Warriors’ Wiggins Questionable For Game 3: Can Mavs Take Advantage?

Whether Wiggins plays or not, the Mavs could potentially benefit from the situation either way.

Dalton Trigg | May 21, 2022

Just like in their second-round series against the Phoenix Suns, the Dallas Mavericks find themselves in a 2-0 series hole against the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals. A series tie was there for the taking, but Dallas choked away a 19-point lead in Game 2 on Friday night.

B23B6C00-8056-40D5-8AB4-6C424D32BBD6 — Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

gettyimages-1398398308-594x594 — Getty Images

gettyimages-1398399133-594x594 — Getty Images

The Mavs have shown resiliency in these playoffs, as they’ve come back from series deficits twice, including their first-round series against the Utah Jazz with superstar Luka Doncic missing the first three games. However, coming back against this championship-tested Warriors group presents an even tougher challenge.

Aside from the series shifting back to Dallas for Games 3 and 4, something else that could potentially benefit the Mavs is the injury status of Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins. On Saturday, he was listed as questionable (ankle soreness) for Game 3 on the Warriors’ official injury report, although coach Steve Kerr expects him to play.

In two playoff games against the Mavs, Wiggins has been fantastic, as he’s averaging 17.5 points, five rebounds, four assists, one block and one steal while shooting 46.2 percent from 3-point range. He’s also taken the main assignment of guarding Doncic — many times with full-court pressure.

gettyimages-1398022632-594x594 — Harry How/Getty Images

Luka Doncic, Golden State Warriors, Dallas Mavericks — Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports

gettyimages-1398396912-594x594 — Getty Images

Will Wiggins be able to keep up that kind of production with his ankle potentially giving him problems? Will the energetic home crowd at American Airlines Center have an impact in the same way it has in previous rounds? As we wait to find out those answers, we do know one thing — the Mavs remain confident that they can get back on track, no matter how challenging it might be.

“It's the worst,” said Doncic when asked about being down 2-0 again. “Like I said, they're a championship team. … We can't look back. What happened happened, so we've got to move on.

“A lot of guys played great. I think offensively we were fine. It's just the defensive end we've got to improve a lot.”

Published May 21, 2022

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.