Outside of the Luka Doncic trade, the story of the season for the Dallas Mavericks has been injuries.
Seemingly every player on the roster has missed significant time with various injuries, and no one in their starting five (Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson, P.J. Washington, Anthony Davis, and Dereck Lively II) outside of Klay Thompson has played in more than 60 games this season. Every time that they get healthy, someone else seems to go down, and that trend continued for Jason Kidd’s squad on Sunday afternoon against the Memphis Grizzlies.
Heading into the game against the Grizzlies, the Mavericks had home-court advantage in the Play-In Tournament on the line. Dallas needed to win while the Sacramento Kings needed to lose their game against the Phoenix Suns later that day for the Mavs to secure a home play-in game at the American Airlines Center, but Kidd decided to rest multiple key players (Lively II, Davis, Washington, and Thompson) against the Grizzlies to give them the best shot of caming out of the game healthy.
Mavs’ injury curse hit them again, even with Kidd trying to avoid it
This was a bold bet from Kidd, as the chance to host a home play-in game would have been game-changing when it comes to the Mavericks’ odds of clinching a playoff berth, and part of his gamble came to fruition when the Kings defeated the Suns later that day. It wouldn’t have mattered if the Mavericks beat the Grizzlies or not, as they were going to play on the road in Sacramento on Wednesday night either way, but his cautious decision to rest players in order to be as healthy as possible for the play-in game against the Kings still ended up heartbreakingly backfiring.
Brandon Williams went down with a left oblique strain against the Grizzlies, and this injury couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Williams started against Memphis on Sunday, and he was coming off a stellar performance on Friday night against the Toronto Raptors in which he finished with 17 points while shooting 7-8 from the field. This dominant performance caused Williams to draw some Kyrie Irving comparisons from Kidd and Anthony Davis, and now the Mavericks are in danger of being without their breakout point guard for Wednesday against the Kings and potentially beyond.
We should know more about Williams’s injury today, as Kidd said he is set to undergo testing to see the severity of the injury, and Mavericks fans will be praying for good news later today. Williams has been key for the Mavericks over the past month and a half, and his spectacular play even caused Nico Harrison to upgrade his two-way contract to a two-year standard deal to lock him down in Dallas for the foreseeable future.
His ability to handle the ball, get to the rim, and create his own shot has been crucial for the Mavericks since early-March, and as sad as it is, fans may have to wait until next season to see Williams back on the floor.
The Mavericks’ bad injury luck endured on Sunday, even with Kidd taking a calculated conservative approach ahead of the play-in by resting players, and Dallas will be needing all of the luck they can get when it comes to Williams’s availability for Wednesday night in Sacramento.
