5 Peaks and 5 pits from the Dallas Mavericks' season thus far

The Dallas Mavericks have had one of the more enjoyable starts to a season in franchise history through 23 games this season

Dallas has certainly had their fair share of injury woes, but barring that things are going as well as could be expected at this point in the season for Dallas.

Derrick Jones Jr.'s ability to serve as a starting wing along with rookie center Dereck Lively II being much more far ahead in his development than originally anticipated before training camp, has given Dallas a much-needed boost of athleticism and energy on both sides of the ball.

5 peaks and 5 pits from the Dallas Mavericks' season thus far

Dallas also has two candidates who are potentially leading cases for two different awards at the end of the season, that being Luka Doncic and Tim Hardaway Jr. Regardless if Doncic wins MVP or Hardaway Jr. wins Sixth Man of the Year, their uptick in play as well as how bought in both of them have been defensively is showing that they are ready to help lead Dallas to an exciting playoff run.

Dallas doesn't have every hole on their roster filled out quite yet, but they have the basic principles of a contender if they potentially swing some pieces in via trade and get some positive luck on the injury front. It's been a rollercoaster season in Dallas so far, but one that's exciting as ever.

Nonetheless, here are five peaks and five pits from the Dallas Mavericks' season thus far.

10. Pit: Kyrie’s recent foot injury

After dealing with foot issues to start the season, it was quite a relief to see Kyrie Irving string together a consistent stretch of games for Dallas recently. Unfortunately for Dallas, that all came to a halt last Friday against the Portland Trail Blazers, when Irving re-aggravated the same right foot that he's been having issues with, in a freak accident with fellow teammate Dwight Powell under the basket.

Irving's injury has been labeled to be nothing more than a contusion, but Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd placed no timetable for Irving's return when he spoke to the media ahead of the Mavericks' Tuesday night victory over the Los Angeles Lakers. Kidd also said that Irving has been using crutches to walk and Irving has been wearing a protective boot over his right foot as well.

The severity of Irving's injury seems to be extremely unknown, as the optics of the situation are terrible, but the Mavericks have labeled his injury to be seemingly nothing more than a bruise. Irving has only missed two games for Dallas so far and they've luckily won both, but the Mavericks could be presented with some tough challenges if Irving misses an extended period of time.

Irving was averaging 23 points per game, 3.9 rebounds per game, and 5.2 assists per game for Dallas through 17 contests this year, and he was just coming off a bounce-back performance in Utah after a minor tweak of his foot against Memphis on December 1. Hopefully, Irving gets back on the court soon because if he misses extended time, it could put Dallas in a precarious situation in the standings soon.

9. Peak: Kyrie Irving's game-winner in LA

One of the most exciting moments of the season for the Dallas Mavericks came in Los Angeles on November 22, where Kyrie Irving drained the game-winning 3-pointer off of an assist from Luka Doncic with 21.1 seconds remaining.

The game had all the glitz and glamour of a typical star-studded affair between two dynamic duos, but Irving's 3-pointer elevated this game into one of the top moments of the season for Dallas thus far because of its significance in shifting the national media perspective on Doncic and Irving as a pairing.

Doncic and Irving have proved to be a tantalizing duo whenever their combination of playmaking and basketball IQ is displayed on the court together, ever since Irving stepped foot in Dallas last February.

With that being said, talking heads on television can be harsh critics. After multiple clutch-time woes and an underwhelming post-All-Star break record of 7-15 to finish the 2022-23 season in Dallas, Irving and Doncic quickly became the scapegoat for Dallas' issues on a national stage even if it wasn't necessarily their fault.

Irving's game-winner off of an assist from Doncic in the sports media-infested city that is Los Angeles epitomizes what it means to shut up the haters. Given the skepticism that Irving has faced as well as the skepticism that Doncic and Irving's on-court fit together has raised, we can only hope that Irving's game-winner is an omen for future crowd-silencing moments late in games this season between Doncic and him.

8. Peak: Luka Doncic's end of game heroics against Brooklyn

The Dallas Mavericks had quite the insane turnaround to start the season as they played their home opener against the Brooklyn Nets after facing off against the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs on opening night. The game featured a return to Dallas for two former Mavericks shipped off in Dallas' transaction for Kyrie Irving, that being Dorian Finney-Smith and Spencer Dinwiddie.

Barring the emotional connotations of the game (Dallas played tribute videos for both Finney-Smith and Dinwiddie), it was only Dallas' second game of the year and rotations weren't completely set nor did many players on the Mavericks have their feet under them just quite yet.

