The Dallas Mavericks season is, for all intents and purposes, over. While the Mavs have two games left in the 2022-23 season and still have a shot to make the Western Conference play-in tournament if they win out and get some help in the form of an Oklahoma City Thunder loss in their season finale, the team announced that a number of major contributors would not play in Friday night’s game against the Chicago Bulls.
Kyrie Irving (right foot injury recovery), Josh Green (rest), Tim Hardaway Jr. (left ankle soreness), Maxi Kleber (right hamstring injury recovery) and Christian Wood (rest) will all miss tonight’s game against the Bulls.
— Mavs PR (@MavsPR) April 7, 2023
It was a curious decision because, again, Dallas can still make it to the play-in and make the playoffs if they win two games. But if those absences were not big enough, Tim MacMahon of ESPN eventually reported that Luka Doncic will only play in the first quarter and then get shut down for the remainder of the evening.
Friday is the second annual “I Feel Slovenia Night,” so watching Doncic play is a big draw. In his pregame media availability, however, Mavericks coach Jason Kidd indicated that when Doncic leaves the game, it will be the final time that we see him this season.
Here’s Jason Kidd’s answer on how Luka Doncic reacted to the Mavs’ organizational decision to pull the plug three days after the All-NBA guard declared he wanted to play as long as there were even the slimmest postseason hopes: pic.twitter.com/9hUUBqts4m
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) April 7, 2023
Then I asked Kidd how the players feel about the decision. pic.twitter.com/TWOiaTFqKD
— Brad Townsend (@townbrad) April 7, 2023
Dallas’ first-round pick in the 2023 NBA Draft is top-10 protected, so this does help them lock in the 10th-best odds in the Draft Lottery. Still, for the Mavs to pivot towards ping pong balls this late and when they still have a chance to make it to the postseason by winning out is pretty shocking.
