Crossover World

  The season is now over for Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks, as they ran out of gas and talent against the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference finals. They never led during Thursday night's Game 5, and the end officially came with a 120-110 defeat.  While it was a painful night, this was still a season and a playoff run to remember. Despite being under .500 on Jan. 1, and starting the first round without Doncic due to a calf injury, the Mavericks made it to the Western Conference finals for the first time since 2011. Along the way, they upset the top-seeded Phoenix Suns with a historic Game 7 win on the road.  There's so much you can say about this team, but it all starts with Doncic, who led the way in spectacular fashion. He averaged 31.7 points, 9.8 rebounds and 6.4 assists during the playoffs, and in the process joined Michael Jordan in an exclusive playoff club. This was the third consecutive postseason in which Doncic has averaged at least 30 point...

  Game 2 of the Western Conference finals between the Golden State Warriors and Dallas Mavericks on Friday night reached a boiling point during the second quarter after a bizarre incident involving Damion Lee and Davis Bertans.  With just over eight minutes remaining in the second quarter, Spencer Dinwiddie swung the ball to Bertans in the corner, and the big man launched a quick-fire 3-pointer. Despite a strong contest from Lee that probably should have been called a foul, Bertans got the shot to go, and was knocked down in the process.  Because no foul was called, Bertans tried to get to his feet right away so he could run back on defense. As he began to stand up, Lee tried to jump over him a la Allen Iverson over Ty Lue in the 2001 Finals. The result was a bizarre collision that saw Lee dumped straight on his back.  Things getting chippy after the Bertans triple 👀 Tempers understandably flared in the immediate aftermath, and players from both teams had words with...

  While the Dallas Mavericks are currently focused on their Western Conference finals matchup against the Golden State Warriors, the league decided to hand down some punishment from their previous round matchup against the Phoenix Suns. The NBA announced Wednesday afternoon the Mavericks have been fined $50,000 for violating the league's bench decorum rules during their Game 7 matchup against the Suns in the conference semifinals. Per the league's statement: "On multiple occasions, several players and a member of the coaching staff stood for an extended period in the Mavericks' team bench area, stood away from the team bench, and were on or encroaching upon the playing court during game action in the Mavericks' 123-90 victory over the Phoenix Suns in Game 7 of their conference semifinal playoff series May 15 at Footprint Center." This is the second time the Mavericks have been fined this postseason because of their bench. The league issued a $25,000 fine after...

  After a pair of Game 7s on Sunday, the NBA's conference final matchups are set. In the West, it'll be the No. 3 Warriors against the No. 4 Dallas Mavericks. In the East, it's the No. 1 Miami Heat vs. the No. 2 Boston Celtics. Boston-Miami begins on Tuesday. Golden State-Dallas starts on Wednesday. We've said all season that this was going to be a wild postseason, and it certainly has been. The title hasn't been this up for grabs in quite a while. It genuinely feels like any one of these four teams could end up in the Finals, but of course, we all have our opinions on who actually will make it. With that in mind, below are our staff picks for both matchups, complete with the number of games we see each series going and an explanation of our picks. This is going to be fun.  Eastern Conference finals: Heat vs. Celtics Reiter's pick: Celtics in 6. Miami is a very good basketball team. But the Celtics are great -- and maybe the game's best since late January. T...

  The argument that the Warriors have caught a break by drawing the Mavericks, who upset the top-seeded Suns on Sunday, in the conference finals is pretty easy to make. The Suns were the best team in the league all season. The Mavericks were merely a good team during the regular season, though they did rank among the elite, at least in profile, after the turn of the calendar, and they were not particularly good in three of the four games in Phoenix.  Ultimately, Luka Doncic went superhero in Game 7 and the Suns laid a total egg. That doesn't mean the best team, or certainly the most dangerous team to the Warriors, won. At the very least, Golden State will now enjoy home-court advantage by virtue of Dallas, the No. 4 seed to Golden State's No. 3, beating Phoenix. Again, throw out Game 7, and Dallas was an entirely different team on the road this past round.  For what it's worth (very little if you ask me), the Warriors lost three of their four matchups against Dallas in th...

