If you need a little more persuading that the Mavericks can beat the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the playoffs, you’ve come to the right place.
Veteran mavs.com NBA writers Dwain Price and Eddie Sefko, who have combined for roughly 70 years of experience watching and analyzing the league, are here to give you a blow-by-blow set of reasons why the Mavericks can succeed in the best-of-seven first-round series that starts Saturday at 3:30 p.m.
No. 10: THREE-POINT SHOOTING
Sefko: Yes, we’re well aware that the Clippers are the best 3-point shooting team in the NBA this season. And it’s really not close. They hit better than 41 percent. Nobody else was better than 39.2 percent (Brooklyn). However, the Mavericks were a respectable 13th in the league in defending the 3-point line (36.5 percent). And they were better in the last 32 games of the season, when opponents shot just 35 percent (the Mavericks were 21-11 in that span). So they’ve learned how to cover for each other. The Clippers have too many good 3-point shooters to be stopped. But the Mavericks will figure out a way to slow them down. And if the Clippers shoot 37 percent instead of 41 percent, that’s a major difference.
No. 9: ROAD WARRIORS
Price: If you’re a pretty good road team, I never really worry about you not having home court advantage in any playoff series. And the Mavs are a pretty good road team. In fact, the Mavs were 21-15 on the road this season. The only teams with a better road record were the Phoenix Suns (24-12), Denver Nuggets (22-14) and Portland Trail Blazers (22-14). In other words, the Mavs travel well. So in this case, if the Mavs can win their three home games, they’ll have four chances to win just one game in Los Angeles to advance past the first round of the playoffs for the first time since they won the 2011 NBA championship. In a nutshell, if the Mavs won 58.3 percent of their road games in the regular season, surely they can win 25 percent of their road games in this series against the Clippers. Granted, it will be a tougher task, considering the Clippers were 26-10 at home this season. But let’s not forget, the Mavs absolutely clobbered the Clippers in LA, 124-73, in Los Angeles on Dec. 27, in a game Dallas led, 77-27, at halftime.
No. 8: DEFENDING PAUL GEORGE
Sefko: Last year, the Mavericks limited George to 35.8 percent shooting in the first round. Dorian Finney-Smith and Co. know how to make life tough on George, who took a lot of flak for his playoff performance last season. He’s going to come back firing. But Finney-Smith, Josh Richardson and maybe a few other Mavericks are going to have to figure out how to put the wraps on George again if the Mavericks are going to get out of this series. Expect Rick Carlisle to come up with some surprises defensively.
No. 7: POWELL, CAULEY-STEIN ARE BACK
Price: One reason the Clippers were able to exploit the Mavs on the inside in last year’s playoff series was because Dallas was without centers Dwight Powell and Willie Cauley-Stein. Powell had season-ending surgery to repair a torn right Achilles tendon. And Cauley-Stein opted out of playing in the bubble after the birth of his daughter. The absence of those two interior players made life easier for the Clippers, who got to the rim for easy opportunities. But that won’t be the case this time as Powell and Cauley-Stein are locked and loaded and ready help defend the paint. If nothing else, that’s two more bodies the Mavs can throw out onto the court to offset the energy and passion that Ivica Zubac and DeMarcus Cousins provide to the Clippers. Powell is a solid rebounder, defender and pick-n-roll player, and Cauley-Stein is a terrific shot-blocker.
No. 6: THE TREY BURKE EFFECT
Sefko: OK, maybe it won’t be Burke. He was a bubble hero last season. But the point is the Mavericks need somebody to come up big who perhaps they aren’t expecting big things from going into the series. It might be rookie Josh Green, who showed late in the season that he’d learned the ropes well in his formative months in the league. Perhaps it will be Boban Marjanović, who could have a role in this series against Ivica Zubac. Or J.J. Redick, if his balky heel cooperates. Bottom line is that a surprise catalyst usually carries significant weight in a playoff series, not only because of what he does for his team, but for how the opponent has to re-prepare to account for the previously unexpected X-factor. The only question is who it will be? And for which team?
No. 5: BRUNSON IS AVAILABLE
PRICE: In this year’s playoff matchup with the Clippers, the Mavs will have their most capable backup guard, Jalen Brunson. Brunson missed the playoffs last summer after undergoing season-ending surgery to address an injury to the labrum of his right shoulder. Brunson is of utmost importance to the Mavs because he can run the offense very smoothly, even when he’s in the backcourt alongside superstar point guard Luka Doncic. And he also can adequately play the shooting guard role while Doncic does what he does in crushing defenses into itty-bitty pieces. (See last year’s Game 4 for reference). In addition, Brunson can attack the basket with the best of them while keeping the defense honest. The other thing Brunson does that sometimes gets overlooked is that he is a very good defensive player. And he doesn’t mind giving up his body to take one charge after another.
No. 4: REBOUNDING, REBOUNDING, REBOUNDING
Sefko: Anybody who has read words from me in this space knows how important I think rebounding is. It’s the most vital stat in basketball, after shooting percentage. And while the Mavericks have been historically mediocre (at best) in this department, they actually were very solid after the All-Star break, outrebounding opponents by 1.1 boards per game. That may not sound like much, but consider that they lost the rebounding game by 2.5 per game before the All-Star break and it’s easy to see why they allowed four fewer points after the break, on average, than before the break.
No. 3: A HEALTHY KRISTAPS PORZINGIS
Price: For those who didn’t watch last year’s playoff series – and for those who didn’t dissect the final outcome down to its lowest common denominators – let me remind you that Kristaps Porzingis missed the final three games of that series. And when you are without your No. 2 player, you’re always going to be walking on a slippery slope. The Mavs without Porzingis is like the Clippers trying to win without Paul George. Porzingis averaged 23.7 points and 8.7 rebounds in the three playoff games against the Clippers. And that’s counting Game 1 when I still say the series immediately changed when he received his second technical foul an automatic ejection. At the time of the ejection the Mavs were ahead, 71-66, with 9:10 remaining in the third quarter of a game they eventually lost, 118-110.
No. 2: AND, OF COURSE, LUKA
Sefko: Let’s just call this one the way it really is. Luka Dončić must be the best player on the court for the Mavericks to pull this off. And it doesn’t need to be close. We know Kawhi Leonard is going to be great. He always is. But Dončić can be every bit as dominant and his ability to hit clutch shots is just as impressive as Leonard’s, who admittedly hit a ginormous one that got Toronto to the NBA promised land a couple years back. But Luka has to rule this series, make it his own and go full-bore LeBron. Don’t leave anything to chance. Make the right basketball plays, but make sure the ball is in Luka’s hands when the games are on the line.
No. 1: LESSONS LEARNED
Price: I always say the best experience is getting thrown into the frying pan so you can really learn how to do your job. The Mavs were thrown into that hot grease last summer when they faced the Clippers in the first round of the playoffs. While the been-there, done-that Clippers had their way with the Mavs and won the series in six games, the mere fact that Dallas won two games had to serve as some sort of confidence booster for the Mavs. If they had done a couple of things differently, the final outcome might have been different. It’s like a man going out on a date and forgetting to bring flowers, forgetting to always open the door for the lady, and forgetting to not smack his food while at the dinner table. This time around, I’m sure the Mavs placed a call to Miss Manners so they’ll remember all of the proper basketball etiquette they’ll need in order to win this series. Things like being aggressive and maintaining a physical disposition and a hit-first mentality for 48 minutes.
Share and comment