavericks SG Seth Curry scored 27 points on 11-of-17 from the floor Sunday and is shooting 56.6 percent - 57.5 percent from 3-point range - since the start of February.
3. Doncic had 38 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists in a 118-110 win over Chicago at home earlier this season.