When P.J. Washington fired up a three-pointer from the corner near the end of the third quarter Friday night, the shot hit hard off the rim, but caromed right back to Washington on the baseline.
Four seconds later, the Mavericks’ forward found Kyrie Irving with a pass on the perimeter and that three-pointer nestled into the net and put the Mavericks up 85-70. If they needed a dagger to extract the last vestiges of life out of the Los Angeles Clippers, that was it.
And it typified a night when the Mavericks were demons on the offensive glass, ripping down 18 offensive rebounds that they turned into 21 second-chance points and consistently kept the Clippers from gaining any kind of traction as the Mavericks won Game 6 114-101 and the first-round series, 4-2.