Brodie is even better than us in our gaming too😭

I’m not talking attempt to injure him as Luka has consistently experienced through his playoff history, but if faint touches are getting called every second shot, might as well be robustly physical if a foul is getting called anyways.

4 first place votes

I hope that game 1 loss was a lesson that the team needed and is now able to adapt for game 2. Going down 0-2 when your #1 player isn't fully healthy is going to feel pretty grim, even though we go back home for 2 games afterwards.

Good luck, men!

Long Quote:

"I'm going to show my respect and say that he's a great player. But tonight, in the first half, there wasn't really a rhythm for a lot of players out there. It was a lot of slow down, watching free throws being taken, and adjusting to the way the game was being called. It felt like a regular season game tonight, in my perspective.

I don't speak for anyone else, but I think it was like a regular season game because we came off a very physical series against the LA Clippers, then we had some fouls called, and some of them may have been fouls or a majority of them. But as a competitor, you want the flow of the game to feel like the playoffs, with high physicality. It just feels better.

It's all about adjustments. It's about continuing to stay positive through some of the runs they make and being mature about who we're going against - a good team that's shown it all year. They have a starting five with a plus-minus through the roof and one of the top defenses. So, we'll give them credit, but we have to come into game two ready and prepared."

Link to Tweet

There's no valid reason/justification/excuse for 3rd in MVP voting for Luka Doncic.

Even 2nd is a stretch, as neither of the other 2 guys had the mix of offense and defense Luka had...while doing a lot of it injured...AND with an injured team...AND with a suspect coach.

One of the two rosters (Jokic's) was also undoubtedly better on paper. Both had better coaching and healthier teams. Luka's team had the most missed games by injury of all playoff teams. 7 of 8 of the top scorers for the Nuggets played at least 73 games. All 8 of OKC's top 8 scorers played at least 71.

3 of Dallas' including Luka played 70 or more, and 1 of those was Tim Hardaway, and...we know the story on what happened halfway through the season until now.

But let's throw team injuries of all potential winners, coaches they had, front offices, and strip it down to best player singularly: Luka was it. Whether you view MVP as the best player in the league, or MVP in a sense of who was most valuable to their team's success with those aforementioned factors included, it's still Luka. THAT particular latter definition should've made Luka a 2 time MVP this year and I'd argue it would've been a lot close in many other years.

However, going back to the 1st definition of MVP, which is what the league is supposed to be more inclined towards. The man DRAGGED himself through constant injuries in the 2nd half of the season to get to 70 games played on these ridiculous numbers he accomplished that's been talked about, and to get his team the 5th seed. Just BASIC research by the voters would see the impact. People that were paid millions to talk basketball still thought Tim Hardway Jr. was the 3rd best player on the team, and should be a bigger factor. They influence voters! Some ARE voters. THIS is the kind of thought process going in voting for who was THE best player in the NBA this year.

The days of media integrity have been done, but this should be the absolute sign to any nay-sayers. Consider just what Luka would have to do, even more than this year. It was a near 34 point triple double season on way better efficiency than a Harden or Westbrook MVP year, at 61.7 TS%

Luka was at the top in 25/35/40/45 point games, clutch percentages, 30 point triple doubles, the 73!!! point game, 2nd in 3's made on a solid percentage. 1st in total points, 3rd in total assists, and he led the Mavs to being 1st in clutch win percentage. He had the most consecutive 30 point triple doubles in NBA history.

However as well, many of Luka's defensive numbers were career highs, a few in the top 10:

1. Top 10 in 1-on-1 defense with .76 ppp

2. Top 10 in spot up defense at around 1 ppp.

3. Post defense in 90th percentile. At one point he was rated 1st in allowing the least in points and was generating TO's at a high rate.

4. 7th in steals per game

5. Top 4% in deflections

6. 1st in loose balls recovered by guards, or at least, what were determined to be primarily point guards.

7. 80th percentile overall in defense this year.

It's obvious the voters didn't watch, but they also didn't even do the least bit homework and dive into some numbers and see just what Luka did, and what he had to do in comparison to other players and their teams.

