In 2024, the Dallas Mavericks represented the Western Conference in the NBA Finals. One season later, they face two road games for their playoff survival.
Of course, this Dallas team looks nothing like the squad that faced the Boston Celtics for NBA glory last June. Then again, their opponents for tonight’s 9-10 matchup, the Sacramento Kings, look nothing like Boston, either. The winner of this game will face the Memphis Grizzlies for the eighth seed and the honor of (likely) being swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round.
Sacramento is a five-point favorite (-198 Moneyline) at DraftKings Sportsbook, with the point total set for 215.5. Meanwhile, the Mavericks are +164 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down everything you need to know about these two teams before they face off tonight.
Mavericks at Kings preview, prediction
If you look up “turmoil” in the dictionary, it might show you a picture of Dallas’ 2024-25 campaign. Through the first 30 games of the season, the Mavericks were in decent position, sitting fourth in the Western Conference standings on Christmas Day, when Luka Dončić suffered a calf strain. Just five weeks later, Dončić was gone, and a week after that, Anthony Davis and Daniel Gafford suffered major leg injuries in back-to-back games, while Dončić’s new team, the Los Angeles Lakers, soared briefly to second in the West standings. Kyrie Irving’s torn ACL on March 3 was the dagger, and the Mavericks needed Davis to return just to sneak into the Play-In.
Dallas’ chances of winning this game, and of eventually advancing past Oklahoma City, hinge on the broad shoulders of The Brow. Davis has looked pretty good since returning from his injury, averaging 19.3 points, 9.4 rebounds, and 2.1 blocks per game across his eight starts, and crucially, in their last 11 games of the regular season, the Mavericks went 5-6, had a top-half defense, and weren’t entirely decimated on the boards. The double-big lineup, featuring Davis and either Dereck Lively II or Gafford, has shown a few flashes. At their best, Dallas’ interior defense can stifle Domantas Sabonis and DeMar DeRozan, forcing Sacramento to win from deep behind Zach LaVine’s shooting.
The Kings have had tumult of their own throughout the course of the season, firing head coach Mike Brown on December 27 and trading De’Aaron Fox to the San Antonio Spurs at Fox’s urging. But Sacramento has remained relatively steady, with Sabonis leading the league in rebounds per game for the third consecutive season, LaVine averaging an ultra-efficient 22 points per game since joining the team in the Fox deal, and Jonas Valančiūnas filling in capably for his compatriot when Sabonis went down with a series of injuries. Since Sabonis’ return 12 games ago, the team has been about average on both offense and defense overall but dominant on the boards.
Mavericks at Kings pick, best bet
Perhaps it’s my bias as a Lakers fan who appreciated Davis while he wore the purple and gold, but — especially given the odds — I favor the Mavericks to pull off the upset. The last time we saw Davis take the floor, in a 124-102 win over the Toronto Raptors on Saturday, he was dominant, to put it mildly: 23 points, 13 rebounds, 10 assists, and seven blocks in less than 30 minutes. At his best, he’s a Defensive Player of the Year-level game-wrecker and a solid interior scorer to boot. In the playoffs, star power tends to win, and Davis is the best player on either team.
The Kings don’t allow a ton of points in the paint — a category in which Davis ranked fifth this season — but that doesn’t tell the full story. Opponents shot just 3.3 percentage points worse than usual within six feet when guarded by Sabonis, the eighth-worst figure among 17 starting centers who played at least 65 games this season, and he grades out merely as an average defender by other metrics. In Davis’ most recent game against Sabonis, a 132-122 Los Angeles win on December 28, he had 36 points, 15 rebounds, and eight assists.
The injury to Malik Monk is concerning. Sacramento’s shooting guard averaged 17.2 points and a career-high 5.6 assists per game, and his three-point shooting upside offered the Kings a new look that might have been devastating in the playoffs. But he suffered a calf strain in the fourth-to-last game of the season and will miss tonight’s game. Sacramento lost its first two games after Monk’s injury with Devin Carter taking on additional usage off the bench before notching an 11-point victory over the Phoenix Suns’ reserves on the final day of the season as it played an otherwise full-strength squad while trying to secure home-court advantage. I’m not sure if that’ll matter, though; the Kings were 20-21 both on the road and at home this season.
Dallas is has certain matchup advantages. Sacramento was the league’s most midrange-reliant team, making an NBA-high 6.6 midrange shots per game and shooting the eighth-highest percentage on such shots, unsurprising given that it rosters DeMar DeRozan. The Kings also have a lethal three-point threat in LaVine, whose 44.6% mark this season led the league among players who played at least 65 games and attempted at least three triples per contest. But since Davis returned from his injury, the Mavericks have allowed the second-fewest midrange makes per game on the fifth-lowest percentage. Davis and Lively both rank in the league’s top 15 in contested shots per game, and Davis ranks fifth in contested threes. In a pressure-packed game with thin margins, Dallas’ length and experience will make the difference.
