Mavericks head to Sacramento for 9/10 Play-In clash
The Dallas Mavericks’ defense of their 2024 Western Conference crown begins humbly Wednesday with a 9 p.m. CST tip against the Sacramento Kings at Golden 1 Center in the Play-in Tournament. Dallas can only make it to the eighth seed, and will have to win against the Kings and then Friday on the road against the Memphis Grizzlies, who lost to the Warriors on Tuesday.
The stakes:
Winner will face Memphis to battle for the eighth and final spot to face Oklahoma City in the Western Conference playoffs. Loser heads home to quietly reflect and contemplate.
Season series: 3-0 Kings
- Dec. 30 at Sacramento, Kings won 110-100. Doug Christie got his first win as head coach as the team halted a six-game skid. Spencer Dinwiddie’s 30 points led the Mavericks, who were playing in their third game after Luka Dončić left a Christmas Day matchup against Minnesota with a calf strain.
- Feb. 10 in Dallas, Kings won 129-128 in overtime. Daniel Gafford went down holding his knee early in the second quarter after setting a screen. Dallas led by 12 with eight minutes left but the Kings came back, led by Demar DeRozan’s unreal shooting on the way to 42 points. DeRozan’s step-through score on a baseline drive with 1.9 seconds left sealed it.
- March 3 in Dallas, Kings won 122-98. Kyrie Irving went down with a torn ACL in the first, Jaden Hardy went out with a sprained ankle in the second, and the Kings spent much of the fourth resting as Doug McDermott and Markelle Fultz helped protect a 30-point lead.
Lightning LaVine
The Kings have several advantages in this one, including home court and the hot hand, having won four of their last six to close the season. Guard Zach LaVine, acquired in a midseason trade sending out DeAaron Fox, has found his shooting touch at the right time, having made 27 of his 48 threes over the last five games. LaVine, who connected on 4-of-5 from deep against the Mavericks March 3, joins DeRozan in a formidable duo of slashers and shooters, a group of two that was three before Malik Monk’s calf strain April 7.
Keon Ellis has emerged as the Kings starter at point guard since the club dealt away Fox, and like the Mavericks they go about their playmaking unconventionally. Dallas’ options at point guard project to be slim for this game, with Brandon Williams listed as questionable with an oblique strain and Jaden Hardy having returned from injury just two games ago. Dinwiddie and Naji Marshall, who split lead ballhandling duties for much of the latter part of the season, were not brought to Dallas to start at point guard and have each outplayed their salaries by a considerable margin. You may have heard that defense wins championships, but it is unclear where the Mavericks’ perimeter defense will come from.
Big where it counts
Several factors besides DeRozan’s heater contributed to the heartbreaker in overtime Feb 10. The Kings mounted much of their comeback with a large lineup on the floor, playing Domantas Sabonis and Jonas Valančiūnas together, and with Keegan Murray clamping down on the perimeter. This time around the Mavericks have an answer, as Gafford, Anthony Davis, and Dereck Lively II are all back, and can join PJ Washington and Marshall for some monster lineups. The biggest challenge for this jumbo edition of the Mavericks may be having room on the floor to operate on offense.
Seasoning
If having been there before makes much difference, Sacramento boasts a considerable edge. The trio of LaVine, DeRozan, and Valančiūnas has played in a combined total of 13 play-in games between them, with Valančiūnas having scored 101 points in seven play-in appearances to make himself the format’s all-time leading scorer. Sabonis, Ellis, and Murray started in the Kings 2024 play-in loss to the Pelicans.
Closing thoughts
Dropping four of their last five regular season games and backing into the bottom berth in the play-in probably feels like quite a fall for Mavericks fans who began the season expecting another deep playoff run, and more deep playoff runs in our future. After the year we’ve all had, it’s understandable if some fans would just like to lose this game and get off this hellride as soon as possible. In many ways, this year has a similar feel to the inflection point the franchise faced in 1990, when a first-round sweep at the hands of the Finals-bound Blazers officially closed those Mavs’ window of contention and ushered in a very long rebuild. Between the Mavericks’ aging and ailing roster, the scarcity of point guard options available in the 2025 free agent class, the team’s scant draft capital for the remaining years of this decade, and the mistrust potential free agents might feel after seeing how drastically the landscape changed for Klay Thompson after coming here, an awful lot of things are going to have to go right for this team to continue playing beyond Game 82 for the next several seasons.
This non-playoff postseason game may feel like mere crumbs as a reward at the end of a very long season, but do your best to enjoy it. There’s no guarantee that it gets this good again for a while.
How to watch/listen
You can watch the game on ESPN or Mavs TV (streaming), or listen locally at 97.1 FM KEGL (English) and 99.1 FM KFZO (Spanish).