{"id":124423,"date":"2025-02-18T18:30:15","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T23:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=124423"},"modified":"2025-02-18T18:17:30","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T23:17:30","slug":"mavericks-playoff-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/18\/mavericks-playoff-chances\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the Mavericks Stay in the Playoff Picture Without Luka and AD?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the fallout of the trade heard round the world continues for the Dallas Mavericks<\/a> front office, the team itself has shown a remarkable level of resiliency. Between media storms, mounting injuries, and the doldrums of February basketball, no one would have been surprised if the players folded under pressure. Anthony Davis<\/a> getting injured during his Mavs debut only made things worse. Despite all the noise, Kyrie Irving<\/a>, Klay Thompson<\/a>, and a squad comprised of reserves and G Leaguers managed to go 4-3 before the All-Star break. However, there are stark differences\u2014some good, some bad\u2014between the Dallas Mavericks with Luka Doncic<\/a> and the Dallas Mavericks after Doncic.<\/p>\n

Can the Mavericks Stay in the Playoff Picture Without Luka and AD?<\/h2>\n

Heading Into the All-Star Break<\/h3>\n

Let\u2019s give credit where credit is due; this was no small feat. They posted wins against formidable foes, including the defending champion Celtics, the Jimmy Butler<\/a>–Stephen Curry<\/a> Warriors, and a fiercely athletic Rockets team. If you toss aside the blowout to Cleveland\u2014an excusable offense as the game took place only hours after the trade\u2014their other two losses against the Kings and 76ers were closely contested.<\/p>\n

This seven-game stretch exemplified the merits of \u201cteam basketball\u201d, where five, six, or sometimes even seven players scored in double digits. It\u2019s certainly a departure from the Luka-ball that Mavs fans have grown accustomed to seeing. Instead of the slow-paced Slovenian orchestrating kick-out threes or lobs to his big men, coach Jason Kidd<\/a> has his guys running and gunning.<\/p>\n

After all three of the Mavs’ big men went down with significant injuries (Dereck Lively II<\/a>, Daniel Gafford<\/a>, and newly acquired Anthony Davis), they\u2019ve really had no option other than to play small. The coaching staff is clearly steering into the skid, favoring more of their long, rangy wings instead of scoring guards like Jaden Hardy<\/a> and Spencer Dinwiddie<\/a>. This applies more pressure on Irving to generate offense, but he\u2019s been up to the task, averaging 27.6\/6\/4.2 on 46.6\/40\/90.3 shooting splits.<\/p>\n

Is the Mavericks’ Success Sustainable?<\/h3>\n

With a 30-26 record, the Mavs are currently the eighth seed, which is a difficult spot playoff-wise in the ultra-competitive West. I believe the Mavericks will be a tough out in the regular season. The players clearly took all the criticism to heart and want to prove they are more than just NPCs in the Luka Doncic show. Unfortunately, that\u2019s where the positives end for me. Playing hard and outperforming your talent can go a long way over 82 games, but the playoffs present an entirely new set of challenges. Just ask the New York Knicks. Furthermore, this will be more challenging with Davis set to miss a significant amount of time.<\/p>\n

Assuming everyone gets healthy and stays that way, Dallas still severely lacks half-court offense and shot creation. That’s not to take anything away from Kyrie, but he\u2019s not the playoff performer that Doncic is, and he\u2019s not nearly as big. In the 2024 NBA Finals, the Boston Celtics provided the blueprint for stopping highly skilled, small guards like Irving: get a strong point-of-attack defender to meet him above the three-point line and preemptively cut off his elite dribble-drive game.<\/p>\n

The Fatal Flaw<\/h3>\n

Irving\u2019s time in Dallas has been so effective because of Luka\u2019s gravity on the perimeter. Take last year\u2019s Finals run, for example. While Lu Dort<\/a>, Jaden McDaniels<\/a>, or Paul George<\/a> focused solely on containing Doncic, it allowed Kyrie to fly around and get to his spots with ease.<\/p>\n

Now that Uncle Drew no longer plays next to Luka, teams can load up on the perimeter and effectively neutralize his game. Davis might alleviate some of the damage here, but Davis isn\u2019t a shot creator. AD worked well with LeBron James<\/a> in Los Angeles for similar reasons. LeBron created shots, and Davis finished them. Now the Mavs have two finishers but no one to initiate.<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see what this team looks like at full strength, but I\u2019m not optimistic about their ceiling. To win in modern basketball, you either need a world-breaking superstar or a team filled with overwhelming talent. The Mavericks now have neither.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Jerome Miron-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the fallout of the trade heard round the world continues for the Dallas Mavericks front office, the team itself has shown a remarkable level of resiliency. Between media storms, mounting injuries, and the doldrums of February basketball, no one would have been surprised if the players folded under pressure. Anthony Davis getting injured during […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5466,"featured_media":124525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,30,62],"tags":[240,1453,4840,218,70,4916,2111,1298],"class_list":["post-124423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-mavericks","category-nba","tag-anthony-davis","tag-daniel-gafford","tag-dereck-lively-ii","tag-jason-kidd","tag-klay-thompson","tag-max-christie","tag-pj-washington","tag-spencer-dinwiddie"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5466"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124423"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124526,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124423\/revisions\/124526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}