The LA Clippers pulled away in the second half to defeat the Dallas Mavericks, 118-110.
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00:00The L.A. Clippers took a 1-0 series lead over the Dallas Mavericks on Monday night, winning
00:05118-110 behind big games from Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Marcus Morris.
00:10L.A.'s trio forwards combined to score 75 on the team's 118 points, and each played
00:16terrific basketball on both ends of the floor down the stretch.
00:20Leonard logged a team-high 29 points, while George snuck a dagger in the three-point range
00:24with less than a minute to play off with Nadler for good.
00:27Meanwhile, Marcus Morris was a team-high plus 25.
00:30The Clippers got off to a hot start in the first quarter, beating the game on an 18-2
00:35run led by, unsurprisingly, Leonard, George, and Morris.
00:38However, the Mavericks immediately answered with a run of their own, turning a 16-point
00:42deficit into a 14-point lead early in the second quarter.
00:46It was a wild turn of events that had fans buzzing on Twitter, but the most significant
00:51moment of the game happened early in the second half.
00:53Roughly three minutes into the third quarter, Mavericks star Kristaps Porzingis was ejected
00:57after picking up his second technical foul of the game.
01:00The first came after he reacted to a foul called against him early in the first half,
01:03while the second stemmed from an altercation with Morris.
01:06After Morris and Luka Doncic got tied up under the basket, Porzingis stepped in to defend
01:10his teammate.
01:12Both teams went to shoving, and ultimately double technical fouls were issued to Porzingis
01:15and Morris.
01:16Neither side was happy with the ejection.
01:19Early in the game, Dr. Gerber said he hated that Porzingis was out, and during Morris'
01:23post-game media session, he said he didn't think it was enough to warrant a technical
01:27foul on Porzingis' end.
01:29It's hard to say whether the outcome would have been different had Porzingis been available
01:32the second half, but fortunately for Dallas, this was only game one of what's shaping up
01:36to already be a fun and competitive first-round series.
01:40LA and Dallas meet again on Wednesday night for game two.
01:43That game will air on TNT at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.