OKLAHOMA CITY — Not even one minute into Game 2, Luka Dončić’s chin hit the hardwood floor.
Dončić had been sprinting up the floor after a Dallas Mavericks defensive rebound, knifing through two Oklahoma City Thunder defenders, when he was inadvertently tripped. Down he went, moving too quickly to brace his fall. His chest took the first contact, his mouth the next. Teeth meeting ground is not an introduction that ever needs to be made, but here they became painfully acquainted.
Dončić had been suffering enough. He entered Thursday’s game with a right knee sprain sustained in Dallas’ first-round series against the LA Clippers. Dončić has said he’s playing hurt, and the injury won’t be right until he rests this summer. Here, as he lay on the floor, came some more pain. After some long moments recovering himself, Dončić finally rose. He hit a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession. Then, before the first quarter ended, he hit three more.
The Mavericks’ 119-110 victory to even this Western Conference semifinals at 1-1 showed the team’s defining quality: resilience. From Dončić, the team’s superstar helmsman who found his way to 29 points on 21 shots despite not being his physical best. From his co-star Kyrie Irving, who scored just nine points, but more than made up for it with relentless defensive tenacity and a postseason career-high-tying 11 assists. From their teammates, who made the shots they missed in the Game 1 defeat. From yet another Game 1 defeat, the fifth in head coach Jason Kidd’s five series coaching this team.
Dallas has come back to win three of those four series, and that determined grit could make it four of five. It’s the one quality Dallas has in this series that the Thunder, the league’s youngest team making its postseason arrival, might not yet possess.
“When you fail, it motivates you,” Irving said. “In this case, we had a chance to have 24 hours to think about what we did wrong (in Game 1). We also had 24 hours to think about what we can consistently build upon. … Against a young team like this, they’re not going to stop coming at you. We just got to be ready for whatever they throw at us.”
Dallas didn’t play much differently in Game 2 than in the first one, at least not schematically. There were no rotation or lineup changes and likely won’t be. The absence of Maxi Kleber, out for the series after suffering a shoulder injury against the Clippers, removes the team’s versatile backup big man who could unlock bigger lineups playing next to the team’s centers and five-out ones where he filled in for them.
No one on the Mavericks’ bench might be able to swing this series, and it’s hard to foresee major adjustments to the team’s style of play. The difference was everything the team didn’t execute correctly in Game 1 was done much more successfully in the sequel.
The Thunder did not respect Dallas’ role players in Game 1. Or, perhaps it’s more fair to say, they respected Dončić and Irving’s ability to dissect them more than they respected their teammates to hit outside shots. Time and time again, Oklahoma City’s defenders sagged deep into the paint to prevent layups and lob passes from the team’s two offensive motors, which left shooters open.
“In this case, we can use this word: (The role players) were very selfish about their approach as individuals coming into this game,” Irving said.
At the team’s practices between the two games, Irving said the Mavericks spent extra time ensuring those players would be ready to take those shots they knew would be available. Dallas, which hadn’t hit more than 14 3s this postseason, nailed 18 such shots in Game 2.
P.J. Washington was the main beneficiary, hitting seven of them for 29 points. Acquired at the trade deadline, Washington has always possessed offensive talent and was often cast as a primary scorer with the Charlotte Hornets. He’s taken time to find his rhythm in Dallas, but it was no accident the team opened Game 2 with a designed post-up for him.
“We always look to Kai and Luka, and those guys will always get their shots,” Kidd said when asked about the meaning of that first play. “We looked at something different (to start Game 2), and it worked. And maybe it’s something to build upon as we go forward with other role players.”
Washington has shined on defense since arriving in Dallas, and he did again in Game 2. The entire team did; it was the team’s offense finally matching its defensive resilience that turned Game 2 into this crucial victory. Dallas succeeds when it constricts space and life out of its opponent for several-minute-long scoreless stretches. It thrives when it turns soaring blocks or savvy poke-aways into instant points in the other direction. And because the team did those things in Thursday’s win, it felt synchronized when the team’s offense also roared back to life.
Unlike Dallas, Oklahoma City does have adjustments. It has bench players like Kenrich Williams, once a rotation stalwart, that it can deploy for more minutes. It has a two-center look with Chet Holmgren and Jaylin Williams, a lineup the team had used sparingly in the regular season, but received brief appearances in both playoff games.
It has the option to bench Josh Giddey, the nominal starter who played only 11 minutes in Game 2 and was removed from the starting lineup in the second half. Dallas treats the third-year forward as a non-shooting threat and outscored the Thunder by 20 points in the 11 minutes he spent on the court on Thursday. (He was a minus-7 in 17 minutes in Game 1 despite Oklahoma City winning by 22.) These are scenarios Dallas must expect if Game 3 looks anything like this last one did.
Game 2 looked like that because of what Dallas did. This team has risen to the challenge and overcome time and time again. The Mavericks aren’t an old team; Irving and Tim Hardaway Jr. were the only players over age 28 to appear for them in this game. Dončić has been waging on-court wars since he became a teenage professional in Europe, and the championship-proven Irving serves as the team’s emotional leader who makes sure everyone stays steady no matter what.
“We have real honest talks about what the game was like, and we don’t sugarcoat anything,” Irving said when asked about the team’s response to Game 1’s disappointment. “We just address it right after the game and then when we go through film. It’s not about any hard feelings, it’s about us getting better, and when you can have that honesty in the locker room amongst guys who really want to win and do well for each other, (it) goes a long way.
“I think we were prepared today, a little bit more prepared than we were to go into this tough environment tonight, and I think we showed what great class (we have) on both ends of the floor.”
That’s how the Dallas Mavericks became one of the league’s eight best teams with a shot at the ultimate goal. There’s a lot about the team’s circumstances that aren’t ideal, ones which may affect this series as it continues. But after Thursday, they went from needing four wins to advance to three. They won’t quit just because they bashed their head on the floor.
And that, more than anything else, is what gives them the chance to win this series.
(Top photo: Joshua Gateley / Getty Images)
