DALLAS — Coach Jason Kidd and many of the Mavericks hesitated to acknowledge the importance of Sunday night’s matchup against the Utah Jazz in the push for home-court advantage come the first round of the playoffs.
But not Luka Doncic.
And he sure played like he knew the stakes Sunday night.
In the Mavericks’ 114-100 victory to break their tie with the Jazz for No. 4 in the Western Conference, Doncic finished with 32 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in 33 minutes, while Reggie Bullock added 23 points, including a season-high seven 3-pointers, as a defensive stalwart.
No better time for the Mavericks to complete their 16th double-digit comeback of the season.
With boosts from other notable results around the league Sunday, the 46-29 Mavericks’ playoff scenarios with seven regular-season games remaining look like this:
— One game ahead of the 45-30 Jazz for the No. 4 seed, an especially important upper-hand because the Jazz will likely hold the tiebreaker, via divisional standing, if the two teams finish the regular season tied after splitting their head-to-head series, 2-2.
— Two games behind the No. 3 Warriors, who lost to the Wizards on Sunday, with Dallas holding the head-to-head tiebreaker from a 3-1 regular-season series advantage.
— 3.5 games ahead of the play-in-tournament cutoff after the No. 7 Timberwolves fell to the Celtics.
Think of Doncic’s dogged performance in front of a raucous American Airlines Center as a semi-playoff preview of Big-Game Luka — even if the Jazz were missing a few key counters.
Less than an hour before the game, the Jazz announced All-Star center Rudy Gobert as a late scratch with a lateral right leg contusion.
Without Gobert, a leading candidate this season for his fourth Defensive Player of the Year award, the Mavericks’ small lineups post-Kristaps Porzingis trade faced a Jazz frontcourt without all three of its 7-foot centers.
And Doncic didn’t have to face one of his most irksome opponents while just one technical foul (15) from an automatic one-game suspension with two weeks left in the regular season.
Gobert’s absence robbed Doncic of the opportunity to hunt switches onto the oft-despised big man like he did on offensive possessions in the last two meetings — a Feb. 25 loss in Utah and a March 7 win in Dallas.
But Doncic still played with plenty of emotion and highlight-worthy moves.
He didn’t hide his frustration in the first quarter when he missed a few close-range shots, took a hard fall on his left elbow and endured what he thought were a few no-calls, and the Mavericks finished the period down 29-20.
And then he didn’t mask his competitive sneers and infectious joy as they outscored Utah by 25 points after the Jazz pulled ahead by 11 points (46-35) on a Rudy Gay 3-pointer with 5:30 left in the second.
Doncic banked in a 3-pointer from the right wing at the halftime buzzer to cut the deficit to 59-58. He turned around and slowly pointed out with his finger, motioning for refs to count the bucket in the final seconds.
At one point early in the third quarter, with the Mavericks on a 14-4 run, Doncic pretended to kneel and cry when officials whistled him for a questionable foul on Mike Conley.
When Conley then missed his two free throws, Doncic called out to one ref and pointed at the hoop, as if to remind him “ball don’t lie.”
Then Doncic went and drew two and-1 chances of his own in a stretch of three possessions.
Before the game, Kidd used phrases like “if we’re going to call this a big game” and “it’s not the end of the world if we don’t get” home-court advantage to distance his team from home-court urgency with seven regular-season games left for standings to shuffle.
But the Mavericks haven’t won in Utah’s Vivint Arena in their last 11 tries, and the atmosphere in American Airlines Center signaled a likely boost should Dallas earn a shot at four first-round home games, rather than three, come mid-April.
Doncic exchanged a hug with former Cowboy Jason Witten and participated in a Make-A-Wish meet-and-greet before warm-ups.
Fans howled for Bullock as he drilled a pair of corner threes to turn the result into a blowout early in the fourth quarter, and showered Doncic with MVP chants as he took free-throws and checked out for the last time with a few minutes left.
