{"id":79009,"date":"2024-05-27T19:52:46","date_gmt":"2024-05-27T23:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=79009"},"modified":"2024-05-27T19:52:46","modified_gmt":"2024-05-27T23:52:46","slug":"mavericks-hopeful-key-reserve-could-return-for-nba-finals-maxi-kleber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/27\/mavericks-hopeful-key-reserve-could-return-for-nba-finals-maxi-kleber\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavericks Hopeful Key Reserve Could Return For NBA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

All is well for the Dallas Mavericks<\/a> at the moment. After Sunday\u2019s 116-107 victory<\/a> over the Minnesota Timberwolves, they now own a 3-0 series lead in the Western Conference Finals. Game 4 will take place on their home floor on Tuesday as they attempt to complete a sweep.<\/p>\n

That puts them just one win away from their third ever trip to the NBA Finals. They lost to the Miami Heat<\/a> in 2006, but defeated Miami in 2011 for their lone championship. Barring the first ever 3-0 comeback in NBA playoff history, they will be playing the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals (Boston also up 3-0 on the Indiana Pacers).<\/p>\n

One of the Mavericks longest-tenured players who is currently on the mend could return during the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

Mavericks Hopeful Key Reserve Could Return For NBA Finals<\/h2>\n

Maxi Kleber Has Been Out Nearly a Month<\/h3>\n

Now in his seventh season (all with Dallas), Maxi Kleber<\/a> has been out since May 3. That was Game 6 of the Mavericks opening round matchup with the Los Angeles Clippers. The 32-year-old fell hard to the ground in the outing and was later diagnosed with a right AC joint separation.<\/p>\n

According to Marc Stein on his Substack<\/a>, Kleber is \u2018trending\u2019 towards a return to action in the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

Regardless of how long both the conference finals go, the NBA Finals will begin on June 6. If the Mavericks win Game 4 on Tuesday, they will have more than a week off before they begin their third trip to the finals. That gives the 6-10 Kleber ample time to recover.<\/p>\n

\n

Dereck Lively is not working out with the Mavs\u2019 bigs, but the sight of Maxi Kleber doing increased court work is a positive. pic.twitter.com\/QcxXnexutF<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Brad Townsend (@townbrad) May 27, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Prior to the injury, Kleber averaged 22.2 minutes in the first five games against the Clippers. In those outings, he averaged 6.0 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 1.8 assists. He was a sharpshooter from beyond the arc connecting on 9 of his 15 three-point tries.<\/p>\n

In 43 regular season games, Kleber posted averages of 4.4 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 1.6 assists. He shot 43.2% from the field, 34.8% from three-point range, and 70.2% from the free throw line.<\/p>\n

Will He Be Needed More if Lively Is Out For Some Time?<\/h3>\n

It wasn\u2019t all positive for Dallas in their Game 3 win over Minnesota. Rookie center Dereck Lively II<\/a> was forced to leave the game with what is being referred to as a neck sprain. He took an inadvertent knee to the neck from Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019m told that Dereck Lively arrived at Mavs practice facility about 15 minuted ago, walking gingerly, not at all looking like someone who might play tomorrow, but that\u2019s one eyewitness account and certainly not official.<\/p>\n

Media availability is scheduled to begin in about 15\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Brad Townsend (@townbrad) May 27, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Much like Kleber, the potential long layoff before the NBA Finals could be beneficial for Lively II. The 20-year-old has played a huge role for Dallas as they sit just one win away from the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

Named to the All-Rookie Second Team, Lively II has averaged 8.5 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks in this year\u2019s postseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All is well for the Dallas Mavericks at the moment. After Sunday\u2019s 116-107 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves, they now own a 3-0 series lead in the Western Conference Finals. Game 4 will take place on their home floor on Tuesday as they attempt to complete a sweep. That puts them just one win away […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":79057,"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":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,1608,62,3],"tags":[49245,49186,4840,2057,4745],"class_list":["post-79009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mavericks","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-2024-nba-finals","tag-2024-nba-playoffs","tag-dereck-lively-ii","tag-maxi-kleber","tag-nba-injuries"],"modified_by":"Zach Kircher","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79009","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\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}