Dallas Basketball

BREAKING: Mavs Plan For Luka Doncic Return in Game 4 vs. Jazz

The Dallas Mavericks were able to stay competitive with the Utah Jazz while Luka Doncic recovered from his calf strain. Now, he’s back.

Dalton Trigg

The Dallas Mavericks, despite being without superstar Luka Doncic in their first-round playoff series so far due to a calf strain, have managed to stay competitive with the Utah Jazz. After losing a closely-contested Game 1, Jalen Brunson exploded for 41 points in Game 2 to tie the series at 1-1 as the scene shifts to Salt Lake City.

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Dallas Mavericks, Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz
Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

Things are about to change in a big way, though, as Doncic is set to officially make his series debut in Game 4, according to NBA reporter Marc Stein.

In three games played against the Jazz in the regular season, Doncic averaged 30 points, 11 rebounds and 7.7 assists per game while shooting 45.6 percent from the field, 44.4 percent from deep and 80 percent from the free-throw like. The Mavs were 2-1 vs. the Jazz in those games.

As good as Brunson and Spencer Dinwiddie have been at penetrating Utah’s defense and getting wide-open looks for their teammates, adding Doncic back into the mix only enhances the Mavs’ chances of pulling off a series win — especially if Brunson is willing to let it fly from deep like he did in Game 2.

Jalen Brunson, Dallas Mavericks, Utah Jazz
Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
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Tom Pennington/Getty Images

When you add in Maxi Kleber’s recent confidence boost (he scored 25 points on 8-11 from deep in Game 2) and Dorian Finney-Smith’s continued stellar defense on Jazz star Donovan Mitchell, all things appear to be trending in a favorable direction for the Mavericks.

That being said, though, Doncic will now have to do something that he’s never done in his four-year career so far if the Mavs are going to win their first playoff series since the 2011 NBA Finals: win a game in Utah.

The Mavs have one beat the Jazz in Utah one time in the last six years, and that came in Jan. 2020 as Tim Hardaway Jr. led the way with Doncic out due to an ankle injury.

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Dalton Trigg
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.

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