Luka Doncic was not one of those players though, as the Slovenian superstar kickstarted his 2023-24 MVP campaign by scoring 49 points on a career-high nine 3-pointers made. Doncic scored 14 of Dallas' last 17 points in the contests, and hit four 3-pointers in the last three minutes of game-time, including an obscene shot-clock buzzer-beating one-handed bank shot from 25 feet to put Dallas ahead 123-120 with 26.1 seconds left in the game.

Doncic may not be able to reciprocate another game of such prolific shooting efficiency from 3-point land this season, but with the way he's playing right now, we can't throw anything out the window.

While Doncic's jaw-dropping late-game heroics against Brooklyn were certainly some early-season fun and a huge highlight of this season for Dallas thus far, don't be surprised if he does something even more spectacular soon, as it's not out of the realm of possibilities for him.

7. Pit: Josh Green’s elbow injury

One of the more underwhelming storylines of the 2023-24 NBA season for the Dallas Mavericks thus far has been the play of fourth-year guard Josh Green. After Green signed an extension before the start of the regular season with Dallas, many fans assumed Green was poised to take the next step as a perpetual starter in Dallas.

Green showed many promising stretches last season as he tamed his aggression on the defensive end en route to a more stout defensive stand last season and flourished when he was given expanded opportunities with the ball in his hand on offense.

Green's issue has always been how sporadic and inconsistent his stretches are on offense, but the Australian native has shown just as much playmaking and ball-handling potential as any of the Mavericks' young wing/guard prospects have. Green's field goal percentage and points per game are down fairly substantially, but barring that not many of his counting stats have changed drastically compared to last season.

Unfortunately for Green, he'll have to wait even longer to get out of this rough stretch that he is in as he has missed the past five games with Dallas due to an elbow sprain. Ironically enough, Green missed time for a few weeks with the same injury in December of 2022, so it's extremely unfortunate to see him sidelined at such an important juncture of the season in back-to-back years.

Shams Charania of The Athletic said Green would miss the next couple of weeks on "The Rally" just a little over a week ago, so we'll be monitoring closely to see when the 23-year-old guard will be returning to the lineup for Dallas.

The way other Mavericks have stepped up in Green's absence, such as fellow Australia native Dante Exum, jeopardizes Green's spot as one of the first few rotation pieces off the bench as of right now. It'll assuredly be intriguing to see how many minutes Green receives from head coach Jason Kidd upon returning from injury.

6. Peak: 50-point victory over Utah

As is common with many of the peaks on this list, this one has come over this recent December stretch for Dallas, and it is not surprising given Dallas' 4-2 record in the month thus far.

Dallas' 50-point win over the Utah Jazz (147-97), was the largest margin of victory all season for Dallas and it was the ultimate team win. Everyone who actively suited up for Dallas got a chance to play and score, and the head coach Jason Kidd got the opportunity to fiddle with lineup combinations throughout large stretches of the second half.

Anytime that a head coach is playing his reserves on the winning side of a blowout then that coach obviously is more than pleased with his team's effort, but that couldn't be further from the truth for Jazz head coach Will Hardy who was on the losing side of the affair.

Hardy also commended Doncic and Irving for how tough they were to game-plan for later on in that post-game media availability session, and the Jazz's defensive struggles can be reflected upon the fact that Doncic had a 29-point triple-double in the first half of the game.

Doncic and Irving were extremely efficient all game at getting to their spots and combined for 66 points on 25-41 shooting from the field against Utah. They opened up the floodgates and provided the necessary spacing to let Dallas' shooters heat up to the point at which Dallas finished 22-49 from 3-point range in the game.

Whilst Utah was without arguably their two best players in Jordan Clarkson and Lauri Markkanen, Dallas easily played their best wire-to-wire game from a holistic standpoint, even if it was against a younger and more inexperienced Jazz squad. The Mavericks only had eight turnovers all game against Utah and they played a pretty stout defensive game.

50-point wins don't come around often, so Mavericks' fans can relish in the fact that Dallas had this stress-free victory against Utah early in the season because it is doubtful Dallas has another margin of victory that large for the rest of this year, even if there are plenty of more exciting moments to come.

5. Pit: First three games of the preseason

Despite the Mavericks currently sitting at third in the entire Western Conference, things were looking pretty dull to start the preseason for Dallas. Dallas took a preseason excursion to Abu Dhabi to face off against the Minnesota Timberwolves for two games before heading to Madrid, Spain, to take on Luka Doncic's former squad, Real Madrid.

