Kyrie Irving's Elite Facilitating, Clutch Play with Luka Doncic Leads Dallas Mavs’ Comeback Win

The Dallas Mavericks are riding high at 6-1, and their last two wins have shown their perseverance, as they came back from 15-point deficits in back-to-back nights.

The Dallas Mavericks accomplished something for the first time in franchise history on Monday night with their 117-102 win over the Orlando Magic – winning two straight games where they had a halftime deficit of at least 12 or more points.

Although it's not great that the Mavs are getting themselves into those double-digit deficits, it does show what kind of perseverance the team has when facing adversity, which is something last year's squad sorely lacked. The promising part for Dallas, though, aside from it's glowing 6-1 record and standing as the best clutch team in the league, is that it has achieved those results while not having yet played its best basketball.

“It is a great and very tough win for us,” Luka Doncic said. “We just need to keep on fighting, keep playing defense and it will lead a long way.”

The Dallas Mavericks put up 117 points on the Orlando Magic’s top-3 defense / Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

On today’s episode of the Mavs Step Back Podcast, we discuss Dallas’ latest successful comeback against Orlando at length, including how Doncic and Kyrie Irving are proving their doubters wrong each game. We also get into how Irving has changed his identity from mainly being an elite scorer to now being an elite facilitator and giving his teammates ultimate confidence.

“I think we’ve said this before, that it does work,” Mavs head coach Jason Kidd said of Doncic and Irving playing winning basketball together. “It takes time and I think it’s just playing [more]. Luka’s causing a problem getting the double team. Kai’s benefiting from it. Grant’s (Williams) benefiting. D-Live (Dereck Lively II), D-Jones (Derrick Jones Jr.), everybody's benefiting from Luka, but also Kai’s... Being able to play the pick-and-roll with those two and then being able to get the mismatch.”

Irving has been a good distributor throughout his career, but he’s taken things up a notch this season by averaging a career-high 7.8 assists per game so far. When his 3-point stroke eventually comes around, the Mavs are going to be an even harder team to beat.

We conclude this episode by looking at Dereck Lively II’s impact on the game, despite having some rookie-level fouls called on him, and how Tim Hardaway Jr. is leading the early Sixth Man of the Year race. We also look ahead to the Mavs upcoming schedule, including Wednesday’s game against the Toronto Raptors and Friday’s In-Season Tournament game against the Los Angeles Clippers, who recently traded for James Harden.

You can watch and listen to our full conversation below, and be sure to subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts!