Anthony Davis had just scored seven points in the first five minutes against the Los Angeles Clippers and was clearly in a nice comfort zone.
The Clippers couldn’t slow him down early in the game. It was a chance for the Mavericks to milk a hot hand.
And then, Davis walked to the sideline – his minutes restriction and the medical staff’s desire to avoid playing the superstar big man for long stretches without a break dictating the move.
It’s been a familiar scene for too many Mavericks since the All-Star break, when they’ve been on the court at all.
What Jason Kidd and his staff have gone through this season usually comes with hazard pay. They had to reinvent the Mavericks at least three times.
Once was because of the massive trade for Davis, which will be a major topic this week with Luka Doncic and LeBron James leading the Los Angeles Lakers into American Airlines Center on Wednesday for the first time since the blockbuster in early February.
(By the way, it’s the second night of back-to-back games for the Lakers, who are in Oklahoma City Tuesday. Just a cautionary message for the hype machine).
The other two times Kidd has reshaped his team have come when they were the smallest team in the league because of injuries, then morphed into one of the biggest teams in the league when their injured centers returned to health, a process that is ongoing.
“Yeah, I mean, yeah,” Dwight Powell, the longest-tenured Maverick in the locker room, said with emphasis when asked about whether the Mavericks had to change their identity midstream. “We were short-staffed, sometimes extremely so, and we had to play a different style at times. Obviously, we got really close to not having even enough guys. But guys stepped up and did whatever they could to contribute.
“And defensively we had to find ways to be effective in terms of scrambling and having each other’s back and being smart with the ways we were competing. Coach did a great job of preparing us to try to win games.”
The Mavericks’ coaching staff indeed might be the MVP of this team for giving themselves a fighting chance to make the playoffs.
Nobody would blame Kidd if he said something along the lines of: look at some of the other teams that have been inundated with injuries and check their records.
He’d be right, even though he’d never say that. Philadelphia without Joel Embiid and Paul George? Phoenix without Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant? San Antonio without Victor Wembanyama?
All of them have fallen on much harder times than the Mavericks, who played without Luka for six weeks before the trade and without Anthony Davis for more than a month.
What’s been the trick? There really is no trick, Kidd said.
“It starts in training camp when we talked about promoting competition, understanding we were a very deep team (at that time),” Kidd said. “And so, everyone isn’t going to get a chance to play. I think Spencer (Dinwiddie) didn’t play in that first game. On the depth chart, he was the third point guard. I think the coaching staff has done a great job of communicating and developing the sense of telling guys to stay ready.
“Sometimes, that’s hard for a player because what does ‘stay ready’ mean when you’re not going to get the chance to play. With all the injuries this year, everyone’s gotten the chance to play. Some would say they’ve probably played a little more than they thought, but it gives them the opportunity to showcase what they can do.”
It’s hard on players to go through a season like this. Two-way players and the 14th and 15th men – none of whom expect to do a lot of heavy lifting once training camp is done – quickly have to become starters or rotation players.
And it was up to Kidd’s staff to figure out how to give oddball lineups a game plan and some confidence against teams that almost always had a manpower advantage.
“It can be tough at times, especially now with the way the league is run and not having a lot of practice time because we play every day or every other day,” said Clippers’ coach Tyronn Lue, who has gone through several seasons with key players like Kawhi Leonard missing long stretches. “So you don’t have a lot of time to get those guys up to speed and incorporate guys, so that’s tough. But overall, it’s our business and it’s part of the challenge.”
Some things, however, do not change. And Kidd has mastered the art of convincing players that, playing to exhaustion is a mandatory part of the job. For the team, yes. But also with many players who have taken over key roles this season fighting for next season’s paycheck.
Do it for the team, but also do it for yourself.
Play hard,” said Davis. “Whoever’s on the floor, play hard with energy and effort.”
If that happens, he said, the growth process and chemistry-building can happen faster.
“Guys are on minute restrictions, some guys are still trying to get back into shape,” Davis said. “We’re still trying to figure it out. We haven’t had much practice time and we’re using the games to get reps. We just got to continue to stay together and figure it out.”
And don’t discount the importance of the three remaining regular-season games. The Mavericks have to get some rhythm going before the play-in game that they expect to be in next week. Those win-or-go-home games can be won if you just find a groove at the right time.
What the Mavericks know is that they have learned how to learn on the fly. So many players have had to fill different roles that they know all about adaptation.
“We’ve had that from two-ways to guys who were third-string,” Kidd said. “The group in that locker room is about their character. They believe they can win and we talk about winning every day. And we learn from winning and losing. We’ve stayed (together) as a team and that’s one of the biggest things. That’s why we’re in this situation.”
And, as they have seen when they look around the league, the Mavericks could have it worse.
But it’s not because of players like Kessler Edwards, who was one of the last signees of the summer as a two-way player, but was the starting center more often than not after the All-Star break. Or Brandon Williams, who was the lead guard after Kyrie Irving went down. Or Kai Jones or Moses Brown.
All of them helped save the season.
“It’s been huge, huge,” Powell said. “Those guys came in and understood the concept for real – next-man mentality. They made huge contributions and played the game the right way, which is huge. B-Will was amazing.
I was really glad he was able to not only help us in a lot of those games in a major way but also show what he’s capable for the league to see that we’ve seen on a regular basis, but to do it on the stage he was able to do it on. I was very proud of him for that.”
It comes back to Kidd and his staff. They needed to keep players motivated and confident, which they did. They didn’t have this player or that player. But sometimes they did have players who could do other things.
“We prepared for every game the same way,” Powell said. “We prepared to win. We planned to win. We had a game plan based on who we’re playing and who we have available and we go from there. That may affect strategy, but we prepare to win every game.”
X: @ESefko
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