DALLAS — Even the Dallas Mavericks themselves said what was funny about the third quarter of Sunday’s 124-115 win over the Lakers, the one where they tied a franchise record and scored more points in a frame than any other team this season, tallying up 51 points in 12 minutes to turn an 11-point deficit into a 19-point lead: that it didn’t feel different.
“I felt like they were the same shots,” Christian Wood said afterwards. “They were, of course, doubling Luka (Dončić) and hitting me in the pocket. I was hitting guys on the weak side and in the first half, they weren’t really going in.”
“They knocked down shots,” Jason Kidd said. “(It was) a little bit different than the first half where we weren’t making shots.”
Tim Hardaway Jr., playing in his team-high fifth Christmas Day game, could only explain it as holiday nervousness. “We had to get the jitters out of us a little bit, some of us had never played on Christmas before,” he said.
Maybe that affected the team. Or maybe it was just the same old story, a roster whose success is built upon Dončić’s brilliance and the shots going in or out from the players around him. The same story that seems to define every Mavericks game — just a Christmas story this time around.
At halftime, it felt like Dončić and LeBron James should go share a festive bottle of red wine afterwards — I’d recommend a tart Beaujolais, personally — to commiserate about their shared roster shortcomings. The Los Angeles Lakers (13-20) were missing Anthony Davis and Juan Toscano-Anderson, but the team’s talent problem has been amplified and it’s a storyline that has dominated their season.
Let’s not mince words: Dallas might be fielding a roster somewhat short of its title aspirations, but it doesn’t have the same problems as the Lakers. Dallas (18-16) is missing three rotation players — Dorian Finney-Smith, Josh Green, Maxi Kleber — and also played without Kemba Walker and Frank Ntilikina on Sunday. Any team that’s short three rotation players will look depleted as the Mavericks did, even if there’s plenty that could be said between Dončić and James over a hypothetical shared vino about some of the minutes they spent together on the court.
These are struggles star players go through with the franchises they play with. Dirk Nowitzki, whose statue was unveiled prior to the game, certainly had his own stretches where players like Mike James or Devean George were suiting up almost every night with him. When Nowitzki was asked about another player breaking his record of 21 years with one franchise, he replied, “We hope Luka can break it.” There’s still no reason right now to think that he can’t, and that his own statue can’t be placed opposite Nowitzki’s in a couple of decades.
But it does bring back questions about what this season really is. Dallas beat a bad team in the Western Conference with its patented performance filled with 3-point variance on Sunday. The team has won three straight games, and it’s trending in a positive direction especially once some of its injured players start returning. (Kleber won’t be anytime soon, and possibly not even this season, but Green and Finney-Smith are crucial pieces.) It’s not a title contender any more than the Lakers are. What this team is, and what this season means to it, has to be considered in the grand scheme of Dončić’s career here — and in the hope that he’s here as long as Nowitzki was.
Another thing that must be considered within that context is Christian Wood, who became eligible on Sunday to sign an extension with the Mavericks. The maximum amount he could sign for is a four-year deal worth $77 million. “I feel like I’ve been having a great season so far,” he said afterwards. “I feel like I’ve been playing great with every role that’s been given to me, and I just have to keep at it.” (He also elaborated to ESPN that he’s definitely open to the idea of an extension, although it’s hard to see him saying anything other than that.) The context of a contract extension is one inherently beyond this season, and it’s one that Dallas must now consider.
Wood entered the starting lineup five games ago, and he’s been averaging more than 30 minutes per game since Nov. 27. In his last six games, he’s averaging 20.5 points and 9.5 rebounds while recording at least two blocks in every game. He clearly should continue starting, especially since the defensive comfort blanket that was Kleber — in the Mavericks’ imagination, at least — isn’t here to pair with him off the bench. He’s helping the team far more often than the moments where he has an errant defensive mistake or offensive brain freeze. These are all things that apply to this season. It still doesn’t answer whether the extension should be offered, either partially or in full, and which (if any) of those cases that it would be accepted.
Without Wood, Dallas would have struggled even more in its rocky first half against the Lakers. He scored 15 of the Mavericks’ 43 points against an aggressive trapping scheme used against Dončić, one that Dončić’s other teammates weren’t punishing often enough with open shots to force Los Angeles out of it. (They did within minutes of starting the third quarter once 3s started falling.) It’s just another curious free agency dilemma, one game ahead of Jalen Brunson’s potential return to Dallas on Tuesday.
Christmas ended up being merry in Dallas. There was so much to be joyful about: Nowitzki’s statue unveiling; Doncic’s cowboy-inspired attire walking into the arena; the blue Camaro he rolled up in; him delivering scooters to his teammates and coaches like Santa; the 51-point third quarter; the win that brought them back two games over .500 for the first time since Dec. 6.
But after every holiday, we go back to the worries and pending decisions that are our lives. For the Mavericks, it’s no different.
(Photo: Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
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