Luka passed up two open layups for Exum corner threes. Exum is a deadeye.

Luka already at 13/7/4 with 3 and half minutes left to play in the 1st

Make that 16/7/4

Luka was due for one of these nights

22/8/4 in the first for Luka.

Just a moment ago, the score was 47 for Luka and 60 for Houston.

Man, so much for that win streak. The Mavs are playing so incredibly well right now.

Such good team basketball all the way around plus an insane individual performance. Mavs have 111 points with 8 minutes left and this game was over one quarter ago.

Dereck Lively II (right lower leg injury) has been ruled out for the rest of today's game. He is currently on the Mavs' bench, but had his leg worked on by the training staff after returning from the locker room after halftime.

— Grant Afseth (@GrantAfseth) April 1, 2024

Ok time to take Luka out…actually was time 5 mins ago

Tied for first in the division!

zgolfz85 said:

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Ok time to take Luka out…actually was time 5 mins ago

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Thought so too, but they let him try to get triple doubles because he cares about that.

I actually found it to be promising, because if he was injured in any serious way then he wouldn't have been playing at all in the 4th.

In the 5 spot for the moment

double post

Zachary Klement said:

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I'm surprised Luka and Jokic's MVP odds are so far apart. It is even weirder to me that there are media members who actually believe Tatum or SGA are better than Luka.

I wonder when he will finally break through and win one.

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I wonder what happens if the Nuggets finish 3rd and the Mavs stay in 5th or somehow even move up to 4th. People have completely forgotten how injured this team was early in the season. A couple months in to the season we had used as many total games missed by injured players as teams that are now vying for the first overall pick.

If the Mavs win all the games they should for the rest of they year and Luka stays on his heater, I bet the Luka MVP talk heats up.

Harden and Westbrook killed the Crazy Stats Guy MVP forever, so Luka can't win it that way. He'll have to do some playoff damage or get an impressive regular seaon win total to be considered

MW03 said:

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It was pretty clear they Luka wasn't going to get any love when he scored 73 and they were complaining about offense in the league being OP.

I don't remember who said it, but someone was talking about how the mavs team hasn't won enough games and then ironically brought up Jokic. The Nuggets won 48 games and finished 6th in the west when he won in 2022.

PS, Luka averaged a 30-point triple double in March.

Luka in the month of March

32.5 Points

10.1 Rebounds

10.1 Assists

11-3 record

Player of the month. MVP. pic.twitter.com/aJbFu7lA8o

— Luka Muse (@Luka7Muse) April 1, 2024

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I think Luka hurts himself a bit with the ref complaints....it sucks for us and for him, but it is the only part of his game that I hate. I can see why non homers are turned off even more so. Hopefully he puts that part of his game behind him soon.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Harden and Westbrook killed the Crazy Stats Guy MVP forever, so Luka can't win it that way. He'll have to do some playoff damage or get an impressive regular seaon win total to be considered

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lol also the big dude in Denver is racking up his own crazy stats. Like, he's basically re writing the advanced metrics for NBA players.

Luka has the raw #s, but Jokic has the advanced #s AND the wins. If the Mavs were outpacing the Nuggets in the W/L column (which I understand is unfair, but record is basically the tie breaker), the trophy would be his.

Has anyone finished #1 in scoring and #2 in assists since Tiny Archibald won both categories 52 years ago?

What's wild is that if you ran off the top players in the league right now, you could run through 5 before you get to your first American-born player (Tatum).

Luka (Slovenia)
Jokic (Serbia)
Giannis (Greece)
SGA (Canada)
Embiid (Cameroon)

Zachary Klement said:

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I'm surprised Luka and Jokic's MVP odds are so far apart. It is even weirder to me that there are media members who actually believe Tatum or SGA are better than Luka.

I wonder when he will finally break through and win one.

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Look back at the stats when Dirk won the MVP. Dirk didn't have the best numbers in the league but he had the best record. A lot of voters just put the best player on the best team, and I think we will see votes for Tatum, even though he realistically isn't top 5.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Harden and Westbrook killed the Crazy Stats Guy MVP forever, so Luka can't win it that way. He'll have to do some playoff damage or get an impressive regular seaon win total to be considered

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Not sure how true this is. Westbrook averaged a triple double so they just gave him the award for doing something wild.

But just 2 years ago, Jokic won the MVP and the Nuggets were the 6 seed with 48 wins. The Mavericks will definitely finish with more wins than that and likely finish higher in the standings. Jokic won it because Murray missed the whole year and carried them (they lost in the first round of the playoffs). I think that Jokic year is the comp for Luka this year.

Luka clearly had a bad team around him other than Kyrie in the first half of the year. Kyrie missed a lot of time towards the beginning of the year and Luka kept the team afloat while he had more games missed by players because of injury than just about anybody. And in the second half of the year, with two new teammates who play significant minutes, Luka has taken this team to another level.

Suns do the Mavs a solid and beat the Pelicans.

shack009 said:

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Suns do the Mavs a solid and beat the Pelicans.

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Really hoping we can beat golden state both times at the end of the season here. Would love it if we didn't have to see draymond greens ugly face in the playoffs at all.

What am I missing with the Warriors being favored tomorrow night?

gigem1223 said:

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What am I missing with the Warriors being favored tomorrow night?

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Game is in Oakland and the oddsmakers are betting on us being tired at the end of a long road trip probably.

And I wonder if Lively is out?

I'm thinking that's a possibility.

But Mav-destroyer Jonathan Kuminga has been out for them and is listed as questionable right now. Would be a fairly comparable loss for them, if not more impactful.