The Dallas Mavericks beat the Golden State Warriors 119-109 in Game 4 of the NBA Western Conference Finals at the American Airlines Center in Dallas on Tuesday to turn the series 3-1, avoiding to be swept by the opponent.

The arena had multiple leaks in the roof, which resulted in a delay of the second half of the game. However, it's not the rain water, but the 3-pointer rain by the Mavericks, which shot 20-for-43 from downtown, that hurt the Warriors the most. Dorian Finney-Smith, Reggie Bullock, Jalen Brunson, Maxi Kleber and Spencer Dinwiddie all hit at over 40 percent of field goal rate from outside. In fact, if the last quarter of garbage time was cut, the Mavericks shot intimidating 19-for-36 in triples.

Luka Doncic didn't share his teammates boiling touch behind the arc, but this was the easiest game for him during this series, though he still scored 30 points, 14 rebounds and nine assists. The Mavericks were very determined to set picks for him to attack either Stephen Curry or Jordan Poole. Doncic was doing well defensively too on Tuesday by contributing two steals and two blocks.

Despite the loss, this was not the worst-performing game for the Warriors in the playoffs this season. It's true that they were beaten in rebounding and underperformed in 3-point shooting, but the team committed only eight turnovers, much fewer than their average stats of 14.7 in this category.

A lot of the Mavericks' 3-pointers were unreasonable shots made over the fingertips of the defenders. When they made enough shots like this, the Warriors had to go smaller in size for faster defensive rotation. The more they rotated on the floor, the more likely the Mavericks were to create open shots for easy points with ball movement.

Nonetheless, the Warriors couldn't simply call Tuesday's loss a bad day because they did two things wrong that were lethal enough to cost them this game. First, neither Curry nor Andrew Wiggins continuously attacked Doncic to fatigue him as they did in the previous three games their team won. Though Doncic has grown into a much better defender this season under the coaching of Jason Kidd, he is not good at guarding fast guards like Curry or an athletic finisher like Wiggins. Making him spend more strengths on defense was part of the Warriors' plan to contain Doncic, but the team failed to do so on Tuesday night.

Second, the Warriors trailed by only four points (28-24) after the first quarter in which the Mavericks shot 7-for-12 in triples. However, having played six minutes in the second quarter, the deficit grew to 12 points (45-33). During that period, coach Steve Kerr had both first-year rookies, Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga on the court together with Jordan Poole.

It's not the best rotation choice judging by both the result and the process of the game. Kuminga had four points in those six minutes, but the ball stopped moving smoothly when he was involved in the Warriors' offense, not to mention the Mavericks preferred to leave him open outside the 3-point line. Moody played safe as usual, but he lacked the ability to make a difference.

Poole is a good bench scorer, but the Mavericks figured out how to stop his penetration. Since he couldn't get enough help from Kuminga nor Moody, Poole's offensive choices was limited to shooting pull-up jumpers from downtown. That's why the Warriors failed to match the Mavericks on offense during these six minutes. Losing by eight points didn't seem too bad, but when it happened during the resting time of Doncic, it mattered a lot to Tuesday's game.

The good news for the Warriors was that their reserve players learnt their lesson quickly and began to play correctly in the final quarter, cutting the deficit to as little as eight points. There are as many as three games left and the team only needs one win to advance to the NBA Finals.

As for the Mavericks, they were desperate to win from the beginning, which could be told from the team's aggressive double-teaming of Curry at the 3-point line and their decisiveness to shoot from outside when there was a chance. They have to maintain such a form because each of the following three games is win-or-go-home to the team.

Game 5 will happen at Chase Center in San Francisco on Wednesday.