DALLAS — Just in time for their final pre-playoffs push, the Mavericks on Wednesday night gratefully welcomed the return of Kristaps Porzingis.
And that of Luka Doncic.
Porzingis had been gone seven games; Doncic, in a manner of speaking, one. Finally healthy Dallas and joltingly rejuvenated Doncic hit short-handed New Orleans full-force with a 125-107 victory in American Airlines Center that trimmed the Mavericks’ magic number for clinching a playoff spot to one.
A Dallas victory in its final two regular-season games or a Lakers loss will assure the Mavericks (41-29) of finishing no worse than sixth in the Western Conference and avoiding the play-in tournament between the seventh-through-10th-place teams.
Still pending as the Mavericks left the court Wednesday night were fifth-place Portland’s result at Utah (a Blazers loss would move Dallas to fifth place) and the Lakers’ game against Houston.
What a difference 24 hours made for the Mavericks compared to Tuesday’s abysmal 29-point loss at Memphis that temporarily damaged their playoff seeding outlook.
Showing no indication of the sore right knee that sidelined him for nearly two weeks, Porzingis scored 12 of Dallas’ first 20 points Wednesday and finished with 19 points and five rebounds in 22 minutes.
A night after scoring a season-low-tying 12 points, shooting 4-of-16 and admitting “I wasn’t here; I wasn’t myself” at Memphis, Doncic made 10 of his first 16 shots while pouring in 33 points and contributing eight rebounds and eight assists.
Seventeen of Doncic’s points came during an electrifying seven minutes of court time in the second quarter, in which he made all six of his field goal attempts, including five 3-pointers, as Dallas hit the Pelicans with a 31-6 blitzkrieg en route to a 45-point period and 77-58 halftime lead.
It certainly helped that New Orleans was without four injured starters – Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, Steven Adams and Lonzo Ball.
In this, the Mavericks 69th game, coach Rick Carlisle used his 28th different starting lineup, with Porzingis opening at his less-preferred position, power forward, Tim Hardaway starting for the sixth time in the last seven games and Josh Richardson coming off the bench for the first time this season.
“It’s great to have him back,” Carlisle said of Porzingis. “He’s obviously a huge part of our team and it’s great to see him feeling good and being back in the fold.”
Before he experienced the soreness in the same knee in which he had October meniscus surgry, Porzingis also had missed three games with a left ankle sprain.
Among his few recent appearances, this was his fourth straight start at power forward, and when asked on Monday about that development he said “it is what it is” and expressed hope that he would be heavily involved in the offense.
Early on Wednesday, he was just that, hitting from various parts of the court in the Mavericks’ Pace offense.
Carlisle explained the coaching staff’s reasoning for starting Porzingis at power forward rather than center.
“What we’ve done all year is really study what’s been most effective,” he said. “More times than not, playing bigger has been better for us. And so that’s kind of where we are with things. And in those situations, generally, he is the four-man.
“So we’ve done a significant amount of adjusting to make sure that we have a package of stuff that makes sense for him so that we can get him good looks, we can attack switching and those kinds of things without a lot of isolation ball.
“Which is something we’re capable of doing well at times, but it’s not something we’re good with on a steady dose, with anybody in our roster.”
For one night, albeit a small sample size against and undermanned opponent, it worked – just in time, perhaps, for some needed pre-playoff fine-tuning.
