Luka Dončić was looking quite comfy over there on the bench in his dark sweats and matching ballcap.
Meanwhile, Kyrie Irving was staring at a long night ahead of him – roughly 40 minutes of hard work – with Luka sitting out against the rugged New York Knicks.
Jason Kidd had to figure something out.
So at times in the next two-plus hours, Irving was on the court playing point-center in an offensive configuration that Maverick fans had not seen yet this season. It led to what Kidd called a “great team win,” 128-124 over the Knicks at American Airlines Center.
“I was trying to look at him in the post, to conserve some energy,” Kidd said of the strategy to put Irving near the paint and let him operate the offense from there. “I know he’s (one of) if not the best off the dribble, but when you maybe have him play 40-some minutes, how can you use him where he’s not expending a lot of energy.
“It’s something we haven’t really looked at. He’s just as good in the post as he is off the dribble. So I asked if he could post up a little tonight. And I thought, again, he delivered.”
That’s been pretty routine for Irving since returning from the right heel injury that cost him three weeks in December.
After one game to get his bearings, Irving has averaged 33 points, 7.6 rebounds and 5.8 assists in the last five games. He’s also made 52.5 percent of his three-point tries.
And he’s done it without the benefit of much practice time with his teammates.
In fact, he’s had no practice time.
“Our last practice was Dec. 20,” Kidd said.
So Irving has been getting back into the flow on the fly.
It’s a credit to the work he’s put in, but also the creativity of Kidd to get Irving in positions to make the most of his skills.
It worked perfectly against the Knicks.
Short-staffed is no problem: With three starters out, the Mavericks were behind the 8-ball from the start. But it was nothing a few good shots couldn’t fix. The Mavericks hit 17-of-41 three-pointers (41.5 percent) and shot 50 percent overall to make up for the absence of Dončić, Dereck Lively II and Dante Exum.
Hard-nosed, from the start: The Mavericks have figured out a few things during a tough December when they went 8-8 and an early January when they have a slew of home games to help pad the record. Mostly, they know that how they start games matters. A lot. And they got no greater proof than the rather uninspired start they had against Memphis on Tuesday compared to the grit they showed Thursday against the Knicks. “We recalibrated,” Irving said. “We knew what type of game it was going to be. It was going to take our hyper-focus and our physicality – things we didn’t do against Memphis. I think that’s our identity moving forward where we start the game really physical and manage the game well after that. Our physicality is what separates us.”
Strong numbers: The Mavericks recorded their 13th clutch victory of the season. Clutch games are defined as those in which the score is within five points sometime during the final five minutes. The Mavericks now are 13-5 in such games . . . With 17 three-pointers, the Mavericks had their 23rd game with 15 or more triples. That’s second in the league behind Boston. The Mavericks are 19-4 when they can make 15 or more from beyond the arc.
Final Word: Knicks’ coach Tom Thibodeau has never minced words about many things and when he was asked about the Mavericks after the loss, he summed it up pretty well. “This is who they are,” he said. “This team is scoring a lot of points. They play fast and they shoot threes. That wasn’t going to change (with Luka out). They didn’t change their style. When you talk about who Kyrie is, they surround him with shooting, like Hardaway Jr. had a big night. That was a problem.”
X: @ESefko
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