Never before have the Dallas Mavericks looked like this in the Luka Dončić era.
The six-time NBA All-Star really hasn’t changed much since he entered the league six years ago. There’s maturation to his game, new ways of manipulating defenders and inventive shots that inspire him, but he still bullies opponents with his same stepback 3s and misdirection-focused style.
Since Kristaps Porziņģis was traded to the Washington Wizards in 2022, Dallas has built its rosters in the same way: a scoring guard co-star next to Dončić; as many two-way defenders as possible; some rim protection. It’s led to the same flaws: never enough defenders, too many games decided on role players hitting 3s; too much asked of Dončić.
It’s different now. Since Kyrie Irving’s Feb. 5 return and Dallas’ deadline acquisitions of P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford, the Mavericks have the NBA’s third-best record (17-6). In that stretch, Dallas has had the league’s third-best offense (119.1 points per 100 possessions), seventh-best defense (111.4) and third-best net rating (plus-7.7). Crucially, after the Mavericks’ 132-96 win over the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday, Dallas has climbed into sole possession of the Western Conference’s sixth seed. The team sits just 1 1/2 games behind the fourth-placed LA Clippers.
Dallas blitzed the Kings with a 3-point deluge, hitting 22 shots from behind the arc. But since the trade deadline, the Mavericks haven’t relied on those shots in the same manner, winning seven of the nine games in which they hit 12 or fewer 3s. That only happened 12 times before the trade deadline despite the team playing twice as many games; Dallas was 2-10 in those matchups. Last season, the team was 5-15. This arbitrary statistic — can the team convert at least 13 shots from deep — used to represent near-guaranteed defeat. It’s turned into a ho-hum box score curiosity with meaningless predictive value.
“It’s two different teams, if you look at the 3s we were taking and the 3s we needed to win,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said on Sunday.”(Not hitting those 3s) would usually lead to us losing because we weren’t capable of getting the stops we needed. Now, we’re getting stops, we’re getting great looks but haven’t been making them, but we’re turning down looks to get to the rim.”
The stark difference in offensive identity shows up clearly in the statistics since the team’s trade acquisitions debuted:
The Mavs’ new-look offense
BEFORE | AFTER | |
---|---|---|
C&S 3PTA | 26.1 (10) | 20.6 (28) |
C&S 3PT% | 38.1 (12) | 34.1 (28) |
PITP | 45.8 (28) | 54.2 (5) |
DUNKS | 247 (15) | 146 (1) |
FBPT | 15.4 (7) | 17.2 (6) |
TO RATE | 12.3 (2) | 11.9 (5) |
Thanks to Dončić, perhaps the best creator of 3-point shots alive, Dallas has always sat near the top of the league’s catch-and-shoot leaderboards. That’s not true since the deadline, not even close, with Dallas being bottom-three in both attempts and percentage. (Likewise, the Mavericks attempted the league’s most corner 3s last season; since the deadline, they’re 18th.) What Dallas did against Sacramento on Tuesday is a warning shot that the team’s slumping shooters — Washington, Tim Hardaway Jr. — might be coming back to life. But if they aren’t, does it matter?
Recently, Kidd talked about the team’s need for a reliable third scorer, saying that the enigmatically talented Washington was “trending” toward filling that role. But Dallas does have a third scorer. It’s not a player, but the center position.
In early March, Kidd moved Gafford into the starting lineup over rookie center Dereck Lively II. More importantly, though, Kidd committed to those two as the team’s near-omnipresent center rotation. In the past nine games, Gafford and Lively have combined to average 24.6 points, 13.6 rebounds and 3.1 blocks per game. Neither one is the team’s third-best player, but the constant production from those two as a dual entity certainly has been.
Gafford and Lively serve as…
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .