The Mavericks certainly would like to be sitting among the top six teams of the Western Conference, assured of a playoff berth.
It’s something that looked plausible when they were 31-26 after winning their first game after the All-Star break.
Just 10 days later, Kyrie Irving went down with a season-ending knee injury and the Mavericks have gone 8-16 since.
Hello, play-in tournament, an instrument for filling the seventh and eighth playoff seeds in each conference. Originally, it was dreamed up by the NBA with a twofold goal. One was to slow down what was once a tank race for teams that were out of the playoff picture.
In that respect, it’s kept more teams engaged down to the end of the season than before the play-in was introduced in 2020 as an allowance for the COVID-19 season. But the pandemic-interrupted 2019-20 season had to be salvaged in the bubble, and since teams didn’t all play a level schedule or the same number of games, the Nos. 8 and 9 teams in each conference were involved in the play-in if they were within four games of each other.
That was the genesis. It became part of NBA life the following year and now is something the Mavericks are in for the first time, either as the ninth or 10th seed in the West, pending Sunday’s season-finale in Memphis.
“Right now I do (like it), because it gives us a chance to get in,” said Anthony Davis after Friday’s 124-102 win over Toronto. “But when you’re that seven, eight seed, you can get knocked out. Before, you were locked into a playoff series. It goes both ways. You just got to get used to it.”
The No. 9 and 10 seeds have not had much luck in the play-in games.
The No. 10 seed in the Western Conference has never reached the playoffs. However, the No. 9 team has won the No. 8 seed twice – Memphis did it in 2021 and New Orleans pulled it off in 2022.
It’s a unique setup for NBA players, Davis said.
“(I had) the luxury of doing that in college,” he said. “It’s just like college, one and done. Win or go home. So we got to have that mindset.
“There is pressure. You don’t get a feel-out game like you usually do in a playoff series when you get Game 1 to see what teams are doing. You have to come in ready to go. It’s going to be different.”
First things first, though. The Mavericks will play the Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday and a win, coupled with a Sacramento loss to Phoenix, would mean the Mavericks get to start the play-in at home on Wednesday. If they lose in Memphis or Sacramento wins (both teams play at 2:30 p.m. Sunday), the Wednesday game will be in Sacramento.
“It’s good that we know who we’re playing,” Davis said. “We kind of start getting ready, to dive deep into what they do, their schemes and our schemes we’ll have for them.”
Davis started getting ready in the best of ways on Friday when he threw down a triple-double against the Toronto Raptors with 23 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists. He also had seven blocked shots.
Which brings us to our top takeaways from the blowout win over Toronto:
A healthy respect for Mavs: Nobody could remember when the last time was that the Mavericks had a full 12-player roster for Jason Kidd to pick and choose lineups from. All 12 saw some action against the Raptors, thanks to a blowout in which the Mavericks never trailed and led by as much as 38 points. It was good not only to have big men Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford available, but also Dante Exum and Jaden Hardy. “I don’t know how many times we’ve had a consistent roster of everyone,” Kidd said. “So hopefully, this is a start. Unfortunately, we won’t have some guys traveling to Memphis. But I think, if we’re healthy, we have a shot. We know we have to go to Sacramento and find a way to win. If we’re healthy, hopefully, it gives us a chance to win.” Ironically, it was the Raptors who had just seven available players.
Changes in attitude: The Mavericks didn’t much like the way they played on Wednesday against Luka and the Lakers. So they did something about it. They had a conversation and “talked about how we could be better,” according to Davis, who mentioned the team chat in his MavsStream TV postgame interview. He didn’t go into details, but said the desired impact was achieved. “The message,” he said, “was the message.” He then added: “I think we responded great (after Wednesday’s emotional letdown). Tonight was more about us. We got an important play-in game coming. We’re trying to get our habits correct. We’re trying to get our discipline, our chemistry. And obviously we took care of it with a win. Offensively, I think we grew as a team.”
To the Max: One of the keys for the Mavericks to have success in the play-in tournament will be to get as many players clicking at one time as possible. Max Christie could be on the verge of being one of those players. He had 17 points and hit 3-of-7 three-pointers against the Raptors. “I played with energy and three-pointers felt good, even the misses,” he said. “Confidence, for sure. I always have confidence, but it’s always good to see the results. Sometimes the results aren’t there even when you put in the work.”
X: @ESefko
Share and comment