Mavs Weekend Bubble Donuts: 'It's Not A Scrimmage To Me!'

It'd been more than four months since we've seen the Dallas Mavericks in action ... oh, and since we'd seen the Los Angeles Lakers in action as well. Mavs Vs. Lakers reviewed in Scrimmage Donuts as we turn the page to the next challenge ...

DONUT 1: 'NOT A SCRIMMAGE!' "Let’s Get It!! We back at it tonight," LeBron James said on Instagram before the Thursday session in the NBA bubble in Orlando. "Can’t wait and it’s just a scrimmage. Not to me, though.''

DONUT 2: NOT TO LUKA, EITHER On a scrimmage court that also featured LeBron and Anthony Davis, Luka Doncic was its best player. He keyed a 108-104 Mavericks exhibition victory with his usual buoyant intensity, the only concern being whether he got a bit banged up, causing him to wobble off the floor.

"I'm OK,'' The Slovenian Sensation announced, evoking relieved sighs from even the artificial fans assembled in the gym.

“It’s different, for sure,” said Doncic of an atmosphere that didn't stop him from finishing with 14 points, six assists and five rebounds in 17 minutes. “You can hear a lot of talking, and that’s different. But we just came here to play basketball, and we gave our max.”

The gray-speckled-bearded LeBron was good. So was Anthony Davis. And they also "gave their max.''

But their max wasn't superior to Luka's.

DONUT 3: 'IN THE GROOVE' Also stellar was Seth Curry, who "pitched a perfect game'' - 8-of-8 from the floor, including 6-of-6 from the arc - to total a game-high 23.

“Every shot I got was something I worked on and something I probably should actually make,” Curry said. “It wasn’t anything too crazy. ... It felt good and I hope things continue.”

DONUT 4: BOBAN VS. THE WORLD Boban Marjanovic came off the bench with 17 points and 13 rebounds in 24 minutes. Yes, yes, we know, 24 minutes is too much. He'll get exposed. All of that stuff.

But ...

“He’s definitely a weapon for us and we’re going to have to take advantage of what he does,'' coach Rick Carlisle said of his 7-4, 290-pound third-string center. "There’s going to be some unusual matchups on both sides of the ball, but we’re going to have to take advantage of his size on the offensive end and find creative ways to cover him defensively.”

Or, just let Boban cover Dwight Howard defensively. Twice. On the same play. (Read that story here.)

It was Marjanovic, remember, who on March 11, in the last NBA game finished before the league entered its coronavirus hiatus, poured in 31 points and pulled down 17 rebounds in a home victory over Denver.

Maybe the Mavericks won’t miss Willie Cauley-Stein, who elected not to take part in the season restart, after all.

“Overall, a lot of good things,” Carlisle said. “Two areas that hurt us: We had a lot of turnovers (14) and we fouled a lot. Those are two areas that we’ll look to improve.”

It’s been four-plus months of no games, after all. No one expected Thursday to be flawless, but perhaps few expected the teams to be so fiery.

Carlisle did, however.

“Everybody always competes extremely hard in the first exhibition game in any sport at any time,” he said. “You’ve just come off an extended string of practices. Everybody’s wired up. Everybody’s got a lot of anticipation to get back on the floor.”

Factor in a pandemic and doubts about whether this season would resume, and you get what we saw Thursday

DONUT 5: BY THE NUMBERS Dallas shot 54.1 percent. That's going to win the Mavs a lot of games (40 of their 67 so far, with eight regular-season outings to go starting on July 30 against Houston in the bubble). But Carlisle is pushing for his team to not be a one-trick (offensive) pony.

“I thought overall we did a lot of good things,” he said. “Two areas that hurt us – we made a lot of turnovers and we fouled a lot.”

The turnovers? Fourteen. The fouls? Kristaps Porzingis played just 15 and finished with only eight points on 3-of-6 shooting due to foul issues.

DONUT 6: DEFENSE! D-FENSE! Can Dallas be a good defense team?

"The statistics and the rank in the league kind of tell the story of defense,” Carlisle said. “We want to be a better team protecting the rim. We still want to be effective at protecting the 3-point line. It’s hard to do both.

“The last few years, we have not done a great job of defending the 3-point line. But right now, the rim has got to be a priority. We’re a good defensive team. I don’t think we’re bad. We’re ranked about average – and we got to be above average and work to get into top 10 to be one of those teams that’s really in the hunt.”

DONUT 7: LUKA'S LOVE We all remember how Doncic's intensity sometimes bubbled over into anger at the refs. And maybe that is destined to return. But there wasn't much of that on Thursday.

We wonder if having the game stolen away from a person for four months causes that person to be so overcome with joy upon its return that there's just no time for anger.

We'll see.

DONUT 8: THE DIRKIE STAR OF THE GAME DBcom traditionally gives "The Dirkie'' to an outstanding Mav after a win. This was only a scrimmage, but ...

Yeah, it's Luka. He did so much right, including this oddity: He'a a "gym rat'' with a noticeably bronze tan.

That's his latest trick shot.

DONUT 9: KNICKS AND KIDD? Makes sense to us. We're fans of Jason Kidd's bulldog approach to things, and of his otherworldly BBIQ, too. The New York Knicks do not represent a stable place to start success, of course. But Kidd as the head coach there? Our only reason to not like it is that we fear he might be able to out-recruit the Mavs for players on the move.

DONUT 10: STAYING HEALTHY AND MORE Due to COVID-19, this is even more a "game of attrition'' than normal. Who can stay healthy? Who can stay sane? What about problems at home? The Houston Rockets just lost a rotation player due to "family matters.'' The Indiana Pacers are now down a man to injury.

If you're a MFFL, you hope everything is OK there ... but you also hope it doesn't happen to one of your guys.

DONUT 11: WHAT'S ON TAP The Mavs do not practice on Saturday. (Look forward to volumes of social-media posts on their non-basketball activities.) They'll follow Thursday’s scrimmage against the Lakers with a session with the Indiana Pacers on Sunday at 3 p.m. (on NBA TV and streamed on Mavs.com), and the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. (with the plan to televise on Fox Sports Southwest and Mavs.com).

In those outings, we'll probably see the NBA unveil more ideas and experiment with more too, all geared to help the presentation of the product.

Said an enthused Carlisle: “It’s different, but it’s really cool. I keep saying this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And I love it. The creativity involved in this, I don’t think they utilized the visual boards the way they will once the real games start in terms of home fan noise and those kind of things.

“There’s more tricks in the NBA’s bag as we move forward.”

DONUT 12: THE FINAL WORD "“I think we played great offensively. We’ve got a lot of weapons on our team.'' - Luka Doncic.