That dominant performance Dallas Mavericks forward Anthony Davis put on full display during Wednesday’s 120-118 triumph over theAD Atlanta Hawks is what guard Spencer Dinwiddie believes will routinely happen going forward.
“We expect those type of performances out of him,” Dinwiddie said. “We understand that there’s always rust and there’s always a little bit of slowness as you’re picking things up. That’s just part of it.
“He’s human just like anybody else. But he makes the game incredibly easy – being able to catch lobs, play out of the pocket and especially shoot the three.”
On Wednesday, it was an off-balanced 10-foot runner going to his left which Davis converted for the game-winning shot over Onyeka Okongwu which increased the Mavs’ record to 38-39. Davis finished with 34 points, 15 rebounds and five blocked shots in just 30 minutes against the Hawks.
The performance was reminiscent of the 26 points, 16 rebounds, seven assists and three blocks Davis collected in his first game with the Mavs during a 116-105 victory over Houston on Feb. 8.
In the game against Atlanta, Davis joined teammate Daniel Gafford as the only players in Mavs history to record a game that consisted of at least 30 points, 15 rebounds and five blocks. That duo are also the only players in the NBA with such a stat line this season.
With center Dereck Lively II back in uniform for the first time after missing 36 games – two days after center Daniel Gafford ADreturned after missing 21 games – the Mavs are nearly back at full strength with their regular prime-time players. But of course, they’re still missing one key prime-time player – guard Kyrie Irving – who is out for the season after undergoing surgery last month to repair the torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.
Davis, who recently missed 18 games while recovering from a strained left adductor, said “in certain situations” he can gauge how impactful the Mavs can become this season. He added that: “But until we’re able to get everybody off of minute restrictions — I’m not sure when that’s going to be. But in the time that we’re allotted to be on the floor, we got to give it all we got.
“We’ve seen it a little bit in stretches like my first game here (against Houston on Feb. 8). But we won’t actually know, because we’re missing Kai. We’ll never know how good we really can be, but with the guys we have, we have enough to definitely make some noise this postseason.”
The Mavs have enough to make some noise this postseason, because the ability to play Davis at power forward on the front line alongside either Lively or Gafford – with P.J. Washington at small forward – gives Dallas one of the tallest and formidable front walls in the NBA.
And on the defensive front, Davis is an intimidator to the 10th power.Lively
“You see sometimes he doesn’t really go for the block,” Dinwiddie said. “He just kind of fakes and falls and the person airballs a floater because they think he’s coming.
“It just speaks to how much he can impact the game.”
Not only that, Davis, who became the seventh player to record 100 blocks this season, can adequately guard all five positions on the court. And when the Mavs were trying to protect their two-point lead over the Hawks with 3.4 seconds remaining, there was Davis on the perimeter and guarding Atlanta guard Trae Young – who’s nearly a foot shorter than Davis – and forcing him into taking a three-pointer that had no chance of reaching the basket.
“For me it’s no challenge,” Davis said, in reference to guarding Young. “I know he’s a big shot-taker and shot-maker.
“He does a great job creating space. My job there is just not to foul, and make him take a tough shot, which I did.”
And which comes as no surprise to Dinwiddie.
“Obviously, we had full faith in him switching out on Trae Young for the final shot, which says a lot for a big guy,” Dinwiddie Gaffordsaid. “That’s huge.
“We didn’t run a double (at Young). We said, ‘Hey, AD got him, and we’ll live with the results.’ “
And as the Mavs close in on locking down one of the four Western Conference’s play-in tournament spots, Davis refuses to allow himself to think how far his team can go if Irving was healthy.
“We can’t play what if,” Davis said. “We get nothing out of it. We play present basketball, which is whatever is in front of it. We’ve got whoever we’ve got on the floor, whoever we’ve got active to play. That’s what we can count on and that’s who we can kind of roll with.
“The what if game is just we can go all the way to the (NBA) Finals and lose and be like, ‘Dang, if we had Kyrie, we could win.’ We can’t allow ourselves to play basketball like that. We focus on who we have in the locker room and just try to stay together and make some noise.”
Here are the takeaways from the Mavs’ two-point win over the Hawks.
Klay
OFFENSIVELY, MAVS WERE ON-POINT: This was a game where the Mavs were on-point from an offensive standpoint. Not only did they shoot 53 percent from the field. They also shot 45.5 percent from three-point range (15-of-33) and 81 percent from the free throw line. It’s the sixth game this season the Mavs have scored at least 120 points while shooting at least 50 percent from the field, 45 percent from three-point land and 80 percent from the charity stripe. The Mavs are 5-1 this season in such situations.
THOMPSON FOR THREE: After the Hawks completed a late 22-7 run to take a 118-115 lead with 1:46 remaining in the game, it was Mavs guard Klay Thompson who tied the score at 118 when he drilled a three-pointer with 41.3 seconds left. Thompson finished the game with 17 points while converting 5-of-9 three-pointers. It marked the 17th game this season where Thompson made at least five shots from downtown. Thompson has converted 209 three-pointers this season, surpassing Tim Hardaway Jr. (207 triples in 2020-21) for the fifth-most triples in one season in Mavs history.
BENCH SHOWED UP AGAIN: The Mavs showed once again that they have one of the deepest benches in the entire NBA. On Wednesday, the Mavs bench players scored 45 points, grabbed 12 rebounds, picked up three steals and were 16-of-31 from the field for 51.6 percent. By contrast, the Hawks got 36 points, 11 rebounds and two steals from their bench, and shot 11-of-26 from the floor for 42.3 percent. Jaden Hardy (13 points), Daniel Gafford (11 points, six rebounds) and Max Christie (11 points) were the biggest producers off the bench for the Mavs.
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