Luka Doncic’s injury overshadows best hopes in a decade

The Mavericks finished the regular season Sunday night with a 130-120 victory over the San Antonio Spurs.

What coach Jason Kidd called an 82-game “dress rehearsal” is now over.

Dallas will start the playoffs next Saturday at noon as the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference — the team fell one short game of catching Golden State for third place — and face the No. 5-seed Utah Jazz in the first round.

With game one just a week away, we have much to dissect with the Mavericks aiming to win their first playoff series since 2011.

Here are five things to know about their matchup and history with the Jazz.

New injury concern

The finale to the best Mavericks regular season in a decade became clouded in concern late in the third quarter.

After an offensive set with 2:24 left in the period, Luka Doncic called for a timeout, hunching over and grabbing at his left calf. He limped directly to the locker room with director of player health and performance Casey Smith for treatment on what the Mavericks labeled a left calf strain.

Doncic appeared to suffer the injury after attempting an airborne pass in traffic and then planting his left leg to change directions.

Dallas led the Spurs by 18 points (94-76) when Doncic exited, but the result was likely meaningless for Dallas’ playoff seeding hopes with Golden State up big in New Orleans.

The Mavericks’ series won’t start until — at the earliest — Saturday afternoon, and Doncic’s treatment and progress will be the main focus over the coming week.

The best since the best

As a top-four seed, the Mavericks will maintain home-court advantage in the first round for the first time since that 2011 title team finished third. Their 52-30 record is also their best since the 57-25 champs.

An extra home game may not appear beneficial, based on recent postseason results.

Dallas played all of its 2020 first-round series in the NBA bubble and last year lost to the Clippers in seven games — 0-3 at home and 3-1 in Los Angeles.

However, this season Dallas finished 29-12 in American Airlines Center and has lost 11 consecutive games in Utah’s Vivint Arena since April 2016.

The Mavericks are the last major Dallas sports team to win a championship, and this squad — with a healthy Doncic — represents their best iteration since.

even split

Dallas and Utah split the regular-season series 2-2 with all wins at home — the Jazz on Dec. 25 and Feb. 25 and the Mavericks on March 7 and March 27.

Why might the Mavericks have the edge in this best-of-seven series?

Their first loss to the Jazz this season — 120-116 on Christmas night — came during the team’s COVID-19 outbreak — without Doncic, Reggie Bullock, Tim Hardaway Jr., Josh Green and Maxi Kleber in the rotation. Six 10-day-contract replacement players came off the bench. Just two Mavericks in the current rotation — Jalen Brunson and Dwight Powell — played.

Dallas’ lineup in the second defeat — 114-109 in the first game after the All Star break — remained in flux with Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans still adjusting three games after the trade deadline.

In the two meetings since, the Mavericks outscored the Jazz by a combined 22 points, and Doncic averaged 33.5 points, 13 rebounds and six assists.

Clutch play versus choke concerns

The Mavericks won 17 games in which they trailed by double-digits this season — the second most in franchise history — and since Feb. 1 have posted the NBA’s winning percentage (13-3, .813) in clutch situations, what the NBA defines as games within five points in the final five minutes.

The Jazz, meanwhile, have lost 16 games after leading by at least 10 points, including 13 times in the second half, and will enter the playoffs as losers in seven of their last 10 games. In three defeats since March 29 — against the Clippers, Warriors and Phoenix Suns — Utah has blown leads of 25, 21 and 17 points, respectively.

Doncic has shot 51.4% from the floor in 12 clutch games since Feb. 1, and he’ll have confidence against Utah in knowing he’s the best all-around player on the court — even with All-Star tandem Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert on the other side.

Technical reset

Doncic finished a second consecutive regular season with 15 technical fouls, one shy of the NBA’s automatic one-game suspension rule for No. 16 after the league rescinded what would’ve been his 16th for complaining to officials Friday against the Portland Trail Blazers.

That left Doncic free to face the Spurs and tally 26 points, eight rebounds and nine assists in 29 minutes before his calf injury — and to start fresh in the playoffs.

The NBA will suspend any player who reaches seven technical fouls in the playoffs for one game — that’s seven in the entire postseason, not just per series — and then levy a suspension that increases by one game for every two technical fouls afterward.