Mavericks vs Pelicans Preview, Injury Report, and Game Thread: Let’s start this thing up again, shall we?

Basketball I missed you

The Dallas Mavericks (30-26) fire up the old basketball machine against the New Orleans Pelicans (13-42) at home on Friday night. After a bit more than a week off, both teams are hoping to close out the rest of the regular season with a clear direction. The Mavericks closed the pre-All-Star break hard, wining four of five. The Pelicans won their final game before the break, defeating the Kings in overtime, but before that lost four straight. Let’s see what the other main things are:

• WHO: Dallas Mavericks vs New Orleans Pelicans
• WHAT: The march towards the playoffs
• WHERE: American Airlines Center, Dallas Texas
• WHEN: 7:30 pm CST
• HOW: Channel 29 KFAA, MavsTV, and Playback with Kirk, Matthew, and David

The injury report isn’t any better for the Dallas Mavericks. Anthony Davis, Dereck Lively, Daniel Gafford, and Caleb Martin are still all out with their various injuries. As of this writing, Dwight Powell is doubtful and PJ Washington is still questionable with an ankle sprain. Dejounte Murry is out for the season for the Pelicans, tearing his Achilles. Brandon Boston and Herb Jones will also miss this game due to injury. Center Yves Missi was recently upgraded to available, and he might feast with a small Dallas front court.

How the next two weeks go will determine whether Dallas can hang around in the play-in race. They shot the three ball very well in the closing games, playing a small line up. That’s going to have to remain the case, though the Pelicans should be a beatable team for Dallas.

As you can tell below, you can join me and some other Mavs Moneyball guys in a room on Playback (embedded below) during the game (though I may not be able to start it until halftime). Also, consider joining Josh and I on Pod Maverick live after the game on YouTube, we should start after the game. Thanks so much for spending time with us here at Mavs Moneyball. Let’s go Mavs!