So at what point do we start thinking of PJ as a member of a "Big 3" as opposed to a role player? This is the 4th time in this postseason already that he has been one of the Mavs two best players in a game, and he's legitimately the series MVP if it ended today.

He reminds me more and more of Shawn Marion the more I watch him in his current role.

It'll be interesting to see if Luka can play every game in this series. 2 days rest between game 5 and a potential game 6 could wind up being huge.

If we go on to win the series, he will be the guy the national TV talking heads say "people aren't talking enough about PJ Washington" despite him scoring 100+ points in the series and everybody already talking about him.

I'm glad he's living up to the pedigree, especially considering it's his first playoffs. He's really athletic, he works his butt off during the game and he also has good basketball skill.

He's the 3rd best player on the team, and it isn't close. Usually these playoff games come down to how well your 3rd best guy did. And he's the reason we are up 2-1.

fightinags2013 said:

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It'll be interesting to see if Luka can play every game in this series. 2 days rest between game 5 and a potential game 6 could wind up being huge.

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We need to win the next home game and then close them out. Then we hope the Denver-Minnesota series goes longer. We are the better team and need to wrap this one up.

Hard to see us winning 4 straight against OKC. The earliest I think we can finish this is 6 games.

You're probably right, but we are clearly the better team. We have left so much out there despite these last 2 wins. Our defense is sustainable while our center position is shooting like 40% from the field despite shooting 75% on the season. If that comes around (talking only 55-60%) game 4 will be over in the third quarter.

It may be the high of 2 wins in a row, but I don't see how we lose game 4. Then I think a young, front- running team wilts in game 5, knowing the series is over whether they win that one or not.

OKC not winning a game where Luka had 22 points with 10 FT attempts and also only 5 assists is just inexcusable. DJJ was 1-10 and -14 in the box score. Lively went 2-7. THJ went 3-9. Mavs shot 33% from 3. We say PJ had an amazing game but he still shot under 50% from the field with no FTs and he was pretty cold in the second half. OKC has to win a game where the numbers looks like that.

And I don't think there is another move for them. We are just the superior team.

Some interesting box scores:

SGA had the worst +/- on OKC at -9.

Felt like THJ had a stretch where he kept the Mavs alive, yet he was still only 3-9 from the field and a -7 overall. In other words, a very typical THJ game.

Lively shot poorly from the field again but was still +16 while Gafford was -8. You can tell Lively just has a bigger impact on the game. 20 minutes for Gafford and 27 minutes for Lively should probably be the norm for the rest of the series, assuming Lively doesn't completely crumble at the FT line when they are hacking him.

Josh Green was 1-3 but was still +15 in only 15 minutes.

Southlake said:

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BallerStaf2003 said:

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That game stressed me out. I feel like Dort is a master of crossing the line and getting away with it. He's personally added about 3 injuries to Luka's body alone. He's a disgrace.

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Dude, it's the playoffs; everything is tougher.

Great game by both teams. Nobody backing down. Bring that sh*t; it's actually mak8ng the Mavs better.

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I've been watching basketball for 35 years. I know what playoff basketball is. This is a different animal.

New Vegas odds to win the series:

Mavs (-250)
Thunder (+198)

So back close to original odds before the series started, and the bets started coming in? I just remember the mavs were a surprising favorite before the series started.

Before bets started rolling in, the Mavs opened as favorites at -128 compared to the Thunder at +104. Within 2 days though, those odds flipped and had the Mavs at -102 and the Thunder at -120.

That was all before Game 1.

https://www.dmagazine.com/sports/2024/05/what-we-saw-what-it-felt-like-mavs-thunder-game-3/

Good article

Look at Patrick Dumont in the background throughout this clip. He is LOVING this Mavs stuff. https://t.co/f4D4QKgNUQ

— Dalton Trigg (@dalton_trigg) May 12, 2024

Kyrie LEFTY floater again!!!!! pic.twitter.com/VnVDa54Ewk

— MavsHighlights (@MavsHighlights) May 11, 2024

There's always that moment when Kyrie goes into his And-1 moves, that he gets the defender to basically stand up right like they are saying "im in danger"

shack009 said:

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M.C. Swag said:

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This team loves to win ugly

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It's absolutely wild to think our team's two best players are Luka and Kyrie, yet we win games ugly and with serious grit. Credit to everyone on the team, the coaching staff, and the front office that assembled these guys.

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It's absolutely wild to think that our team is still playing. These guys spent the first 3/4 of the season jerking around and then all of a sudden they are really good.

Win tonight and this stuff starts to get serious.

I remember reading his summary of the series before it started, and so far its been very accurate. This part about corner 3s especially

Defending head of the snake

Daigneault told us Dort will be key vs Luka. But I'm interested if he starts with Lue's scheme: Dort aggressive on ball + Chet in drop + aggressive shrink off corners.

OKC likes to have Chet in drop and allow most corner 3s (both in RS & playoffs).

— Iztok Franko (@iztok_franko) May 7, 2024

This is the start of the thread

Dallas-OKC Preview👇

Advance warning this is gonna be long, for bball sickos like me :)

After playing the oldest team, Mavs play the youngest. Not gonna be younger, faster, more athletic team anymore. But still bigger.

Luka vs SGA, Kyrie vs J Dub, Kidd vs CoT Daigneault.

— Iztok Franko (@iztok_franko) May 7, 2024

Anyone know anyone selling 2 tickets to tonight's game?

I may have two for you. We aren't going to be able to make it. Let me check with my wife to see if they have sold yet.

They are Section 123, Row S (lower level, corner section). If they haven't sold, you can have them for cheaper than what they are going for on Ticketmaster/Stubhub. I think she listed them around $300, but the ticketmaster website is acting very weird today, which is probably why they haven't sold.

I'm honestly not sure what face value is, but I want to say they were all $300+ for this round when I was trying to buy tickets to game 6. We paid for these tickets through our mini season package, so I'm sure what we paid for them.

I'll have to go with the get in price i believe. Was looking for something in the $150-$200 range those are incredible seats!!, i'm sure im not the only one on here looking for tickets. thank you for the response

No worries, good luck. You should easily be able to find upper level tickets for $100-150.

And there are actually some seats being sold now on Ticketmaster from the mavs. Not sure why they just put them out there today. So you may want to check that. I would imagine the upper level would be under $150.

Face value prices are insane this round. Thanks to the new ownership I guess. And prices for next year went up a ton.

$300 per is set price for playoffs. Let's Go Mavs!!

They're gonna leave Dort in and dare refs to call 3rd

OKC appears to be hitting the offensive brick wall that teams with only one true shot creator usually do in the playoffs. Their offense is unique and cool for sure but it doesn't seem to be translating this series.

well this is rad so far

Think Kidd went to bench to fast and too many subs

Turnovers only thing keeping OKC in the game

Push offs by SGA and Wiggins on those last few possessions get them 2 buckets…

Infection_Ag11 said:

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Turnovers only thing keeping OKC in the game

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Yeah seems like we tried to start playing way too loose and having way too much fun I stead of just executing the offense and keep getting easy buckets.

Here we go… officiating getting stupid… wasn't even out of bounds off of us

Dort flop god