Dallas Mavericks to restart season against the Rockets

More than four months after the NBA season was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Dallas Mavericks will begin play against the Houston Rockets.

The Dallas Mavericks will tip-off their eight-game NBA restart schedule facing in-state rival the Houston Rockets on July 31st.

The battle of the Texas teams is set for 8 p.m. CST on ESPN at The Arena at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.

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Dallas went into the NBA hiatus (season suspended on March 11th due to the coronavirus pandemic) with a record of 40-27 (.597) and currently sits in seventh place in the Western Conference entering the restart. The Rockets sit just above them at sixth with a 40-24 record (.625).

The NBA will resume its season on July 30th with a match-up between the Utah Jazz vs. New Orleans Pelicans and the Los Angeles Clippers vs. the LA Lakers.

Following their matchup with the Rockets, the Mavericks will face the Phoenix Suns (Sunday, Aug. 2, 8 p.m. CST), Sacramento Kings (Tuesday, Aug. 4, 1:30 p.m. CST), the LA Clippers (Thursday, Aug. 6, at 5:30 p.m. CST), Milwaukee Bucks (Saturday, Aug. 8 at 7:30 p.m.), Utah Jazz (Monday, Aug. 10 at 2 p.m.), Portland Trail Blazers (Tuesday, Aug. 11 at 4 p.m.) and the Phoenix Suns again (Thursday, Aug. 13, Time TBD).

Players had until earlier this week to opt out of going to Orlando. Dallas Mavericks center Willie Cauley-Stein is the only player from the team to sit out. First reported by Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium, Cauley-Stein and his partner are expecting a newborn child in July.

Traded to the Mavs in January by the Warriors, Cauley-Stein played in 13 games with Dallas (two starts), and averaged 5.2 points, 4.6 rebounds and 0.8 blocks in 12.1 minutes per game. T

According to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, the Mavs will reportedly fill Cauley-Stein’s roster spot by signing point guard Trey Burke, who previously played for Mavs last season. Burke most recently was waived by the Philadelphia 76ers after playing 25 games.

How to Watch the Dallas Mavericks

Fox Sports Southwest will carry all eight of the Mavericks’ seeding games with Mark Followill, Derek Harper and Jeff “Skin” Wade calling the action remotely from their studio in Las Colinas, Texas.

In addition to the matchup with Houston, ESPN will also televise the Mavericks’ game against Milwaukee. TNT will air their game with the Clippers and NBA TV will show the team’s game against Utah.

Locally, ESPN 103.3 FM will air all eight Mavericks games with Voice of the Mavs Chuck Cooperstein and Brad Davis broadcasting from the Mavericks locker room at American Airlines Center. Victor Villalba will provide the play-by-play in Spanish on 1207 AM from the Univision Deportes studio.

Restart Plan:

On Friday the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association announced they had finalized a comprehensive plan for the 2019-20 season restart which includes “stringent health and safety protocols, a single-site campus at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida and the goal of taking collective action to combat systemic racism and promote social justice.”

The 22 teams traveling to Orlando for the season restart are the Milwaukee Bucks, Toronto Raptors, Boston Celtics, Miami Heat, Indiana Pacers, Philadelphia 76ers, Brooklyn Nets, Orlando Magic and Washington Wizards from the Eastern Conference and the Los Angeles Lakers, LA Clippers, Denver Nuggets, Utah Jazz, Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks, Memphis Grizzlies, Portland Trail Blazers, New Orleans Pelicans, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs and Phoenix Suns from the Western Conference. The teams will play eight “seeding games,” as selected from their remaining regular-season contests.

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The restart will include strict health and safety protocols and the goal of taking collective action to combat systemic racism and promote social justice. Games will resume with the 22 teams playing at The Arena, HP Field House and VISA Athletic Center at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex with no fans in attendance.

According to details set forth from league officials, following the seeding games, the seven teams in each conference with the highest combined winning percentages across regular-season matchups and seeding contests will be the first through seventh seeds for the playoffs. If the team with the eighth-best combined winning percentage (regular season and seeding games) in a conference is more than four games ahead of the team with the ninth-best combined winning percentage in the same conference, then the team with the eighth-best winning percentage would be the eighth playoff seed in that conference.

If the team with the eighth-best combined winning percentage in a conference (Team 8) is four games or fewer ahead of the team with the ninth-best combined winning percentage in the same conference (Team 9), then those two teams would compete in a play-in tournament to determine the eighth playoff seed in the conference. The play-in tournament will be double elimination for Team 8 and single elimination for Team 9.

The NBA’s standard playoff tiebreaker procedures will be used to break any ties on the basis of winning percentage. Once the 16-team playoff field is set, the NBA Playoffs will proceed in a traditional conference-based format with four rounds and best-of-seven series in each round. The 2020 NBA Finals will end no later than Oct. 13 according to league officials.