  The Dallas Mavericks are heading to the Western Conference finals and there was little doubt they would get there following their hot start to Game 7. The Mavericks jumped out to a 57-27 lead over the top-seeded Phoenix Suns on Sunday night and never looked back on their way to a 123-90 win. Luka Doncic was spectacular for Dallas in the opening 24 minutes of play as he led all scorers with 27 points. While that nearly topped the Mavericks' point total for the first half on its own, Doncic had plenty of help as Spencer Dinwiddie chipped in 21 points of his own off of the bench.  In the end, Doncic finished the win with 35 points, 10 rebounds and four assists in just 30 minutes of action. Dinwiddie provided plenty of help off of the bench finishing with 30 points of his own while Jalen Brunson also chipped in 24 points to help Dallas cruise to a lopsided victory on the road. On the other end, Phoenix struggled all night long on the offensive end as Cam Johnson led all Suns sco...

  DALLAS — Jalen Brunson scored a career-high 41 points, Maxi Kleber had 25 with eight of Dallas' playoff-record 22 made 3-points and the Mavericks, without superstar Luka Doncic, evened up their first-round series with a 110-104 win over the Utah Jazz in Game Two on Monday night (Tuesday, Manila time). The Mavericks, in danger of dropping the first two games after opening the playoffs with home-court advantage for the first time since their NBA title 11 years ago, overcame a 10-point deficit after halftime. Kleber, who had made only 19 percent of his 3-point attempts since the All-Star break, was 8-of-11 from beyond the arc when the Mavs needed them the most. His 3-pointer with 4:21 put Dallas ahead to stay at 99-98, and he then added another on the next possession. Game Three is on Thursday in Utah, where Dallas has lost its last 11 games. Jalen Brunson shoots 15 for 25 for 41 points, while Spencer Dinwiddie scores 17 on 6 for 18 shooting. Brunson, the starting point guard with D...

  Former Dallas Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson has sued the team, alleging that he was fired because he had reported sexual assault and harassment, per ESPN's Don Van Natta Jr. The lawsuit alleges that Jason Lutin, Mark Cuban's chief of staff, sexually assaulted Nelson's nephew at NBA All-Star weekend in Chicago in 2020. From ESPN:  Nelson, in his lawsuit filed in Dallas County court, says Jason Lutin, described in the lawsuit as Cuban's "right-hand man" and who still works for the team, assaulted and harassed his nephew in a hotel room during the 2020 All-Star Weekend in Chicago. The nephew, a man in his 20s who is not identified in the lawsuit, had been invited by Lutin to his hotel room, the lawsuit says. … Regarding the alleged sexual assault by Lutin during All-Star Weekend, the lawsuit says that Nelson asked Lutin if he would visit with his nephew about job possibilities with the Mavericks and in the sports and entertainment industry. Nelson...

  For the second consecutive game, the Dallas Mavericks won off a Spencer Dinwiddie game-winning shot. After sinking a 3-pointer in the closing seconds against the Boston Celtics on Sunday afternoon, Dinwiddie followed that up by nailing another game-winning 3-pointer on Wednesday night, to beat the Brooklyn Nets 113-111.  The game-winning shot by Dinwiddie was just the icing on top of what ended up being a monster fourth quarter by the veteran guard. With the Mavericks trailing by 12 points at the end of the third quarter, Dinwiddie's playmaking and scoring are what helped Dallas get into a position to win the game. He racked up 15 of his 22 points on the night in the final frame of action, getting the Mavs to within one point of the lead twice, in addition to his game-winning heroics. SPENCER DINWIDDIE KNOCKS DOWN THE #TissotBuzzerBeater FROM 3! #ThisIsYourTime "We knew the double team was going to come, and then the spacing, we talked about it," Kidd said after the gam...