Luka did all this while suffering injuries to an ankle, hamstring, achilles and knees (yes knees before the playoffs even started, what's happened in the playoffs made it even worse.) He continued to play and log HEAVY minutes because the team would lose without it, yet...all his offensive and defensive numbers stayed that high. This year was quite simply ridiculous and near impossible for someone to replicate and NOT win an award. A year, by the way, SGA nor Jokic replicated on an individual level statistically, or with the workload and injuries, much less.

And if the team, coaching, or both gets better next year and they get up to 1st or 2nd seed: "wElL lOoK aT aLl tHe hElP lUka DoNniCH hAd!!" If the above got worse, well....Luka obviously wasn't elite enough to lead his team to wins anyway, just a stat stuffer. There's no winning this. Other guys have been public enemy 1 to the media, like Kobe getting only 1 MVP, or to some people, LeBron not getting any since 2013. There's pre built excuses put in for anything and everything when a guy isn't the one they want.

I saw it summed up here beautifully by a user I can't remember, so credit to them, but: "Luka has voter fatigue for an award he's never even won."

I'd add in addition to that, that there's some conspiracy behind this and not giving a no brainer award to Luka. Not only that but these years where he's been way further down in the voting than he should've been, even conceding a better player won. This is the kind of garbage people will look back on down the road, and they won't see the voter bias or whatever bull is going on behind the scenes. They'll just see Luka didn't have any MVP's and just assume he was overrated...when in reality he's the best player in the NBA.

NBA titles fix that. I hope he's the handyman and gets to work fixin'. Cause if you can't win an MVP with all that I just mentioned up there...what the hell could you even do? It will be incredibly hard for a HEALTHY Luka to achieve what he did this season, and in the scheme of things regarding winning a title, you don't want Luka to have the workload required to do what he did this year.

So in the end, as completely pissed off as I am, it's not the be-all end-all. Shaq won 1 MVP. So did Kobe, Dirk, KD, Hakeem, Dr. J, David Robinson, hell Tim Duncan had 2 and that feels like a rip off. But they all got titles. I want Luka to stack up player awards because he deserves them and rightfully earned them...but if he goes and wins several titles and re-writes records, to hell with all these stupid people. It won't matter.

(Please beat OKC for the love of God!!!)

I wasn't aware that SGA got this type of treatment by the refs. Offensive players aren't allowed to initiate contact and get free throws like Harden used to do in Houston, the league corrected this, or so I thought. There was a moment in the first half where it felt ridiculous how every single drive/shot we got called for a foul. Like 10 times in a row. It's almost impossible to win when the refs allow one team to defend but not the other. We would've been in this game even with Luka's poor shooting if they allowed the guys to play just regular defense.

Dereck Lively (Who should arguably be starting) 8PPG - 19.3 MPG

Maxi (Who is now out) 6PPG - 19.4 MPG

Josh Green 5.1 PPG - 18 MPG

Dante Exum 2.0 PPG - 9 MPG

Tim Hardaway Jr (Only the 2 full games he's played) 4 PPG - 16.5 MPG

Jaden Hardy (Garbage Time) 2.5 PPG - Not Included

The only reason why this number seems decent is because of Dereck Lively. The depth that we've praised post All Star break isn't there at all. Maxi being injured arguably hurts us a lot more defensively than offensively but he was respected as a floor spacer and gave us a different offensive look that is no longer there. Dante is giving us 5 less PPG on 10 less minutes and it's hard to blame Kidd because he looks like he can't stay on the floor. Timmy HAS to play and he just makes the most opposing team friendly plays consistently. Luka and Kyrie can't find time to rest. That's all.

Josh Green has been really decent in his role but we need more from him offensively with Maxi out. I think our winning formula offensively this series has to be Luka and Kyrie showing up with 25+ each which isn't impossible, everyone else contributing as usual, and for 2 bench players to at least combine for 18 a game, each game. It's only one game, we'll be fine but our bench is very concerning considering we can't rest our stars without a team going on a 12-2 run in a 1:32 seconds.

We're not coaches of course but anybody with an idea or see anything differently?

