Sometimes Jason Kidd takes his time arriving at the postgame news conference. His postgame huddle with the assistant coaches held outside the door to the Mavericks locker room might extend with laughter and winning satisfaction a little longer; his conversations with individual players might last several minutes; he might run into an old friend on the opposing team and chat with them outside Interview Room 1 at the American Airlines Center before he takes questions.
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Saturday afternoon, following the Mavericks’ 99-93 loss to the Utah Jazz in the first-round opener, it took Kidd only minutes from the game’s conclusion to end up in front of the microphone. There was no alternate option but to sit down and say, “We could be better.”
Kidd treated the regular season as a laboratory, an experimental test tube where he often tried different lineups and schemes to learn whether they worked. It’s the postseason now; Kidd knew various options that wouldn’t make sense. Without Luka Dončić, the Mavericks used only eight players; they played Dorian Finney-Smith and Reggie Bullock 44 minutes apiece and kept Jalen Brunson on the floor for another 41. But the third quarter was the most telling. “Just keeping the different looks (at center),” Kidd explained in front of that postgame microphone. Different looks is one way to spin it. A dearth of options is another.
For the first 4:03 of the third quarter, Kidd used Dwight Powell. He then shifted to five possessions with Maxi Kleber sharing the floor with Powell. Then it was 2:05 minutes with Kleber as the lone center. Then another few possessions with Kleber paired with Davis Bertans. To close the quarter, for the final 2:46, Bertans was the lone center. Dallas still lost the 12 minutes by six points. No matter where the Mavs turned, they couldn’t find a solution that made enough sense.
Dallas has a matchup disadvantage in this series without Dončić, who almost certainly won’t play in Monday’s Game 2 and could be sidelined even longer. With the Mavericks stating they won’t play him until he’s 100 percent and the medical understanding of how much tension and strain Dončić requires of his calf muscles, it’s worth questioning whether he’ll appear until much later in the series. I can’t and won’t predict when he’ll return, only Dallas’ excellent medical staff can know for sure, but I explained my concerns about his return on Saturday’s podcast. If 100 percent is the baseline, as the Mavericks are saying, it might take more time until he can function at 100 percent.
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Without Dončić making Utah adjust to him, the Mavericks turn into a reactionary team adapting to what the Jazz are throwing at them. Dončić can beat Rudy Gobert, the best player on the floor Saturday despite one field goal attempt (which he missed), at his preferred drop coverage. But without Dončić, Gobert limited the Mavericks to 4-of-19 shooting when he was the primary defender, per the NBA’s tracking data. (Matchup data isn’t perfect, but that number rings true.) He swallowed up guards and big men alike. It was a sensational showing from someone who is unquestionably one of the best defenders in league history.
The Mavericks tried combatting Gobert’s presence by asking their two primary guards, Brunson and Spencer Dinwiddie, to score points around but not at the basket. They combined for 46 points on 15-of-39 shooting. Dallas doesn’t prioritize shots at the rim; it averaged only 20.9 attempts in the restricted area while taking 15.5 nonrestricted paint shots during the regular season. In Game 1, the Mavericks’ numbers in those areas were even worse: They were 8-of-16 in the restricted area and 10-of-21 within the nonrestricted paint.
“I’ve prided myself on being efficient and consistent my entire life,” Brunson said afterward, clearly disappointed with his performance. It could’ve been better, but I’m also sympathetic for him. He’s not Dončić and shouldn’t be asked to be in a postseason game. Only Dončić’s untimely injury forced him into a role that would never have served him well.
Dallas also suffered when it was forced to play without both guards. In the 20 minutes with just Brunson or Dinwiddie, the Mavs were outscored by seven points in a six-point game. The team’s offensive improvements since the Kristaps Porzingis trade — Dallas was the league’s 12th-best offense since All-Star weekend and about seven points per 100 possessions better than before the break — are predicated around keeping two shot creators on the floor at all times. Unable to do that and trust any other player on the roster to provide more creation, it was inevitable that Brunson and Dinwiddie would too often be asked to single-handedly break down Utah’s offense. Utah stayed home on shooters; Dallas attempted only 23 shots from 3, excluding the nine Josh Green and Kleber were gifted by Utah choosing not to defend them. Brunson could’ve hit more than the six of his 16 shots from the 5- to 19-feet range, but many were contested, harried looks Utah was happy to concede to him.
It’s also interesting that Dallas initially appeared to be pushing the tempo, only to end the game with 90 possessions, five fewer than its season average — when it was already the slowest in the league. It felt like the Mavs were successful when they sped up the game early on. They just didn’t do it enough as the minutes wore heavier on the short rotation Kidd had no choice but to play. Some of that was Utah’s offensive rebounding, which resulted in 13 of its missed shots being recycled into another chance. Some of it was the inherent nature of a slow-natured team not being able to go faster. “I thought, overall, we slowed the game down and gave us a chance to win without Luka,” Kidd said. Perhaps the possessions during which Finney-Smith led breaks were adrenaline-induced more than any sort of strategic plan.
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The Dončić-less Mavericks should feel optimistic about certain aspects of Saturday’s game. They decisively prevented 3s and dunks from Utah; Bullock and Finney-Smith were superb, and Brunson and Dinwiddie avoided being exposed. Donovan Mitchell had success only against big-man mismatches (he was 4-of-5 against Powell and Bertans) and Dinwiddie (3-of-4), and he was smothered by Dallas’ preferred defenders (3-of-20). Bojan Bogdanovic, an excellent basketball player, might not score 26 points in future games if he’s again presented with the difficulty of the 20 shots he attempted. Utah had issues scoring against a defense that looked every bit as good as the No. 2 defensive rating it posted from December to mid-February.
Still, without Dončić, Kidd’s regular-season laboratory has suddenly become something more akin to a high school field trip. He has excelled at trying, failing and learning from the combinations he’s put on the court this season, and he would’ve been set up to chase Utah into a strategic circle of chasing its tail had his Slovenian cheat code been available from the series’ start.
Instead, he’s running out of options. After a game that almost swung the Mavs’ direction despite all the inherent disadvantages — seriously, Royce O’Neale hit the game-deciding shot, his only make of the game?! — it’s harder to see the Mavericks’ path forward without Dončić’s re-emergence sooner than later. And that re-emergence can’t be rushed, can’t be anticipated and might come too late to make a difference.
(Photo of Luka Dončić: Tom Pennington / Getty Images)
