It’s finally April. I didn’t think I’d begin the last month of this regular season leading a column with the following sentence, but, at the moment, little feels more relevant or meaningful: The Dallas Mavericks are now the proverbial team no other team wants to see in a playoff series. Not the Clippers. Not the Thunder. Not the Timberwolves. Not even the Nuggets. Over the past 25 games, since the trade deadline, the Mavs sport the profile of a bona fide contender: They rank third in net rating, fourth in offensive rating, and seventh in defensive rating, with wins over several teams that are built to win it all.
Currently in fifth place out West, with the sixth-easiest remaining schedule, this team is sharp, brisk, dazzling, explosive, and, crucially, humongous (Dereck Lively II’s knee injury aside). No deficit is insurmountable. No fourth quarter is packed with too much pressure. They’re first in clutch offense, sixth in clutch defense, fifth in clutch assist rate, and second in crunch time winning percentage.
This group has counters, answers, and a strategic stretchiness that didn’t exist back in October. Most matchups can be met with a lineup that, at the very least, sees eye-to-eye with any opponent’s best offer. None of it’s possible without Luka Doncic, the creative, resourceful, historically singular 25-year-old who’s spent his sixth season separating himself from every other NBA player not named Nikola Jokic. (Writer’s note: This declaration is subjective but not incorrect.)
League-wide, he’s averaging the second most points (33.8), the third-most assists (9.8), and a whole bunch of rebounds (9.2), while shooting 76 percent at the rim, and making nearly 40 percent (!) of the six (!) stepback 3s he hoists each game. That’s production, efficiency, and a degree of difficulty that does not jibe with reality.
In the same way language can never fully describe what makes the Mona Lisa so entrancing, stats don’t capture Doncic’s indomitability, the fear and doubt he instills in defenders by running high pick-and-roll after high pick-and-roll, dismantling every defensive coverage that currently exists, whether it’s a blitz, switch, or drop. As a playmaker, he has enough size, strength, and arrhythmic electricity to invent passes and shots nobody except Jokic would even dare try.
His plate is full but, unlike in seasons past, no crumbs are spilling over the edge. Doncic’s true usage rate, 64.4, leads the league, and no other player is above 60 percent. But, of note, that number also hasn’t been this low since 2019. His on-ball percentage is 45.9 percent, which, again, is very high but also below where it was in the previous four years.
The downshift is perceptible and accommodating, with one major ripple effect: Dallas doesn’t feel top heavy. Unlike before, it’s now an actual team with defensive stoppers, tertiary ball handlers, rim protectors and runners, spot-up threats, and acrobatic athletes galloping through the open floor. Important roles are both filled and happily accepted. Much of this is thanks to a franchise player who’s struck a near perfect balance between savior and empowerer for a roster that’s congealed around his greatness without becoming too dependent on it. Dante Exum, P.J. Washington, Derrick Jones Jr., Daniel Gafford, Tim Hardaway Jr., Josh Green, and Lively broaden Luka’s power by feeding off the attention he draws without hesitation.
Now, hot stretches in March can be fool’s gold for anyone trying to project postseason success. And as great as Doncic has been, title contention is still miles away if he’s only supported by a bunch of solid role players who won’t shine as bright in the playoffs, against defenses that are locked in to stop whatever they got away with during the regular season.
But Luka has Kyrie Irving, the sparkly sidekick and massive variable who now safely qualifies as the most impressive teammate Doncic has ever had. When the Mavs traded for Kyrie, I didn’t think it would work. But a little over one year later, he’s proved to be more effective than erratic on a team that’s done a great job of fortifying its supporting cast. He has not missed a game since February 3. Since then, Irving has averaged about 26 points, five assists, and five boards per game while eclipsing 50/40/90 shooting splits. For the entire season, Dallas’s offense is excellent when he’s on the court, with or without Luka.
Together, the fit has proved sublime. I’ve never bought “but there’s only one ball” critique for galactically gifted duos, especially when both players can shoot, dribble, and pass at a high level, and one is undeniably better than the other. Irving understands that last part, and has adjusted his game without sacrificing in any tangible way.
Irving has mastered a list of dribble moves that’s long and complicated enough to warrant its own alphabet. But without leaning too heavily on his own virtuosic instincts and diminishing the on-court returns of a team that already has Luka, he’s tapered his game—restraint that’s less a product of age than circumstance.
The man is thriving off the ball. He sprints off back screens, cuts into open space, and doesn’t lose any of the slippery genius best seen when he has a live dribble. During the 2015-16 regular season, with Irving on his way to helping LeBron James lead Cleveland to its very first championship, a measly 29 percent of his baskets were assisted. This season that number is at 47 percent. Strictly looking at layups and dunks, only 19 percent of Irving’s shots were assisted in 2015-16. Right now he’s at 50 percent!
The shift has helped turn Dallas into a powerhouse when Doncic and Irving share the floor. As a duo, their net rating since the trade deadline is +11.9, which is third out of 42 pairings that have logged at least 600 minutes—elevated by their improvisation, technical skill, and purposeful showmanship. Together, in the words of Beyoncé, they are colder than Titanic water.
