Dallas Mavericks top plays: Luka Doncic’s 11 straight vs. Dirk Nowitzki and Doc Rivers

As we continue the bracket towards finding the top play from the Dallas Mavericks, here are the 5-seed and 12-seed. Which play was better between Luka Doncic‘s 11 straight against Houston or Dirk Nowitzki‘s shout out from Doc Rivers.

The 2018-19 Dallas Mavericks put together one of the most entertaining 33-win seasons the NBA has ever seen thanks to Luka Doncic’s rookie season and Dirk Nowitzki’s final year. Because of these two things, the Mavs bracket breaking down the top 16 plays/moments does include a lot of Dirk and Luka.

Today is no exception as we look into one big moment that involves each of these two players. As we work our way through the bracket, starting from the top left corner and going top-to-bottom, left-to-right, the next matchup comes between the 5-seed and the 12-seed. Could we see another upset?

Here are the moments that will be matched up against each other in this one.

#5: Luka Doncic’s 11 straight points vs. the Houston Rockets

One of the most exciting moments in a single game this season came on December 8th when James Harden and the Houston Rockets traveled north just a few hours to take on the Mavs. Dallas had just beaten their interstate rivals only 10 days earlier and were looking for another win over the Rockets team that beat them 4 times last year.

Even though Dallas and Houston would end up splitting the series, the Mavs did pull off this win on December 8th thanks to an immaculate run at the end of the game by Luka Doncic. With just under three minutes remaining in the game, the Mavs were down by 8 points and no one was scoring the ball particularly well.

Wesley Matthews was leading the charge for Dallas at this point in the game with 21 points. Luka had only 10 points on 3-13 shooting and 0-4 from three. Over the next 1 minute and 50 seconds, Luka would score 11 straight points, bringing the Mavs from down by 8 to up by 3 with less than a minute left to play.

It’s certainly no 8 points in 9 seconds, but the fact that Luka turned a pretty bad night into a great game in just two minutes is really telling of just how talented the youngster is. There is no doubt that we will see a lot more incredible moments like this from Doncic.

#12: Dirk Nowitzki gets a shout out from Doc Rivers in L.A.

Dirk Nowitzki provided Mavs fans and NBA fans with so many incredible moments on the court that often times his moments off the court can get overlooked. Spoiler alert: he was an even more amazing person when he wasn’t in the game than when he was.

For this reason, it is fitting that some of the great moments from Dirk’s final season took place without the basketball being in his hands. One of those moments happened on February 25th when the Mavericks were out in Los Angeles playing the Clippers for the final matchup between the two that season.

With 9 seconds remaining in the game, Doc Rivers grabbed the microphone from the in-game announcer and gave a shoutout to Dirk on a great career and many memorable moments. This took place in the final meeting between the two teams, but also in Dirk’s 1,500th career NBA game, an incredible accomplishment that only 4 players in NBA history have accomplished.

This was a special moment because, even though Dirk had no intention of letting people know at this point, this was one of the first real signs that the fans got that Dirk really was going to be hanging it up after the season. Dirk still didn’t confirm this, but it became clearer at this point.

If there is a better example than this of pure respect out there in the sports world, I have yet to see it.

To vote on your favorite moment between these two, go to our Twitter page @TheSmokingCuban or our Facebook page to get your votes in while the polls are open. Keep up with the bracket the rest of the way as well here at our site.