MAVERICKS (42-30) at UTAH JAZZ (43-27)
Time: 2 p.m.
Location: Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
TV: Fox Sports Southwest.
Radio: ESPN 103.3 FM; Univision 1270 AM (Spanish)
About the Mavs: After starting out 0-2 in the bubble, they have won two of their last three to keep alive their ultra-slim hopes of moving up from the No. 7 seed. The Jazz are directly in front of the Mavericks, so a win would fan that flicker of hope . . . Luka Doncic has had three triple doubles in the five games since the restart and he and Kristaps Porzingis are the highest-scoring duo in the bubble at a combined 62.8 points per game as of Sunday afternoon. That includes Doncic’s 33.4 points and KP’s 29.4 points . . . The Mavericks have three seeding games left before Doncic and Porzingis get their first taste of the playoffs . . . They are expected to have Seth Curry (right leg soreness) available after he went through practice on Sunday . . . It will be interesting to see if Porzingis is load managed in either of these back-to-back games. It’s the only such set the Mavs will play in the bubble as they go against Portland on Tuesday at 4 p.m . . . The Mavericks shoot the second-most 3-pointers in the league and their percentage perked up in the third quarter and overtime against Milwaukee (8-19). They hope to build on that . . . The Mavericks made big strides in the overtime win over Milwaukee on Saturday. They even conquered their third-quarter woes that have been consistent throughout the season. “We’ve struggled a lot with the third quarter where they ran at us and we weren’t physical enough,” Maxi Kleber said of so many games during the season – before the coronavirus interruption and after. “So we addressed it and we wanted to change it. It (battling the Bucks) was a very physical game and we didn’t back down at all which is very important for the games coming up now.”
About the Jazz: They are coming off a wild, double-overtime loss to the Denver Nuggets on Saturday when the Jazz were behind 104-98 with 10 seconds left. So Donovan Mitchell outscored the Nuggets 7-1 in the final 10 seconds to force overtime. The Nuggets would go on to win 134-132 . . . In that game, Mitchell had 35 points and eight assists. Joe Ingles, a frequent nuisance for the Mavericks, had 13 assists against the Nuggets . . . Utah is 2-4 in the bubble . . . Mitchell (leg) is listed as questionable for the afternoon affair. The Jazz will definitely be without Bojan Bogdanovic, their second-leading scorer at 20.2 points per game, who is out for the season with wrist injury . . . The absence of Bogdanovic means the Jazz’s lethal 3-point shooting will take a hit. They are second in the league at 37.9 percent from beyond the arc . . . They are 2-0 against the Mavericks this season, including a 123-119 victory at American Airlines Center in which Luka Doncic did not play. The Mavericks got 33 points from Tim Hardaway Jr. in that game, but also allowed the Jazz to shoot 59 percent from the field . . . Rudy Gobert is one of the three finalists for defensive player of the year, but it was his offense that punctured the Mavericks in the February win at Dallas. Gobert had 17 points and 15 rebounds and did not miss a shot from the field (7-for-7). After centers Brook Lopez for Milwaukee had 34 points and Ivica Zubac made all 10 of his shots for the LA Clippers, Gobert might be licking his chops.
Twitter: @ESefko
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