Dallas Mavericks embrace being underdogs and thrive each step of the way

Embracing an underdog role is pretty common in professional sports. The whole: “us against the world/we’re not even supposed to be here” attitude is nothing new for teams searching for a phycological edge. It alleviates pressure and bonds the team all at the same time. So when the Dallas Mavericks took that role this postseason, no one batted an eye.

For the third consecutive series, the Dallas Mavericks enter in as underdogs and for the third consecutive series, it’s easy to see why.

On Wednesday the Dallas Mavericks go back to work, taking on the third-seeded Golden State Warriors and hoping to pull off their third series upset of the season. The Warriors have championship bloodlines, superstar players, and pedigreed coaching. They’re the real deal.

Before injuries befell the franchise, they were a budding dynasty. Led by two of the most deadly shooters in the game, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, the Warriors are on a mission to remind everyone just how bad the “Splash Brothers” can be.

Golden State has cruised through the first two rounds of the playoffs and enter the Western Conference Finals in a much different mindset than the Mavs, who have had to scratch and claw their way through endless adversity this postseason.

Mavs adversity

While the round one match-up against Utah will look in retrospect like an easy step for the Mavs, allow me to remind you how that series started and why the Dallas Mavericks were the underdogs despite being the higher seed.

Luka Doncic was out.

Luka strained his calf in the regular season finale and was ruled out for the start of the Jazz series. If losing the only star player on a one-star team isn’t adversity, I’m not sure what is. Luka would go on to miss the first three games of the series and if it weren’t for some other-worldly play from Jalen Brunson, we may not be having the conversation we’re having right now.

The Mavs overcame the Luka injury and won. Their reward was to face the top seeded team in the NBA, the Phoenix Suns. Underdogs again, the Mavs started 0-2 and went back to Dallas with chants of “Suns in four” echoing in their heads.

Even when Dallas turned the tide, tied the series, and forced a game seven, they were seen as the obvious underdogs. They historically played atrocious in Phoenix and just about everyone and his brother was picking against them. Underdogs.

And here we are again, underdogs to the Warriors. The former NBA champs know what it takes to win and are thirsty to show Luka and company how good they can be. Meanwhile the Mavs just feel lucky to be here.

The bar has been raised

The Mavs started the season wanting one thing: to have a better postseason than the year before. Incremental improvement may not sound sexy but it was something that had still alluded them up until this year. Just making it into the second round seemed like a feat. Especially when we learned Luka would miss time.

It’s safe to say the Mavs didn’t just improve incrementally but catapulted exponentially. And here we are – another round – another underdog role.

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Can the Mavs keep thriving as underdogs. I certainly wouldn’t bet against it.

• Published on 05/16/2022 at 16:01 PM
• Last updated at 05/16/2022 at 15:18 PM