OKLAHOMA CITY – The Mavericks lost one of their X-factors in this series when Maxi Kleber went down with a separated shoulder in the first round of the playoffs.

Maybe, just maybe, another X-factor stepped up Thursday night.

Tim Hardaway Jr. supplied strong energy and even better scoring off the bench and helped ignite the Mavericks to a 119-110 victory in Game 2 to knot the Western Conference semifinals against Oklahoma City at a win apiece.

The Mavericks have been a strength-in-numbers team all season. That asset made a huge difference in Game 2. In addition to Hardaway’s 17 points in 19 minutes, Josh Green threw in 11 points and the pair combined to hit 5-of-9 three-pointers.

“Yeah, I think the ankle’s healing pretty well,” Hardaway said with a big grin as he sat at his locker afterward.

While Luka Dončić and P.J. Washington both had 29 points, Hardaway helped pick up the slack on a night when Kyrie Irving had to expend a lot of energy defensively and wound up with just nine points.

“Everybody thinks it’s going to be Kai and Luka every game,” Hardaway said. “That’s why it’s a team sport. You need guys that can have big nights like P.J. I’m happy and excited he was knocking down shots. He got us into that hot start and we’re going to need that moving forward from everyone.”

Washington was equally happy for Hardaway, who missed the last four games, of the first round and had not played a full game in which the Mavericks won during these playoffs.

“It was great. We needed him,” Washington said. “We needed every bit of it. He played his heart out on both ends of the court and I’m glad to finally get a playoff win for him this year.”

Hardaway hit 6-of-10 shots and weaved into close range more than taking three-pointers. He basically took what the Thunder’s defense was allowing him to take.

And it was a game in which the Mavericks’ bench equaled the Thunder reserves with 30 points each. In Game 1, the Mavericks off the bench were outscored 42-23 by their OKC counterparts.

““For us, we know what we need to do,” Green said. “They have a great bench. It was great to see Timmy do his thing. Tim’s an amazing shooter and he stuck with that tonight. We back him 100 percent and it was good to see him get on a roll.”

Said Luka: “Off the bench, Josh, D-Live (Dereck Lively II), Tim, they were all incredible. It was a whole team effort and everybody who stepped on the floor fought.”

And now, the Mavericks have secured home-court advantage the rest of the way, although familiar floors have not meant much in these playoffs.

Even so, it was a gritty, tough win in Game 2.

“It’s the same thing that happened to us against the Clippers,” Hardaway said. “They basically kicked our ass in the first game. So just wanted to come out here in the second game and try to set the tone.

“To have a chance to get to the Western Conference finals is right there in front of us, so you want to try to do the best you can to be a part of it.”

And Hardaway formally arrived at the party on Thursday.

PLAYOFF DOLLARS: It’s often said that NBA players earn their money in the regular season and that owners make theirs in the playoffs.

That’s an oversimplification, but teams that go deep in the playoffs obviously have more home games and more revenue coming in than teams that miss the postseason.

But the playoffs do carry some financial incentive for the players.

This season’s NBA playoff pool is $33,657,947. If it was split evenly, the 16 playoff teams would get about $2.1 million each.

But it most certainly is not split evenly.

Teams that go deeper receive large portions of the playoff pool pie.

So far, the Mavericks already have pocketed $279,698 for finishing with the fifth-best record in the Western Conference. They also earned $452,708 for participating in the first round and $551,580 for reaching the conference semifinals.

That’s $1,283,986, which comes to about $71,333 if it were split into 18 equal shares for each player.

While that won’t move the needle much in Luka Dončić or Kyrie Irving’s bank account, it will be a nice bonus for players on minimum or two-way contracts.

In addition, the possibility exists that the Mavericks can add bigger money if they advance further in the playoffs.

Getting to the conference finals is worth $923,088 per team. The NBA Finals loser gets roughly $3.7 million and the champion earns about 8.5 million.

Some players, usually those with bigger regular-season paychecks, donate their playoff share to staff members in the basketball or business offices.

HARDAWAY SAW IT COMING: Dončić rebounded from a lukewarm Game 1 to post a very MVP-worthy effort.

He finished with 29 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists.

It was something Hardaway said he saw coming. And when the superstar point guard made his first three shots, Hardaway’s suspicions were confirmed.

“It’s going to be a long night,” he said when asked what he thought of Luka’s hot start. “I knew it was going to be a long night yesterday when I saw his face when we were going into treatment before practice. I knew he was ready, knew he was focused.

“When he’s knocking down shots and kicking it to P.J. or Kai or myself, and we’re knocking down shots, it makes everybody’s job easier.”

BRIEFLY: Josh Green said it was nothing short of a must-win mentality for the Mavericks in Game 2. “It was awesome,” he said. “The atmosphere was amazing in here. For us, we knew we had to come in and win this game. The first game, they were the first ones to hit us. So we were just trying to provide as much energy as possible.” . . . The Mavericks will use Friday as a recovery day ahead of Saturday afternoon’s Game 3 (2:30 p.m. tipoff) . . . The Mavericks may have given up 110 points, but their defense was much improved. They limited OKC to 10-of-30 from three-point range after they hit 16-of-35 in the Game 1 blowout win. “It starts on the defensive end for us,” Irving said. “Our defensive identity is at an all-time high when we’re doing the right things and our offense flourishes.”

X: @ESefko

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