The Dallas Mavericks beat the San Antonio Spurs 115-104 at home on Wednesday, claiming their fourth straight win. Luka Doncic scored a triple-double of 22 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists.

Before Wednesday's game had started, the Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich announced that seven-time All-Star big man LaMarcus Aldridge agreed with the team that he will not return to the franchise. 35-year-old Aldridge has played 21 games so far this season for the Spurs and averaged 13.7 points and 4.5 rebounds.

Those numbers do not tell you the importance of Aldridge to the team. Without him, the Spurs lost to the Mavericks 51-30 in rebounds and watched Kristaps Porzingis go 7-10 to get 14 points in the paint for the Mavericks.

Aldridge's absence also made the Spurs' poor offense even more predictable. DeMar DeRozan could deliver career-high 7.2 assists per game this season, at the price of taking only 13.8 field goal attempts, the fewest since his rookie season. However, he still has to launch an uphill individual attack when the Spurs have no other option, which, unfortunately, happen more often than you think.

DeRozan was doing well enough by dropping 30 points and 11 assists, but that's not enough to drag a broken squad out of the pit.

Compared with the Spurs, the Mavericks can afford to leave it for Doncic to decide how he wants to play the game. For example, the 22-year-old only had six points in the first half but got eight rebounds and seven assists during the same period. When he decided to turn on his scoring mode, Doncic claimed 11 points in the third quarter alone, leading his team to a 35-27 run in this quarter.

When the Spurs began to double-team Doncic at the end of Q3, Porzingis stood out and killed the game by scoring 13 points in the last quarter.

In the other game on Tuesday, the Memphis Grizzlies walked over the Washington Wizards 127-112 at FedExForum. Jonas Valanciunas dropped a big double-double of 29 points and 20 rebounds for the Grizzlies. Ja Morant contributed 21 points and 10 assists. Desmon Bane was the third Grizzly to get 20+points in the game.

Russell Westbrook was the best-performing one on the Wizards' side with 20 points, 10 assists and three steals. Jokes about him holding the team and Bradley Beal back have been on since he was traded to the capital team, but they should be halted on Wednesday. Beal was 6-22 in field goals and 1-8 in triples. Apparently, he needs more time to wake up from the All-Star break.