Dallas Basketball

'Straight to DVD': JaVale McGee, Mavericks Remain Hopeful for Play-In Tournament

The Mavericks have three games remaining to ‘play catch-up’ and sneak their way into the play-in tournament to salvage their season.
Michael Mulford|
'Straight to DVD': JaVale McGee, Mavericks Remain Hopeful for Play-In Tournament
'Straight to DVD': JaVale McGee, Mavericks Remain Hopeful for Play-In Tournament

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Dallas Mavericks

The woes continued on Sunday for the spiraling Dallas Mavericks, as they lost their third straight game, falling in overtime to the Atlanta Hawks, 132-130.

Dallas fought back from a double-digit deficit on the back of Kyrie Irving’s 41 points but was unable to get it done in overtime following JaVale McGee’s game-tying free throw at the end of regulation.

“It hurts. It hurts bad,” McGee said of the loss. “We all put our hearts out there to try to get that win. It doesn’t feel good at all. It doesn’t feel good being in this position at all."

For McGee, he made arguably his biggest impact of the season for the Mavs, finishing with 11 points and six rebounds on a team-high +13 in 23 minutes off the bench, along with closing out the fourth quarter and overtime. 

“We’re trying to stay focused and stay together,” McGee said. “We’re trying to get every win we can and get our streak on the winning side so we can make that play-in.”

That's going to be hard for the Mavs to accomplish at this point, even if they win all of their final three games. Dallas is one game back of the Oklahoma City Thunder for the final play-in spot and two games back of the Minnesota Timberwolves for the No. 9 spot. To make things worse, both of those teams own the regular-season tiebreaker over the Mavs.

“We know the situation we’re in,” coach Jason Kidd said. “We’re playing catch-up. And we got to find a way to win. Right now, we’re coming up short. We need to win games and unfortunately we’re not winning right now.”

Kidd has been reluctant to giving McGee any minutes as of late, and rightfully so. But, with how poorly Dallas’ big men are rebounding and defending the rim, it may be time for McGee to get his number called more often, especially after almost winning the game for the Mavs on Sunday.

“In hindsight that's what movies are made of, not playing the whole season. Then coming down to you hitting those two free-throws for the win,” McGee said. “Unfortunately I missed one of them and it went into OT. Yeah, that movie's going straight to DVD. It's not coming out.”

At this rate, Dallas’ season will be going straight to VHS.

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Michael Mulford
MICHAEL MULFORD

Michael Mulford is a writer/editor for Dallas Basketball, where he extensively covers the Dallas Mavericks. He also covers the Chicago Bulls as the Managing Editor for Bulls Wire of USA Today Sports Media Group. Mulford grew up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and graduated from the University of North Texas in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in Recreation, Event, and Sports Management. He began his pursuit of sports writing in 2017 with Dallas Sports Fanatic, where he covered the Mavericks’ G League affiliate, Texas Legends. He then became the Managing Editor of Dallas Sports Fanatic just one year later and has covered the Mavericks as a credentialed media member since 2018, including covering numerous playoff games between 2021-22 and covering the team at NBA Summer League in Las Vegas in 2019. In his time covering the Mavericks, Mulford has conducted numerous interviews for exclusive stories including with Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki, former Maverick and current VP of Basketball Ops Michael Finley, former Mavericks GM Donnie Nelson, and more. You can follow and interact with Mulford on Twitter at @TheMulf.

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