MEMPHIS – Now that the regular season has come to a close, the Dallas Mavericks can turn their undivided attention to their first trip to
the NBA’s play-in tournament.
The Mavs will face the Kings in Sacramento on Wednesday at 9 p.m. with the winner moving on to play the loser of Tuesday’s game between the Golden State Warriors and Memphis Grizzlies. The season will end for the Mavs-Kings loser.
The Kings swept the Mavs, 3-0, this season. But the Mavs are confident they can get the upper hand this time around.
“Since I’ve been here they’ve beaten us twice, so it’s good for us if we can come in with a chip on our shoulder, especially at their place,” Mavs guard Max Christie said. “That place is really hard to win in a playoff atmosphere, so we’re looking forward to that challenge.
“I think if we can get past that game, then that’ll help us hopefully get into the playoffs. But again, that game is going to be tough, so we got to hunker down.”
Hunker down means the Mavs know they must make sure they take care of all the intangibles, because the team that does that is often the team that walks away winners.
“We’ve got to prepare these next two days very diligently for this team, because they’re a good team regardless of their record,” Christie said. “We just got to try and take care of business.”
The good news for the Mavs is that they entered Sunday’s game against Memphis already knowing they were going to play the Kings in the play-in game. So, that helped from a scouting perspective.
“We know who our opponent is,” coach Jason Kidd said before Sunday’s 132-97 loss to the Grizzlies. “That’s a nice thing that it’s still not up in the air where we have different parts of the staff working on different teams.
“We just work on Sacramento now. So, we’ll have all that prepared, if not already prepared, for tomorrow for the guys to be able to go through.”
Center Daniel Gafford, who scored 20 points in just 19 minutes on Sunday, acknowledged that he’s more than prepared to take on the Kings.
“The main thing with me right now is just making sure that I get my wind back fully for the push that we’re trying to make here starting Wednesday for this play-in game,” Gafford said. “That’s just the main focus for me – making sure my wind is good so I can just be able to stay out there as long as I possibly can to be able to make an impact on the floor.”
Some nerves may be rattled since the Mavs-Kings loser will be headed to a long offseason. Time will tell with that.
“It’s a playoff game,” Christie said. “It really is. It’s a do-or-die NCAA March Madness type game. Both teams know it and the fans especially know it wherever we’re at.
“Since I’ve been in the league I’ve been in the play-in all three years so far. It’s a different atmosphere. This is not just another regular season game. This is a win or lose go home kind of deal, so it’s definitely a different atmosphere. It requires a different level of focus, and it requires a different level of play. Again, it’s win or go home, NCAA March Madness, Game 7 (loser) go home.”
Christie believes the Kings are loaded but certainly beatable.
“They’ve got a lot of offensive firepower,” he said. “You got DeMar DeRozan, who in my opinion is a future hall of famer. Zach Levine is going to get there at some point.
“(Domantas) Sabonis is very, very good. Keegan Murray is a great shooter, and then they’ve got defenders, too. They’ve got Devin Carter. They’ve got guys that can really play.”
Still, Christie likes the Mavs’ chances of dethroning the Kings.
“They’re a great team, obviously, regardless of their record — just the fact that they’re in the play-in,” he said. “Again, for us we just got to prepare diligently for their sets, what they’re going to do on defense, what we can do on offense.”
The Mavs will also have to try and overcome key injuries that highjacked their season.
“It’s just a series of obstacles and adversities that we dealt with throughout the season,” Gafford said. “There’s a lot of mental frustrations, a lot of emotions with a lot of stuff that went on throughout the team injury-wise, and I feel like the way we handled it is the way any other team would have. Just come out, keep doing the same thing that we do on a day-to-day basis.
“Despite all the bodies that we lost, we still had guys come out every day and just put that jersey on and just come out and play hard. It’s just a series of just bad circumstances, I would say. I feel like the way the guys handled themselves, I give them their props. They had to play a good amount of the season without a majority of the guys on the team.”
And with Wednesday’s game approaching, the Mavs believe they have the ability to take down the Kings.
“It’s going to be a good matchup,” Gafford said. “It’s win or go home now, so we got to come in ready to play.”
X: @DwainPrice
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