  One of the great television lines in history comes from The Wire, when Omar reminds Wee-Bey: "You come at the King, you best not miss." On Tuesday night, Luka Doncic went at the King. There was some context to the decision to switch hunt and isolate LeBron, which we'll get into. But in the end, Luka went at the King. And he didn't miss.  Doncic, by his standards, didn't have a great night in the Mavericks' 109-104 victory over the Lakers. He finished with 25 points but shot just 9-for-21 and missed all five of his 3-pointers. But Doncic took over in money time, and LeBron couldn't do anything about it.  Here Doncic calls for a ball screen from Dorian Finney-Smith to get James switched onto him. Doncic clearly wants the one-on-one matchup, and though LeBron does a good job of jumping to Doncic's strong side, cutting off the paint and forcing him left, Luka hits him with a nasty one-legged fade that renders LeBron helpless.  Thirty seconds later, Donci...

The Dallas Mavericks used a 33-8 run over the final 10 minutes of the fourth quarter to steal a 107-101 win on the road against the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night. The Warriors built a 93-74 lead at the start the fourth quarter, and looked in great position to pull away as Stephen Curry surpassed the double-double mark with a 27-point, 10-assist performance. But the Mavericks stormed from behind to secure the win in large part because of the strong fourth-quarter performances from Luka Doncic and Spencer Dinwiddie. Dinwiddie specifically showed exactly why the Mavericks traded for him in the deal that sent Kristaps Porzingis to the Washington Wizards and also brought Davis Bertans to Dallas. While Doncic spent the first half of the fourth quarter on the bench, Dinwiddie orchestrated Dallas' offense, scoring 10 of his 24 points in the final frame. "He's amazing with the ball, he can do a lot of things," Doncic said. "I remember in Brooklyn -- you can see he...

  Healthy and in top shape, the Mavericks' superstar has put them on his back as they seek to secure a postseason berth. DALLAS (AP) — Through all the triple-doubles, buzzer-beaters and three All-Star Game trips in four seasons, Luka Doncic never averaged 40 points over a four-game stretch until the final quartet before the break. Those games also happened to be the first ones since a trade ended Doncic’s European pairing with Kristaps Porzingis that never developed the way the Dallas Mavericks had hoped. Not that the focus wasn’t already on the Slovenian superstar who turns 23 on Monday, but the timing of the 41.5-point-per-game outburst that included Doncic’s first 50-point effort made it perfectly clear. If the Mavericks are going to get past the first round of the playoffs for the first time since winning the franchise’s only championship 11 years ago, their point guard will have to dominate. Nobody knows it better than the point guard from 2011: Jason Kidd, who helped guide a...

  For the past 19 years, LeBron James has been the face of NBA basketball. All around the world, young athletes grew up idolizing the talented superstar -- and many of them have become LeBron's competitors today. For young Dallas star Luka Doncic, he'll have the pleasure of playing alongside LeBron in the upcoming All-Star game. It's an experience he called "special" considering he was one of those who looked up to James as a kid. (via Dallas News) “He’s one of the best players to ever play this game,” Doncic said of James. “As a kid, I look up to him, so it’s really a special moment when he picks me. I’m really glad that he picks me. I think that team is going to win again, hopefully, so I’ll be 3-0 after this.” It's pretty wild how long LeBron has been dominating the league. For nearly two decades, he has been an example of the best the sports world has to offer, and guys like Luka (who are in the league today) still remember watching LeBron from tv in their...

  While many would have thought that Luka Doncic would be frustrated after frequently getting double-teamed in the Dallas Mavericks’ game against the Miami Heat, that wasn’t exactly the case. Luka finished with 21 points, 10 rebounds and six assist, but he had a hard time shooting the ball and made just five of his 19 field goal attempts. The Heat employed a switch-heavy defense highlighted by double-teams on the Slovenian, and it worked in limiting the production of the young All-Star. Unfortunately for the Heat, Doncic can do a lot of things with the ball. Double-teaming him up means opening the floor for his teammates, and he dissected the Miami defense to perfection as the Mavs staged a huge second half comeback. Following the win, Luka shared his thoughts on their opponents’ defensive strategy and highlighted why he didn’t have a hard time adjusting to it. After trailing by eight points at the half, the Mavs turned the table on the Heat with a balanced offense led by Luka Donc...