Poll reveals Mavericks fans are begging to play elite contender in playoffs

The NBA regular season will come to a close in just over a week, and Dallas Mavericks fans are non-stop speculating who they will play in the playoffs.

Dallas is 45-30 on the year and if they take care of business, all signs are pointing to them playing the LA Clippers.

The Clippers would be a tough matchup for Dallas, but Mavs fans have even started looking ahead of the first round to a different potential matchup for Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving's squad.

Poll reveals Mavericks fans are begging to play elite contender in playoffs

It's overwhelmingly obvious that Mavs fans want to play the Oklahoma City Thunder at some point in the playoffs, and there are a couple of reasons for that. The first and most obvious reason is that the Mavs would be a tough matchup for the Thunder.

Dallas' size across the board may be too much for them, and they match up better with Oklahoma City than any of the other top seeds in the Western Conference. The only competition inside for Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II is Chet Holmgren, and Dallas should be able to get to the rim with ease due to being much bigger than the Thunder.

Dallas also has plenty of versatile defenders that they can throw at Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and they would make life hard on him for the entire series.

Another underlying reason that Mavs fans would love to play the Thunder is because of the ongoing argument among fans about who is better between Doncic and Gilgeous-Alexander. Despite Gilgeous-Alexander having an MVP-level season, Doncic has proved time and time again that he has the edge over him, but it looks like this debate will continue until the end of time.

In Dallas' last matchup with the Thunder, they lost by seven points on the road without Doncic. Irving put on a show in this game as he dropped 36 points and arguably outplayed Gilgeous-Alexander, but it wasn't enough.

The Mavericks-Thunder rivalry goes back to the 2010-2011 season when Dallas defeated the Thunder in six games to advance to the NBA Finals, but Oklahoma City got their revenge in the 2012 NBA Playoffs when they swept Dallas.

Oklahoma City and Dallas met up again in 2016, but the Mavs lost in five games. The time is now for Dallas to get revenge, and fans clearly want Doncic and Irving to have a chance to take down the young contenders from Oklahoma City.

For all the latest on Kyrie Irving, Luka Doncic, and the Dallas Mavericks this season heading into the 2024 NBA Playoffs, stay tuned.