The Utah Jazz must worry about more than the status of Luka Doncic.
After finishing off a solid yet underwhelming regular season as the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference, the Utah Jazz will begin their NBA Playoffs journey at 11:00 p.m. MT Saturday. They face off against the Dallas Mavericks, who after a slow start climbed to the No. 4 seed, giving them the homecourt advantage.
Utah tied the season series against Dallas this year with each team winning two games — and with each game getting chippier than the last.
This is set to be a hard-fought series between two franchises that have a lot to prove. The Mavericks are trying to get out of the first round for the first time since 2011. Meanwhile, the Jazz will try to show that the duo of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert is good enough to contend for a title.
For Dallas, it’s no secret that most of the Mavericks’ success is due to the stellar play of their young star, Luka Doncic, who has had another All-NBA caliber season. However, after Doncic suffered a calf strain during the third quarter of their final game versus the San Antonio Spurs, it’s unclear how much of an impact he will be able to have against Utah.
With that being the case, here are two other Mavs that could give the Jazz plenty of problems in this first-round series.