Why the Dallas Mavericks are poised for a big playoff push
By Ashton Nicks
The Dallas Mavericks combo of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving should push the Mavs for a deep playoff run.
After an exciting All-Star weekend for the Dallas Mavericks that featured Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic, the Mavs look to improve their rankings in the Western Conference playoff standings in the proverbial “second season.”
In the short sample size of Luka and Kyrie playing, we saw a lot of promise despite the 124-121 loss to the T-Wolves. With the duo scoring 30+ points each, the Dallas Mavericks came back from down big to nearly tie the game when neither Luke or Kyrie could get off a shot in the final possession.
The final play against the T-Wolves showed that the Luka and Kyrie chemistry needs work but it’s only been a couple of games and with a few more games together we should see vast improvement and a new look Dallas Mavericks.
Irving missed last Wednesday’s game against the Nuggets with lower back tightness but he played in Sunday night’s All-Star game, scoring 32 points with 15 assists for team LeBron. After missing four games, Luka has averaged 32 points in the 3 games before All-Star weekend.
The Dallas Mavericks tip-off their post All-Star break portion of the season against the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday night in Dallas. The Mavs have an opportunity to string together a few wins with games against sub 500 teams.
After that they play 6 out of 7 games against teams over 500 so it’s important to take advantage of these next few games.
The current Western Conference standings have the Dallas Mavericks in the 6th spot with a record of 31-29, sitting just outside the play-in game. The good news is, seeds 3 thru 12 are so jumbled up the Mavs only sit 2.5 games out of the 3rd seed but are also only 2 games from being out of the playoffs.
With just 22 games left in the regular season, the Dallas Mavericks have a chance to make a push to a top seed in the playoffs with exciting offensive play. They’ve been known this season by their poor defense but hope to improve that with the return of Maxi Kleber who hasn’t played since December 12th when he injured his hamstring against the Oklahoma City Thunder. He has been cleared to return to contact work.
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