Spurs vs. Mavericks Preview: 3 things to watch for as San Antonio visits Dallas

The Dallas Mavericks (38-43) will host the San Antonio Spurs (21-59) for the final game of their season on Sunday afternoon. There’s not much at stake for either team. The Spurs will finish their season-long tank job, and the Mavericks will being going through the motions after a roller coaster season.

The injury report isn’t out as of this writing, but it’s assumed Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and several other members of the Mavericks’ rotation will sit with various ailments that are 100 percent real. As they say, everyone is injured this time of year.

The Mavericks can’t affect their lottery odds with a win, so they might as well go for it. It’s always fun to beat the Spurs, right? Jaden Hardy will likely be the only young player on the team to see the court, so let him shoot 30 times. If Josh Green plays, let him play 48 minutes. The points are all made up and nothing matters, after all.

Anyway, here’s three things to watch for during the game, if you’re actually going to watch, you sickos:

Have some pride in a rivalry

Again, there’s nothing at stake here other than pride, so maybe show some for once this season, Mavericks. San Antonio and Dallas were perennial contenders during the 2000s, and had a healthy rivalry during that time. The Spurs usually came out on top. But now they’re at the bottom, and the only thing left to do is kick them when they’re down.

Feature the young players

As mentioned above, the Mavericks need to let Hardy loose. Let him run the show, get 30 shot attempts, turn the ball over eight times, whatever he wants to do. Get the two-way players some run and see if they should be brought back next year. Play Frank Ntilikina at center, for the giggles. There’s just no reason to play veterans in this game other than to give the young guys a break.

Bring out the brooms

A win today would give the Mavericks the season series sweep against the Spurs. Not only that, it would be the second-consecutive season they’ve swept the Spurs. Dallas is currently on a seven-game win streak against their rivals in San Antonio. It would be the first time they’ve swept the season series against the Spurs in consecutive seasons. Either way, this will be the fourth straight year the Mavericks have won the season series against the Spurs, something they haven’t done since the eighties, when they did it seven years in a row.