Key Maverick’s shocking return from injury creates terrifying duo fans can’t ignore

After going 3-1 on a four-game road trip and building momentum toward making the Play-In Tournament, the Dallas Mavericks suffered one of their worst losses of the season on Monday night at home versus the Brooklyn Nets. Dallas fell 113-109 to a Nets team that is now 25-51, as the Mavericks struggled with their perimeter defense against an undermanned and feisty young Nets squad that had nothing to play for.

Games around this time of year always tend to have skewed results for a variety of reasons, but given how desperate the Mavericks should be playing with their playoff hopes very much in the air, Dallas severely underestimated this Nets team after beating them handily a week ago on the road. The Mavericks still maintain a half-game lead of the ninth seed with just six games left in their regular season, but this was one of the easiest remaining games left on their schedule, and it will be one Dallas regrets dropping heavily if they end up missing out on the play-in.

One silver lining from this game though was the return of Daniel Gafford, as "The Landlord" finally made his return to the lineup for the Mavericks after missing nearly two months with a Grade 3 MCL sprain in his right knee. There was plenty of skepticism in regard to if Gafford would even come back this season, especially based on his initial prognosis, yet Gafford clearly took his rehab diligently and looked excellent in his return to play.

Dallas can now dominate with two dynamic bigs for a full 48 minutes

Despite being on a 15-20 minute restriction, Gafford led Dallas in scoring with 17 points on 7-9 shooting from the field in just 19 minutes and grabbed seven rebounds. Gafford even appeared to hurt his right knee after bumping knees late in the fourth quarter, but he stayed in for a few minutes and even scored before he could sub out at the next dead ball. Gafford signaled a thumbs-up to the crowd before going out of the game, though, so it doesn't appear that this was anything more than a contusion or bruise as of right now (He confirmed everything was fine after the game as well).

Gafford's return has signified a major change Dallas can take advantage of stylistically, though, even if it didn't pan out for them on Monday night.

With Gafford seemingly not skipping a beat in his return and proving he's still one of the best around-the-rim finishers, rim-runners, and rim protectors in the entire league, Jason Kidd now has the ability to play his nightmare twin-towers lineup for 48 minutes, and Mavericks fans that stayed aboard the bandwagon have been waiting for this ever since Dallas traded for Anthony Davis.

Fans caught a brief glimpse at how this could look when Dallas played the Houston Rockets on February 8 in Davis's debut, but Dereck Lively II still wasn't healthy for that game. With Kai Jones making a real case to be a backup big in Dallas for longer than this season and playing the basketball of his career on both ends recently, the Mavericks will have four athletic two-way bigs that they can mix and match for 48 minutes at a time, as Davis' mid-range ability as well as his occasional threat from downtown give the Mavericks this opportunity.

While Dallas' perimeter defense suffered in their loss to the Nets and one could make the case this was because of playing two bigs at once, all of Dallas' bigs move well in space for the most part, and the size advantage the Mavericks could create on a game-to-game basis could be tantalizing for opponents like fans saw versus the Rockets.

So long as Gafford isn't re-injured seriously, the Mavericks are poised to play this final stretch with one of the hugest and athletic defensive lineups for 48 minutes straight in the entire league once Lively II returns from injury, and Kidd should be able to stagger the bigs' minutes in a way that doesn't over-exhaust any of them.

Even though the Mavericks are practically removed from any contention talks this season, seeing how all of their bigs fare together has been one of the most burning questions from fans since the trade, and Gafford's electric return as well as Lively II's pending return will hopefully give fans a solid teaser of what this new big lineup could look like when Kyrie Irving re-enters the mix at some point next season.