Mavs-Spurs preview: Long home stand begins sprint to the playoffs

Is anybody else getting tired of hearing that the Mavericks are 0-2 with Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving playing together?

Do those folks also spout off that the Mavericks are 28-22 in games Dončić has played this season? Or 2-2 with Irving?

Sample sizes can be used to back up any case. As far as the Mavericks are concerned, though, only one sample size really matters.

The next 22 games.

“After the All-Star break, it’s a sprint,” says Jason Kidd, who has talked for the past three or four months about the marathon, but now is correct in that the finish line is in sight. There is a laundry list of things that must be done. And getting Irving and Dončić together for an extended run tops that list.

“With the break, everybody kind of goes their separate way,” Kidd said. “But we have 22 games left. And now it’s just about connecting not just on the floor but off the floor. So you know, I think just this next two months should be fun.”

So the season, essentially, starts now.

And the first step is against the San Antonio Spurs, who are in full-blown nosedive mode after losing their last 14 (and 19 of their last 20) before the All-Star break.

The draft lottery awaits them this summer and the big prize is towering Frenchman Victor Wembanyama. The Spurs seem intent on giving themselves the best possible shot at winning the lottery and the 7-2 Wembanyama, who could give Giannis Antetokounmpo a good run for most misspelled name in the Twittersphere.

Despite their desire to get the best lottery spot they can, that doesn’t mean the Spurs won’t win some games in the final six weeks of the season. They will.

The Mavericks just need to make sure they aren’t one of those victims. They play the Spurs in three of their final 22 games. And they had to survive a couple of missed free throws by the Spurs in the final seconds to escape in the first meeting 126-125 on New Year’s Eve in San Antonio.

Every win is going to be like gold and every loss is going to be painful from here on. At 31-29, the sixth-place Mavericks are a game and a half out of fourth place and two games ahead of 11^th place in the Western Conference.

The difference between the two? The fourth seed has a home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. The 11^th seed misses the play-in tournament and if that happens to the Mavericks, they don’t even have their lottery pick to console themselves with. New York owns it, unless the Mavericks get top-10 lucky in the lottery.

With that, here’s a few things to look for as the NBA gets back to action Thursday night:

• Back to work. The Mavericks had two players in the All-Star Game on Sunday, but both Luka and Kyrie had a couple days to get away from the grind before Wednesday afternoon’s practice. The first game back after the break typically requires a reboot before everybody gets back into the swing of things. Hopefully, the Mavericks don’t take too long to recover from any All-Star hangover.
• Injuries hopefully had a chance to heal over the break. The Mavericks finished the pre-All-Star portion of the season with Irving, Davis Bertans, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Maxi Kleber all sidelined. Of those, Hardaway and Irving will be back for the Spurs. Kleber and Bertans remain out.
• San Antonio has a lot of interesting young talent, including Baylor product Jeremy Sochan, who was the ninth overall pick in the 2022 draft and is averaging 10 points and 4.9 rebounds. The 6-9 forward also has one of the most unusual free-throw shots in NBA history, doing it all one-handed.
• Keldon Johnson leads the Spurs at 21.8 points per game and guard Tre Jones is adding 12.8 points and 6.3 assists, although he is doubtful with a foot injury. The Spurs also get 19 points per game from Devin Vassell, who is nursing a knee injury.
• The Spurs were active before the trade deadline, acquiring Khem Birch, Devonte Graham and a passel of draft picks for Jakob Poetl and Josh Richardson. Not seeing Poetl should be good news. In the first meeting this season, the 7-1 center had 19 points and 15 rebounds against the Mavericks.
• Coach Gregg Popovich is in his 27^th season leading the Spurs. The other 29 NBA teams have gone through 294 coaches since Popovich became San Antonio’s head coach. Each NBA team has had at least three head coaches since then.

SAN ANTONIO SPURS (14-45) at DALLAS MAVERICKS (31-29)

• When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
• Where: American Airlines Center, Dallas.
• TV: Bally’s Sports Southwest.
• Radio:1 FM, 99.1 FM Zona MX (Spanish).

Twitter: @ESefko