NBA Playoffs: Clippers Big Plans To 'Take Advantage' Of Mavs

A Dallas Mavericks watcher wouldn't be surprised if, leading up to Monday's Game 1 of the NBA Playoffs first-round series pitting No. 7 seed Dallas against the No. 2 seed Los Angeles Clippers, certain members of the Clippers popped off.

Kawhi Leonard? He's trying for his third straight Finals MVP award. Paul George? He's All-NBA.

But Ivica Zubac? Who the hell is Ivica Zubac?

He's the guy who says of this series, “I feel like I can get to offensive rebounds more. I feel like rolling through the pocket, it feels like I have more space. You know, I just feel physically that I can get a lot of offensive rebounds.''

Zubac's logic, as noted by ClutchPoints, is that the injury absence of center Dwight Powell has cleared a path for him to dominate.

Now, the 23-year-old 7-footer from Croatia didn't spend the entire season "dominating.'' Overall on the year, Zubac is averaging 8.3 points and 7.6 boards.

Nor has he been "dominant'' in the Orlando bubble, where these playoffs will unfold as the eight seeding games did. He’s an 11/11 guy in the bubble.

But in the bubble meeting against the Mavs? Zubac scored 24 points and secured 15 rebounds - and was 10-of-10 from the floor, working inside and, yeah, "dominating'' Dallas.

As part of Dallas' interior defense, 7-3 Kristaps Porzingis is a shot-blocker. And 7-4 backup Boban Marjanovic can be highly-productive in spurts. Maxi Kleber? Sure, but Dallas has experienced some (relative) success with Maxi on Kawhi. Maybe Dallas coach Rick Carlisle will pull a wild-card from the deck and utilized little-used rebounding forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist a bit here.

As much of as the keys to tonight's game (8 p.m. CT tipoff) are largely in the hands of the likes of Leonard, George and Luka Doncic, figuring out an answer to Zubac may need to be elevated as a priority.

"I think physically I can really take advantage of that of that matchup,'' said Zubac, a bold statement that the Mavs would like to box out, shut down and swat away.

Add us as a preferred source on Google