Getty Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks.
With the Western Conference playoff race as tight as ever, the Dallas Mavericks‘ March 22 matchup with the Golden State Warriors is going to be an important one. Dallas enters Wednesdays meeting as losers of four of their last six games.
However, the Mavericks won’t be fielding the same squad that they’ve had to as of late. They’ll be adding four-time All-Star Luka Doncic back into the starting lineup.
According to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, the Slovenian Star is set to suit up for Dallas for the first time in five games.
“Luka Doncic is expected to return vs. Warriors tonight after missing the previous five games with a left thigh strain,” MacMahon reported in a tweet.
Mavericks’ Luka Doncic Speaks On Injury
Doncic last played in Dallas’ March 8 matchup with the New Orleans Pelicans. At that point, he told the media that he’d been dealing with the nagging issue for about a week.
“It’s been going on for one week, maybe more, I just can’t really push off of that leg,” Doncic said via Mavs Fan For Life’s Landon Thomas. “I’m just getting with no running, I can feel it, but mostly probably on the jump shots. So pushing off is very hard for me.”
The 24-year-old then explained that he’d tried to play through the injury, but the pain grew worse as the game went on.
“I always try to play,” Doncic explained after Dallas’ 113-106 loss to the Pelicans. “I think the first quarter wasn’t really that bad, but it got worse, especially in the third quarter. I just tried something to help it stick together, but it didn’t really help. Like I said, I was going more and more and then I could barely run. Normally I got hit in the thigh, but this one I didn’t get hit, so it’s kind of weird for me. I don’t really know what it is, I don’t know, it’s weird.”
Luka Dončić on his non-contact thigh injury: “Not good”.
Dončić said it’s been bothering him for a week and has reached a point where he could barely run. Dončić will get an MRI on his left thigh tomorrow and will know more.
Kyrie Irving Speaks on Ja Morant Saga After Mavs Fall to Grizzlies
In what was hopefully the Mavs’ last game without Doncic for a while, they fell to the second-place Memphis Grizzlies 112-108.
Memphis was without star guard Ja Morant, who was out due to a lack of conditioning after being suspended for eight games. The suspension stemmed from an incident where Morant was seen flashing a gun on his Instagram live.
After Dallas’ loss, star guard Kyrie Irving spoke on the former No. 2 overall pick’s situation.
“I believe any hardship in life builds character,” Irving said via the NBA Interviews YouTube channel. “When you’re dealing with particular hardships in the public eye, especially with the media being attracted to just keeping up with what we’re doing, or what’s the next kind of grab or story. I don’t want to assume anything about every media member, but that’s just the way it seems for me and my perspective. It’s just [that] there was an overload of judgment on Ja, and there was an overload of judgment on what I had going on. And there’s usually an overload of judgment from the public court of opinion. So, with that working hand in hand, and we’re such a public league, we’re going to deal with situations that may be very difficult to handle for the person going through it.”