Dallas assuredly gathered some valuable team bonding experiences with one another, but a myriad of players faced injury woes, and everyone in the traveling party was likely gassed to some extent after the Mavericks amassed over 16,500 miles of travel upon their return to Dallas

Furthermore, Dallas fared 0-3 on International turf this past preseason, and the first two losses against the Minnesota Timberwolves looked a lot more alarming at the time since no one saw Minnesota surging to the number one seed in the Western Conference through 22 regular season games thus far.

Dallas also lost to Real Madrid in debilitating fashion, as Doncic only played the opening minutes of the game due to a pending calf strain at the time. Dallas let one of their former point guards Facu Campazzo explode for 20 points, including a spree of clutch buckets down the stretch to seal the 127-123 victory for Real Madrid.

Dallas' first three preseason losses were concerning to some extent, but they are a complete far cry at this point given Dallas' current standing at 15-8 through 23 games, and Dallas finished out the preseason strong with a victory against Detroit. As is customary for most NBA teams during preseason, Dallas was still trying out different lineups and they weren't even fully acclimated together on a chemistry front that early on in the season.

Dallas' 0-3 start to preseason may not be the worst pit that they've been in so far this season but for a season with very few lowlights through 23 games, it's safe to say it 's certainly one of them.

4. Pit: Blowout loss to Clippers on the road

The Dallas Mavericks have not had a lot of bad losses through 23 games, and at 15-8, you wouldn't necessarily expect them to have many blowout losses at this juncture in the season given their placement at third in the Western Conference standings. Dallas has performed way better in the clutch this season, as their ability to finagle wins regardless of the situation in the fourth quarter has become an extremely underrated asset of this Mavericks team.

Nonetheless, every NBA team is bound to have an exposing, sum-of-all-fears type of loss every once in a while. Unfortunately for the Mavericks, their rendition of that sort of loss came against the LA Clippers on the Saturday right after Thanksgiving on November 26. It was the cliche Mavericks loss of 2022-23 that fans were haunted by all too often after Kyrie Irving joined the Mavericks last season.

Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving both played solid games even if they didn't shoot the ball spectacularly from outside as the pairing finished with a combined 56 points on 23-49 shooting from the field. Doncic and Irving played solid, but Dallas couldn't buy a shot otherwise as the game marked Dallas' lowest-scoring total of the year with 88 points. Dallas shot 37.4 percent as a team and only canned nine 3-pointers out of 38 attempts.

It should be noted that Dallas was missing rookie center Dereck Lively II in this contest and Dallas beat the Clippers in their first matchup this season at the AAC, but the Clippers were still acclimating James Harden at that point in the season.

The Mavericks have certainly gotten more from their role players from an offensive perspective in other games, as Derrick Jones Jr. has shown a lot of versatility on both sides of the ball after Dallas was plagued by one-dimensional 3-and-D wings last season.

However, against teams with elite length like the Clippers, Dallas will need to be more careful going forward, as a team with that kind of defensive prowess can certainly negate a lot of the activity created on offense by Mavericks' role players if they aren't completely locked in.

3. Peak: 30-0 run against OKC

Even though Dallas ended up losing the game 126-120, we would be doing a disservice to this list if we didn't include the Mavericks franchise record 30-0 fourth-quarter run in their December 2 game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Dallas was down 87-111 before galvanizing some stops which translated into open 3-pointers.

After a few three-pointers went in, the 5-man group on the court of Seth Curry, A.J. Lawson, Luka Doncic, Olivier Maxence-Prosper, and Dereck Lively II played possibly the most spirited defense that the Mavericks have played in a given stretch all season. The Mavericks were scrambling on defense frantically after passes and made a huge point of emphasis to show at least two defenders at the beginning of every defensive possession on Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Dallas may not have gotten the result they wanted in the end, but they showed insane effort across the board for it being the second night of back-to-back where Kyrie Irving wasn't playing. Dereck Lively II showed his dynamism as a potential cog in the short roll, as he attacked Chet Holmgren head-up for multiple strong finishes at the rim. Lively II had a career game with a monstrous 20 points, 16 rebounds, and seven blocks, but still took a humble approach after the loss.

