Dallas Basketball

LISTEN: Mavs' Good Vibes Returning at Perfect Time; Kyrie Irving Destined For Dallas?

The Dallas Mavericks have won two consecutive games for the first time in over a month, and it couldn't have happened at a better time with the Western Conference playoff race being as tight as ever. The latest win over the Los Angeles Lakers featured a shocking buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Maxi Kleber and Kyrie Irving exploding for 38 points.
Dalton Trigg|
LISTEN: Mavs' Good Vibes Returning at Perfect Time; Kyrie Irving Destined For Dallas?
LISTEN: Mavs' Good Vibes Returning at Perfect Time; Kyrie Irving Destined For Dallas?

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Dallas MavericksLos Angeles Lakers

Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd has preached patience throughout what has been an odd – and at some points, maddening – season for a team that made the Western Conference Finals one year ago.

Heading into Friday night's matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers, that patience was wearing thin for the Mavs, as they had lost nine of their last 13 games with the postseason just a month away. However, one glorious game-winning, buzzer-beating shot from six-year veteran Maxi Kleber has given Dallas a much-needed injection of renewed energy and confidence.

"I saw Kyrie [Irving] getting double-teamed, and when he kind of moved away from me, I looked up at the shot clock, and I saw it was like 2.5 seconds or something," Kleber said of his heroic moment. "He turned back around but couldn't get a shot off. So when he passed that, I knew I had to like just quick fire, and that's basically what I did."

On this episode of the Mavs Step Back Podcast, we re-live the excitement of Dallas' walk-off win, while also acknowledging how fitting it was that Kleber made the game-winning shot just two days after nearly costing the Mavs a game against the lowly San Antonio Spurs.

From there, we give a West standings update with just 11 games remaining and talk about how the negative narratives surrounding Kyrie Irving as a teammate coming out of Brooklyn might have been severely overblown. By all accounts in his short stint in Dallas so far, Irving is not only an incredible All-Star caliber player the Mavs desperately needed on the court, but he might also be assuming Jalen Brunson's "glue guy" role from last season off the court as well.

"He has always positive spirits, uplifting words, and all that," Kleber said of Irving as a teammate. "I'm very appreciative to be able to play with him. I learn a lot from just like his body language, the way he interacts with his teammates, and just a great character guy."

You can listen to the entire postgame episode here:

As always, thanks for listening! Be sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify for a chance to win future giveaways. Also, be sure to download the Playback app to join our FREE Mavs watch parties for every single game.

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Dalton Trigg
DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.

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