First Quarter roundtable: Favorite Mavericks game so far this season

Which game has been your favorite so far this season?

Kevin: My favorite game of the season so far was a loss, but it was a fun one: the first match up against the Los Angeles Lakers. The “You’re a bad mother****er” game. Not only was it an insanely entertaining game between two good teams, but it also showed everyone watching that Luka Doncic can truly go head to head with LeBron James. Cap it all off with an all-time quote from an all-time great? That’s a hell of a game.

Sam: My favorite game of the season so far was the win in Houston against the Rockets. Before that the Mavericks didn’t really have a signature win. Sure, they had beaten Toronto and Denver, but the win over the Rockets on a Sunday afternoon seemed like the game where I finally realized “ok, this team might be legit”. Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis played well, Tim Hardaway Jr. scored 31 points, and we got a glimpse what this team could look like when the best players synced their games up.

Jeffrey: My favorite game of the season was the win in Los Angeles against the Lakers. Especially because they should have beat them at home the first time if it weren’t for a few missed free throws and a couple of blown calls. That game the Mavericks showed they were capable of beating an elite western conference team on their home floor. Oh, and Luka being the best player on the same floor as Anthony Davis and LeBron James was pretty cool too.

Matt: My favorite game of the season so far was the early win against the Nuggets in Denver. Not only was it a victory and early measuring stick against one of the best teams in the West, but it was highly, highly weird. It gave hope to the idea that we would be able to win games in various ways and not just by having Luka and KP score 30 points each, as fun as it is when that happens.

As a reminder, every Maverick who played in that game, save for a minutes-restricted Dwight Powell, scored double digit points. The bench stepped up in a big way to secure a win that felt like we were getting away with something. Like, that’s not how teams win games in today’s NBA. I imagine all the Mavs players left the arena after that win and boarded on to the team jet thusly:

We stole one. Feels good.

Christian: The Mavericks’ win over the Spurs in November was my favorite game of the season so far. This honestly felt like the night a “Luka MVP” campaign became legitimate, scoring a career-high 42 points to go along with double-digit assists and rebounds. Most notably, Luka sank the 3-point dagger with 27 seconds left after the Spurs surged back from as much as a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter. This game could also be known as the “Finney-Smith Game”, with Doe-Doe scoring a career-high 22 points and hitting a crucial jumper off a deflection in the last minutes of the game. All-in-all, this game was a blast, the AAC was rockin’, and beating the Spurs is something I greatly enjoy.

Kirk: In retrospect, it might have to be that crazy win on the road against the Nuggets were Luka and Porzingis played like crap, but the bench game through in a big way. That was the first time I started to think this might actually be a playoff team. I know I’ve been a grump but seeing a win like that gave me a lot of faith. Dallas has done that enough through twenty games, “that” being win games in ugly fashion. It’s been refreshing.