Mavs' Dereck Lively II Faced 'Great' Challenge Against Lakers' Anthony Davis

During Wednesday's loss, Mavs rookie Dereck Lively II encountered a difficult challenge against Lakers superstar Anthony Davis.

SAN FRANCISCO — During the Dallas Mavericks' 127-110 loss against the Los Angeles Lakers, Dereck Lively II faced a significant challenge matching up against Anthony Davis — one of the NBA's elite big men. He finished with 28 points, 12 rebounds, and nine assists, nearly achieving a triple-double. 

“He’s playing at a very high level,” Mavs coach Jason Kidd said. “They’re playing to him. He’s getting to the basket (and) to the free throw line." 

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Lively, who finished with 16 points, 11 rebounds, and two assists in 28 minutes, expressed significant respect for Davis, highlighting the challenges of attempting to contain him in 1-on-1 situations. The rookie big man tried to do what he could to disrupt Davis' rhythm by getting into the ball, but the combination of size, skill, and ability to play through contact enabled Davis to make plays still. 

“He’s a great player,” Lively said. “He’s as effective on the ball and with the ball makes you just try to press upon him and make him get out of his game. But it’s hard. He starts to get it going, and whenever he gets an advantage, it’s hard to stop him because he’s a great player.”

After halftime, the Mavs leaned more heavily on having Kleber on the floor to play the five, resulting in Lively playing only three minutes in the third quarter. 

“Lively was struggling a little bit, and then also we wanted to make sure we got Maxi’s minutes in if we’re not going to have practice,” Kidd said. “We felt at that point D-Live was struggling a little bit to guard AD, and we wanted to see Maxi guard him.”

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Part of the Mavs' struggles against Davis occurred when trying to double him in the post, resulting in the Lakers playing what Kidd likes to call "advantage basketball" by having a defense trying to recover rotation after rotation as the ball moves. 

"You’ve got to try to double-team him, and then he’s playing on the perimeter to beat the double-team," Kidd said. "You just got to try to make it as hard as possible and hope he misses at the right time, but tonight, he played well.”

Lively mentioned some components of their defensive execution — such as X-outs or general defensive communication — resulting in open looks for shooters. 

“There were points and times we executed well and points and times we didn’t," Lively said. "We left the top of the key wide open many times. Usually, we’re more focused on X-outs to the corners, and I feel like it was mis-talking on the back line.”

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With the Mavs being a team that relies so heavily on perimeter shooting, the core of the team's issues revolved around going just 11-40 (27.5 percent) from the perimeter, with their top shooters — Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and Tim Hardaway Jr. — going a combined 3-23 (13.0 percent) from beyond the arc on the night. 

“Some shots didn’t fall,” Lively said. “There were some times where we came down the court, and we just weren’t moving the ball well. We were just kind of getting up jumpers instead of trying to get into the offense and trying to move the ball around so we could get a better look."

With Friday's game against the Golden State Warriors being postponed due to the tragic passing of assistant coach Dejan Milojevic, the Mavs will return to action on Monday when they take on the Boston Celtics. Lively will have another test against a premier frontcourt matchup in Kristaps Porzingis.