"That's just the way the game is, you know. Basketball is a game of runs. We were fortunate enough to be able to fight back, bring it back to a close game, but we've just got to be able to make sure that we practice more on just trying to close out the end-game situations"

Dereck Lively II

Luka Doncic finished with a flat-out absurd triple-double of 36 points, 18 assists, and 15 rebounds, but the superstar's defensive effort down the stretch is what stuck out. Doncic was playing as dialed and fast on both sides of the ball during that fourth quarter as we've seen from him all year, and his energy was matched by role players Seth Curry and A.J. Lawson, who both chipped in 12 points and played great defense for Dallas down the stretch. Derrick Jones Jr. had 24 points on 6-12 shooting from distance as well, as he continues to prove that he can be a starting-caliber wing for Dallas.

The 30-0 run showed how bought in each player is on this Mavericks team, as concerns over specific roles that certain players may have had last season, seem to be a complete afterthought for this Mavericks team.

2. Pit: Loss to Grizzlies with Luka Doncic out

Luka Doncic has only missed one game this entire season despite being listed on the injury report numerous times through 23 contests so far for Dallas.

Doncic's excuse for missing the one game? His fiancée and he announced the birth of his newborn daughter the day the Dallas took on the Memphis Grizzlies on December 1.

Funny enough, fellow teammate Dante Exum missed the same game against the Grizzlies for precisely the same reason, as he welcomed the birth of his newborn daughter as well.

Nonetheless, the Mavericks that were playing on that same Friday night versus the Grizzlies can't be looked past for having played one of their worst games of the season. Dallas had a hard time generating anything offensively, and Memphis did a great job of face-guarding and trapping Kyrie Irving.

Irving had his worst performance of the season as he finished with just 10 points on 3-15 shooting from the field. The rest of the Mavericks followed accordingly, as the Mavericks shot a collective 12-39 from 3-point range in the game. The Grizzlies were 5-13 the first time they faced Dallas and have fared just 1-3 since as they eagerly anticipate the return of star guard Ja Morant.

Memphis has struggled from a playmaking perspective this year, so it was especially disappointing that Dallas couldn't get the job done despite getting Jaren Jackson Jr. in foul trouble all night. The Grizzlies game showed that Dallas can be severely hampered from an offensive creation standpoint if one of Doncic or Irving isn't playing. Luckily for Dallas though, Dante Exum has been stepping up in the starting lineup to a premium for the ever since Irving's injury against Portland.

1. Peak: Mavericks knock off Lakers again after Dante Exum's dagger

As if having one victory over the Los Angeles Lakers wasn't enough for this list, the Dallas Mavericks and Dante Exum ensured that there would be another after the Mavericks outlasted the Lakers 127-125 in yet another clutch-time thriller. Exum made his fourth start in a row for Dallas, and it was easily his most impactful game since joining the Mavs as he finished with 26 points off of 7-9 shooting from 3-point range.

Exum's fifth 3-pointer of the fourth quarter was a dagger in the right corner off a pass from Tim Hardaway Jr. with only 52.1 seconds left to put Dallas up 127-121. Exum couldn't have thrived from downtown without the attention that Luka Doncic drew from the Lakers' defense though, as Doncic was getting deep into the paint and making spectacular kick-out passes all night en route to 17 assists.

Doncic had a decent 12-28 shooting night for 33 points, but the command he's exhibiting of this Mavericks offense is at an all-time high. Doncic is making some of the most obscure passes and reads look rudimentary, and not just Exum is benefiting from this.

Tim Hardaway Jr. finished with 32 points on the night and was a huge benefactor of the dishing and spacing provided by Doncic, but Hardaway Jr. tapped into a different mode on Tuesday night against the Lakers and ran the floor for a flurry of transition dunks and layups. Hardaway Jr. arguably gave himself the upper hand in the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award race Tuesday night against Los Angeles, as he out-dueled fellow stellar sixth-man Austin Reaves.

The game was an insane wire-to-wire victory for Dallas despite having multiple players out, as Derrick Jones Jr. missed the game with a quad contusion that he sustained after only six minutes of playing time in the Mavericks' game against the Grizzlies on Monday night.

Dallas was already without the likes of Kyrie Irving, Josh Green, and Maxi Kleber before heading into Tuesday night's matchup against the Lakers, but luckily regained the services of Grant Williams who had missed the previous three games due to injury. Williams had a great game upon returning from injury, scoring 19 points on 7-9 shooting from the field.

Dallas got some hefty contributions from some of their most key role players in last night's exciting victory over Dallas, and it was certainly one of the biggest highs this season for this Mavericks squad.

We'll see how sustainable Tuesday night was soon though, as Dallas may have to carry the burden of some recurring injury woes in their next stretch. Whether the Dallas Mavericks are peaking or in a pit though, we'll have you covered with the latest from the team, so stay tuned.