DALASUS – Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic does not necessarily see any honor in avoiding being swept away in the Western Conference finals. He remains focused on the victory over the Golden State Warriors in the series, despite the long odds.
The Mavs are trying to become the first team in NBA history to overcome a 3-0 deficit to win a series of playoffs, a feat that 146 others failed to achieve. Dallas took a step in that direction with a 119-109 victory in Game 4 on Tuesday at the American Airlines Center.
“I mean, I still believe we can win, you know,” Doncic said. “Swept or not, in the end, if you lose, you lose. It doesn’t matter how much we win. We have to go game by game. We will believe until the end.”
Dallas has already made a shocking result this postseason, collecting 2-0 and 3-2 deficits to eliminate No. 1 overall Phoenix Suns in the semifinals of the conference. The Mavs finished the series, 33 points ahead of the Suns, the road team’s biggest win in Game 7 since 1948.
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Doncic, the 23-year-old guard who was selected as the All-NBA’s first team for the third straight season before Thursday’s game, added to his list of impressive appearances in potential elimination games with 30 points, 14 rebounds and 9 assists. Warriors.
According to a study by ESPN Stats & Information, he joined the Hall of Fame Elgin Baylor as the only player in NBA history to score at least 30 points in each of his first five potential elimination matches.
“I just want to win the match and that’s it,” Doncic said. “We have more to do, you know. It’s nothing. We have three more.”
The Mavs built a 29-point lead after three-quarters largely by breaking the Warriors zone, which Dallas coach Jason Kidd called a “compliment … because they can’t keep us one-on-one.”
Dallas was 19 out of 36 in the three-point range in three quarters when Golden State coach Steve Kerr withdrew.
“We weren’t on the defensive tonight,” said Kerr, whose team failed in its first attempt to finish all three series this postseason. “We were not sharp. And I thought we were going to let them get in the hole somehow, and once a team like this gets into a 3-point channel, it’s hard to get them out of it. “
But the match was not without drama, and not just from a leak in the roof, which led to a 16-minute delay after halftime. The Warriors ‘reserves reduced the Mavs’ lead to a single-digit lead of 3:23, prompting Kerr to bring back starters Stephen Curry, Clay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins to the court after a Dallas time-out.
Doncic scored a Jalen Brunson feed on the next reign, returning the lead to 10, and the Warriors never came close.
“Don’t panic,” Kidd said. “We had a pretty big lead. They had to make a decision. They brought their group back and they couldn’t do it.”
Now the series will return to San Francisco for game 5 on Thursday.
“Everyone in this locker room feels like we still have basketball to play,” said Mavs striker Dorian Feeney-Smith, who scored 23 points in 9 of 13 shots. “We just wanted to win with all the necessary means.
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