Jason Kidd staggers Irving and Doncic early and often, but there’s very little “your turn, my turn” when they’re together, or instances when one guy is idle while the other cooks. Instead, they luxuriate in an increasingly kaleidoscopic system that’s diversified enough to keep everyone satisfied. Early actions and kick-ahead passes are a huge part of their success, too. The faster they move, the more opportunities each has to compromise a defense and generate a quality shot. Dallas’s transition frequency off a defensive rebound is eighth highest in the league after three straight seasons when it ended either 29th or dead last.
The Mavs are smart. They hunt mismatches as soon as they cross half court, forcing the defense to either stick two on the ball high up the floor or switch. Neither answer is a solution. The former will almost certainly spark a ping-ping sequence that ends with a wide-open 3. The latter is an invitation to get steamrolled if help defenders stay at home—especially against Doncic, who, in isolation, has scored a league-high 533 points against single coverage, according to Synergy Sports.
From there, on a coordinated string, Dallas’s non-stars drive closeouts, draw help, and hit the open man, constantly leveraging each other’s gravity and utilizing their own strengths. Exum’s emergence, in particular, has lifted their ceiling. He’s an integral playmaker when opponents are foolish enough to hide a weak link on him: As one of the most efficient bit scorers in the league, he hits big shots and doesn’t wilt when Doncic or Irving call him into an action; Exum is comfortable with the ball, and more than capable of picking rotations apart when presented with a four-on-three advantage.
The same can be said for Lively, a rookie center who, understandably, makes better decisions out of the short roll than he did during the first few months of his career. When he’s in the paint with no obvious advantage now, he’s eschewing contested floaters in favor of quick passes sprayed to the perimeter.
Over the past few years, I’ve found it hard to reconcile two separate realities about the Mavericks. I’m someone who won’t ever bet against Doncic and believes he’s too special to never win a title; I’m also skeptical of any franchise that lets its best player’s impatience become its north star. The Mavs have been desperately aggressive for most of Luka’s career, but for as good as he’s been, the slew of chaotic moves have made it hard to gauge just how high Dallas’s ceiling can ever actually be.
How they got where they are this season—adding enough shooting, athleticism, and versatility to complement a pair of showstoppers who regularly do things that quite literally can’t be stopped, in ways that directly translate to playoff basketball—is still kind of amazing when you consider how mediocre they were before the trade deadline. Injuries to Maxi Kleber, Green, Exum, and Irving obviously didn’t help. Neither did a streaky season for Hardaway or the disastrous Grant Williams trade.
But it’s still particularly jarring for me, a Mavs pessimist who spent the past two months on paternity leave, to see them discover a winning identity on both ends. The night my daughter was born, Doncic baked the Atlanta Hawks at a temperature that was hot enough to melt the rest of the league, yet it was somewhat unfairly shrugged off as a by-product of the way NBA games are officiated. Someone scoring 73 points used to be cause for celebration. Now it’s oversaturated and gimmicky. That last word summed up the Mavs, too. One-dimensional and unserious. (Atlanta scored 143 points in that game.)
A few weeks later, the Mavs had a trade deadline that could generously be described as cost-prohibitive. Their future was mortgaged in favor of a marginal short-term upgrade. For Washington and Gafford, the Mavericks gave up Williams, Seth Curry, Richaun Holmes, a top-two-protected first-round pick in 2027, and Oklahoma City’s first-round pick in 2024, which Dallas acquired by agreeing to swap its own first-round pick with the Thunder in 2028.
Later that night, after a win against the Knicks in which he had 39 points, 11 assists, eight rebounds, and four steals, Doncic appeared content with his front office’s activity: “We added some size to our team. We got a backup center, which I’ve wanted [for] like three years already, so I think both players will really help us out a lot.”
He was not wrong. Since then, the Mavs have held opponents to a league-best 61.2 percent shooting at the rim. (Before the trade deadline they ranked 29th in this category!) On offense, they’ve shot 72.4 percent at the rim, which is second. Not bad! As a tag-team tandem, Gafford and Lively offer relentless pressure and protection at the basket. They create second chances, spark fast breaks, and give Luka and Irving vertical pick-and-roll partners.
When combined with the length and dynamism Jones and Washington provide, the spacing Kleber offers as a small-ball 5, and the way Green’s ball pressure accelerates tempo, it’s plain to see that something special might be brewing in Dallas. By a significant degree, this is the best team Doncic has ever led. He’s also never been better. It doesn’t guarantee a trip back to the conference finals or beyond. Matchups matter in the postseason and the West is a torture rack. But Dallas has enough size, shooting, and star power to take anyone down. The reigning champion Nuggets are a different beast, but even Denver isn’t invincible against this iteration of the Mavericks, a team that now creates problems other teams don’t know how to solve, and solves problems that once gave it fits.
