Last Week: (L) to Atlanta, (W) over Toronto
The Mavericks began the season with a matchup with the Atlanta Hawks, the other end of the “Luka Doncic Trade” that brought Doncic to Dallas with Trae Young and the pick that became Cam Reddish going to Atlanta. Despite Luka being the better player, the Hawks were the better team that night, laying a 26-point devastation on the Mavs.
Their second game was a bit of a bounceback, a close win over the Toronto Raptors. Doncic is averaging a cool 22.5 points, 10 rebounds and 9.5 assists per game. Kristaps Porzingis, hoping for a bounceback season, has been largely anonymous, shooting 33.3 percent from the field and averaging just 14.5 points and 7.5 rebounds per game.
First Impression: Jason Kidd’s coaching. The Dallas Mavericks have one of the league’s fastest-rising stars in Luka Doncic and a team of dependent players around him who hopefully complement each other to make things work around Doncic on offense. New head coach Jason Kidd has swept in handmade scheme changes that (he has publicly professed) seek to limit their 3-point attempts and get the ball out of Luka’s hands more often.
That’s what has happened thus far, with the Mavericks moving shots into the midrange and running plays for non-Doncic players, such as Tim Hardaway Jr. (a decent option) and Dorian Finney-Smith post-ups (not a decent option). Kidd was a terrible coach at his previous two stops; can he prove all of his doubters wrong this year?