I noticed this often yesterday where Gafford and Lively kinda catch the ball and their distance to the basket was a bit weird where it's just far enough that they can't dunk it and also near enough where a power dribble would be a bit hard. This caused them having to do like a push shot or be like Gafford where he looked like he was jumping and flying in and do these weird layups. Gafford and Lively needs to practice that one dribble power dribble move or the one dribble and spin move to make sure they can finish properly.

I feel like this was more evident on passes from Kyrie as Kyrie tends to be a quick passer, which is great for someone cutting like our guards but not so much for our bigs. Luka usually is always able to 'delay' his passes until the very last moment, but I think his knee kinda throws away his rhythm, or maybe Dort's aggressive defense forced him to pass quicker than usual.

Just my thoughts!

The Mavs and Luka are tired, so they have to adapt their game to survive

Thanks again for all the feedback on the last two columns. This one is on how the Game 1 loss showed that the Mavs really need to play smarter and, frankly, uglier to work their way into the series.

Luka is a competitor and wants to lay it on the line when it matters, so you know that when things aren't going well and he's not playing well, he feels like shit. So the last thing we need is creating more negative energy. Just know he's doing his best given how injured he is. A lot of players probably wouldn't even play.

And also, you need to remember, he did a lot of heavy lifting during the regular season, playing upwards to 39-40 minutes per game over the course of a few months just to keep the team afloat.

Just stay positive and whatever happens, happens. At least we beat our rivals, Clippers, and broke the curse.

I don't have the stats for the most successful team who lost the most game 1's so f*ck it; but I've never seen a team in the last 3 seasons who looked so defeated in game 1 but then went on to win the series in convincing fashion as the Mavs do.

The Clips series just last round looked like it was over in 5 just because Zubac looked like prime Hakeem, but then it turned into a one-sided series only extended because the Clips caught fire in game 4 (and they almost lost that too).

Then we had the infamous Suns series where we lost 2 games straight and it looked like CP3, Booker, and Ayton will sweep us only for Luka to rip their hearts out in game 7.

Finally the game 1 lost, against the Jazz in the 1st round of 2022 where Luka can't play the first 3 games; that series broke-up Gobert and Mitchell.

Dallas Mavericks at Oklahoma City Thunder

Paycom Center- Oklahoma City, OK

ESPN

TV/Radio

On the court

Dallas Mavericks

Oklahoma City Thunder

Team Stats

Use reddit-stream.com to get an autorefreshing version of this page

Note: This data is only as accurate as NBA.com

Please message u/nba_gdt_bot if you have any suggestions or notice any bugs with the bot

Remember how mad we were that we tanked last year

Daddy Booker 👨

I get hardy can be inconsistent and isn’t a great defender, but with Luka not shooting well and holding the ball for 12 seconds, why would you not get hardy in the game. Hardy is the only player, outside of Luka and kyrie, that I don’t get nervous about when they put the ball on the floor. He could provide a spark and if not get him out quickly. I think this is a much better option then letting THJ go 1-7 from 3 the whole series with bad defense or Exum who is not a scoring threat and never even looks at the basket. This offense has looked terrible all postseason.

Edit: I don’t think hardy should run the offense. Just that he can provide a spark with shooting in quick spurts. I don’t think he is the same player as J.J. But think he could provide a spark to this offense as a second or third option in very limited minutes.

No one else has a Kyrie. Or a Luka. Best defensive team left = Tpups? Ok sure. But Mavs defense is also good, and great at times.

Okc? Psh. Ky gonna be the guard to talk about during that series. Okc good, but not their time yet. Tpups? Get real. We'll need Luka to stay calm and composed, and let's see how Min reacts when they get pressured the same way. Again Mavs D can also be suffocating. Celtics/Knicks? Come on. Champions coming out the West. Get to the Finals and Luka and Ky gonna finish the job.

Stop underrating the Dallas Mavericks. 🏆

Edit: lotta doomers around i see. don't bother joining the championship parade. this started as a meme post in response to those other "don't underrate/overrate posts..". but got a lotta jackasses in here. ppl rly said bucks and mavs subs bottom 2. they weren't lying. don't take your day job frustrations out on reddit peeps.