'MVP! MVP!': Luka Doncic Leads Mavs to Inspired Win Over Jazz

Thanks in large part to the stellar performance of Luka Doncic, the Dallas Mavericks finally got over the hump and defeated the Utah Jazz for the first time this season.

Dalton Trigg | Mar 7, 2022

To achieve home-court advantage in the NBA playoffs, the Dallas Mavericks will have to pass up one of the four teams currently sitting ahead of them in the Western Conference standings. There are some wild scenarios that could see the Mavs ending up as the second or third seed, but their home-court hopes are mostly tied to the Utah Jazz.

On Monday night at American Airlines Center, the Mavs (40-25) took a big step in that direction by taking down Utah, 111-103, to cut the Jazz's season series lead to 2-1. Dallas has now won five games in a row and 11 of its last 13. The last time the Mavs were at least 15 games over .500 was in the 2014-2015 season when they finished with a 50-32 record.

USATSI_17851293 — © Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

Luka Doncic celebrates a bucket plus the foul.

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Dorian Finney-Smith throws down a big put-back dunk.

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The Mavs beat the Jazz for the first time this season.

After being shut down by Jazz big man Rudy Gobert in the last matchup, Luka Doncic had a chip on his shoulder all night, finishing with 35 points, 16 rebounds (season-high) and seven assists on 12-of-23 shooting from the field and 5-of-11 from 3-point range. Doncic received a plethora of 'MVP' chants from the home crowd as he stepped to the free-throw line in the fourth quarter.

One of the few blemishes for Doncic came at the end of the second quarter, when he got into a altercation with Jazz forward Royce O'Neale, which resulted in him receiving his 13th technical foul of the season. If Doncic reaches 16 technical fouls, that would result in a one-game suspension.

Filling in for an injured Jalen Brunson as a starter next to Doncic in the Mavs' backcourt, Spencer Dinwiddie continued his great stretch of play with his new team by putting up 23 points on 7-of-15 shooting overall and 5-of-9 from deep. Dinwiddie played a team-high 40 minutes and only had one turnover.

USATSI_17851440 — © Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

The Mavs could potentially face the Jazz in the first round of the NBA playoffs.

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Luka Doncic drives into the lane and gets fouled by Hassan Whiteside.

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Luka Doncic and Royce O'Neale exchanged heated words at the end of the second quarter.

Dorian Finney-Smith and Dwight Powell joined Doncic and Dinwiddie as the only Mavericks to score in double-digits. Finney-Smith tallied 21 points, including a game-sealing alley-oop from from Doncic, and Powell finished with 13 points on 50 percent shooting.

Donovan Mitchell hit a career-high seven 3-pointers in Utah's last game against Dallas on Feb. 26 in route to a game-high 33 points. Mitchell didn't have such success on this night, though, as he finished with just 17 points on 5-of-19 shooting. Rudy Gobert notched a double-double with 12 points and 13 rebounds, and Bojan Bogdanovic led the Jazz with 21 points.

Next up, the Mavs will take on the New York Knicks at home before starting a tough five-game roadtrip that includes games against the red-hot Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers and Brooklyn Nets.

Published Mar 7, 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.