Dallas Basketball

'Bully-Proof' Mavs: No Knees, No Ankles, All Balls In Luka-Led OT Win

NBA Playoffs: 'Bully-Proof' Dallas Mavs: No Knees, No Ankles, All Balls In Luka-Led OT Win Over Clipper In Game 4

Mike Fisher

We poke a great deal of fun at NBA legend Charles Barkley and his television work on TNT, much of it invited by him because "Championship Chuck'' is so self-effacing. Our most common jibe: His in-game commentary sometimes reveals he doesn't necessary watch the actual game being shown by his network. 

But in the middle of this Dallas Mavericks' best-of-seven Round 1 NBA Playoffs series against the weighty favorite Clippers, Barkley is watching. And he's watching the youth-led Mavs muscle their way to respect.

“(Kristaps) Porzingis and (Luka) Doncic are not backing down,'' Chuck said at halftime of Friday's Game 3. "I love this, man. You know (the Clippers) are trying to bully them, and they’re standing up to the bully. … 

"Dallas got a bright future, man.''

That "future'' just got here more quickly than expected.

The Mavs followed that aforementioned Game 3 (a loss of the contest and an ankle-related loss of Doncic) with a crotch-first defeat of the Clippers, Sunday afternoon's in-the-Orlando-bubble Game 4 OT thriller ending at Dallas 135, Los Angeles 133.

READ MORE: 'Another Dimension': Luka Is Otherworldly In Mavs OT Win ...

The Mavs are fresh out of ankles. They are fresh out of knees. But they remain alive in the series because they have a surplus of balls.

“This is my 18th year as a head coach in this league,'' said Dallas boss Rick Carlisle afterward. "I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a game where a team fought as hard to come back, hang in, go through the adversity of them tying at the end and then finding a way to win. 

"It showed a lot of toughness, a lot of range and aggression out there.''

The first three games of this Mavs-Clippers were intense and chippy. Game 1 saw Porzingis ejected after being lured into a heated exchange with Marcus Morris, who started it by wrestling Luka from behind. Game 2 was a Dallas win in which the Mavs ignored L.A.'s attempt at brutishness and simply flew by defenders all night. Game 3, low-lighted by Doncic's injury departure, featured other unsavory moments, including L.A.'s Montrezl Harrell mouthing some seemingly fine-worthy words in the direction of the Slovenian star Doncic. (Harrell would like you to know that he's apologized. So we move on.)

READ MORE: Mavs Doncic Accepts Clippers Apology For Off-Color Remark

And Sunday? KP couldn't go due to a balky knee. Enough to cause the Mavs to collapse under the weight of their own disappointment, when combined with the iffy chance of Luka playing?

“The guys here you don’t hear about did an amazing job with me,'' Luka said of Casey Smith and Dallas' medical staff. "We were working almost the whole day. They were helping me out the whole time with whatever I needed. Obviously, it wasn’t 100 percent, but I think it was good.”

Good? Doncic is experiencing his first-ever NBA playoffs series, and all he did was go for 43 points, 17 rebounds, and 13 assists - and of course the game-winning 3-pointer in overtime. ... a bucket that makes him (at 21) the the youngest player to hit a playoff buzzer-beater in NBA history.

"Just a phenomenal effort,'' Carlisle said. "He’s got such great heart that if he was able to feel anything close to decent, he was going to probably play today. I wasn’t going to say that publicly, but that’s what this kid is about.”

Luka toughed it out. Porzingis did the same thing earlier in the series when woke up on the morning of Game 2 and assumed his knee wouldn't allow him to play ... until he willed the discomfort away. That earns him a pass for Game 4; it must've been bad.

So ... 

R.I.P. "Soft Euros.'' R.I.P. "B---- A-- White Boys.''

The Mavs are now not down 3-1 in the series, which would've been a death knell, as NBA teams in that circumstance have an all-time record of 11-240. Instead, they will give it a Game 5 go on Tuesday, with Doncic hoping for help from Porzingis.

Will they be able to demonstrate that they and their Mavs are on the same level with Kawhi Leonard and the (struggling) Paul George and their Clippers? Maybe not.

But they are proving the jocular Charles Barkley to be right. They are soon going to be good enough. And they are already tough enough.

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Mike Fisher
MIKE FISHER

Mike Fisher - as a newspaper beat writer and columnist and on radio and TV, where he is an Emmy winner - has covered the NBA and the Dallas Mavericks since 1990. He has for more than 20 years served as the overseer of DallasBasketball.com, the granddaddy of Mavs news websites.

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