LOS ANGELES — If there’s anything to be learned in the early days of the NBA playoffs it’s that aggressiveness is rewarded, incidental contact is deemed just that, and it certainly helps to have late-game shot-makers who can create in scramble situations.
See Jamal Murray. See the blessed and highly favored New York Knicks, who seem to get every good bounce going their way.
And then there’s the Dallas Mavericks, who we don’t know just what to make of. But we know about Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving, offensive wizards who can excel in a free-flowing game and make due in one of those grinding affairs.
Dončić scored 32 and Irving 23 as Dallas tied its series at one game each with the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday at Crypto.com Arena with a 96-93 victory.
The game was ugly for the most part, but Dallas seemed in firm control throughout. The Mavericks team that saw Doncic score 70-plus in Atlanta during the league’s inflated explosion no longer exists; that NBA doesn’t actually exist between April and June.
Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said the score was “’90’s basketball at its best” in a tongue-in-cheek manner, but his team held the Clippers to their lowest field-goal percentage for the year (36.8).
Perhaps the Clippers were thrown off a bit by having Kawhi Leonard return for his first game since March 31, and the jump in intensity between regular-season basketball and playoff ball could’ve caught him off guard.
But it could’ve also been the long and wide bodies the Mavericks can throw at each of the Clippers’ talented wings, disrupting their offensive flow. At the trade deadline, the Mavericks acquired Daniel Gafford from the Wizards and, in a separate deal, P.J. Washington from…
