With 11:11 left in the third quarter, Zach LaVine turned a one-point halftime lead into a four-point Sacramento advantage with a three-pointer. With 16.9 seconds left in the period, he scored again, this time on a two-point shot, to make it 81-74. Those baskets did not look alike, and they did not carry the same value.
Together, they show what LaVine supplied in Sacramento’s 115-100 victory over the Dallas Mavericks: damage in short bursts, at the moments when a game is still deciding whether a gap will stay manageable.
The Kings led Dallas 54-53 at halftime. LaVine’s three made it 57-53, an immediate extension of a lead that had not yet become secure. Sacramento did not simply hand him the rest of the quarter.
Darius Acuff Jr. made a three and a driving floater, and Malik Monk scored on a running dunk. Gafford’s three-point play put Dallas ahead 65-64 with 6:03 left, the Mavericks’ last lead.
LaVine was not the scorer who restored the advantage after that Dallas push. Leaky Black’s three at 5:49 put Sacramento ahead 67-65, and Black made another three later in the quarter. Acuff assisted both of Black’s long-range baskets.
Acuff also added two more baskets in between them, helping Sacramento reach 74-67 before the final minute. That sequence matters because it prevents an easy but inaccurate reading of LaVine’s night. He did not carry every answer.
The Kings had enough shooting around him to make his intermittent scoring more consequential.
His closing basket of the third came after Sacramento had built a 79-74 lead. The two points made it 81-74 and completed a 27-point quarter for the Kings. LaVine’s third-quarter work therefore had a useful shape: the first scoring blow after halftime, then the final basket before the teams changed quarters. The point was not volume. It was placement.
Dallas had credible ways to resist that kind of separation. The Mavericks made 29 of 35 free throws and scored 40 points in the paint. Gafford finished with 20 points on 9-of-10 shooting, while Clayton scored 20 and made four of his five threes.
Those details explain why Sacramento could not rely on a single perimeter scorer to settle the game. Dallas had interior efficiency and free throws available even while its three-point shooting lagged badly.
The Kings’ answer was broader than LaVine. Monk finished with 24 points, seven assists and five threes. Acuff scored 25 with six assists, and Black made four threes. Sacramento finished 19 of 43 from three-point range; Dallas made 7 of 33. That 36-point difference from three-point makes was too large for Dallas’ 19-point free-throw edge to erase.
