Had a great chance to take the lead there but missed 2 dunks in a row. Not sure I've ever seen that.

Hardaway shooting a nice 23% from the field. Such a liability

Nice W! Luka with his 5th straight 30+ pt triple double

Cashed on the Luka over

Quick reset now that the brutal stretch of schedule is over:

Mavs sit at 8th and have the 5th easiest remaining SOS. We have 19 games remaining.

Golden State has the 2nd easiest remaining SOS, and is 1.5 back of Dallas. We have 3 games against GS down the stretch.

NO is 2.5 ahead of Dallas for 5th and has the 10th most difficult remaining SOS.

Phoenix is 2 games ahead of us for 6th and has the toughest remaining SOS.

Sacramento is 1.5 games ahead and has the 9th hardest remaining SOS. We play Sac twice.

Theoretically, we are in a decent spot to make a top 6 seed, but this team makes any projections really difficult. Going to be tense down the stretch.

Don't give us hope

I feel like we need a bit of a reset here. Bear with me for a moment.

February 3, 2024
Dallas drops its 3rd game in 4, losing to the Bucks 129-117. They are 26-23. Luka goes for 40/9/11 while Grant Williams goes 2/5/1 in 23 minutes. Kyrie is hurt. The sky is falling.

February 5, 2024
Dallas beats the 76ers on the road 118-102. Embid is out hurt, but it's signs of life as Kyrie returns to score 23 in 35 mins in a game where Luka doesn't crack 20.

Dallas would go on to win 7 in a row, in addition to making waves at the trade deadline. If you back to read our comments as those games were occurring, we talked (1) about how we were getting lucky catching some good teams with injuries, and (2) how important is was to stack those wins because of what was coming down the pike.

SInce that stretch, Dallas has gone 2-5 with some tough loses. @CLE by 3 in particular.

That being said, we all knew this stretch was coming. Yes, Dallas is 2-5 over the last 7, but they are also still 9-5 over the past 14 with a much, much nicer schedule coming up.

I firmly believe the Mavs are fine, and it's the swings from longest winning streak in the NBA to some poor defensive efforts against some good teams. They are 2 games back on Phoenix and the 6th spot, and Phoenix has the hardest schedule remaining. 2 against Boston. 2 against Minnesota, 2 against LAC. Meanwhile Dallas has the 5th easiest remaining. 2 against Detroit. 2 against Houston. 2 against Utah, etc.

Keep the faith, friends.

Terry Rozier names his most skilled players in the NBA:

1. Kyrie Irving
2. Luka Doncic
3. Kevin Durant
4. Luka Doncic
5. Terry Rozier

(Via https://t.co/qFTkrzFcni) pic.twitter.com/YrDwEvffHl

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) March 7, 2024

Luka's on a helluva run right now

Gratuitous triple double at the end, but still counts.

Most importantly, Luka didn't have to play the last few minutes, and all the fourth quarter minutes were not exactly hard minutes.

Saw some feistiness from PJ when Duren got chippy. Team pulled away in the 3rd when they should. Not the best game overall, but it was good enough and the job got done.

Warriors and Suns both lose.

Warriors may be less of a threat than the Lakers if Steph is out for more than a week.

shack009 said:

---

Warriors may be less of a threat than the Lakers if Steph is out for more than a week.

---

Don't feel bad for the warriors or curry they have 4 championships. I hope curry misses as much time as possible.

Is anybody tracking this stuff about the "new rules?"

I sort of noticed some stuff in the Detroit game, but I have heard on a couple pods now in the past couple days that fouls and scoring are down across the league. Over/unders in Vegas have gone down.

Apparently they just changed the rules during the all star break without telling the public (it's not even clear if the teams were informed).

It makes Luka's post all star run even more impressive.

Who is better at goaltending: Daniel Gafford or Solomon Washington?

Exum as a 3rd guy who can handle the ball and make make smart/nice passes makes me so happy. Great entry pass to PJ in transition. Protect this man at all costs down the stretch.

Luka and Lively abusing Drummond.

May have been the best overall quarter of basketball of the season. Luka 15/6/7 already.

Lively with a 10 foot runner??? Something he learned from Holmes maybe?

Suns continue to be the luckiest team I've ever seen, getting to play at Cleveland with no Mobley, Mitchell, Allen, or Strus…

shack009 said:

---

Suns continue to be the luckiest team I've ever seen, getting to play at Cleveland with no Mobley, Mitchell, Allen, or Strus…

---

But they are paying 67M in luxury tax beyond the 191M they are paying to the players and won't even have a WCF trip to show for it.

Where has this team been?! Sad part is they're up so much it may cost Luka a chance to extend his record.

Just throw him back in to hit a quick 3

Gafford and Lively combined to shoot 20-21 from the field.

Luka shot 9-23.

I think we know the real stars.

They were showing on the broadcast that Gafford has the most consecutive made FG since '96-97. Not sure why they picked that date. Is that the first season they kept official stats on FGA?

Steph is out tonight and the Mavs are 8 point favorites at home. This one is really important. Gotta have it.

Maxi and THJ on the floor is brutal

1-8 from 3. Were due for some of these shots to start dropping.

Brutal shooting night. 1-14 from 3 and somehow still winning.

Gafford should take the next 3pt shot. I want to test something.

gigem1223 said:

---

Brutal shooting night. 1-14 from 3 and somehow still winning.

---

Break the algorithm