What game do you have scheduled this season and why?
Bryan: I have a cluster of games circled all within a 5 day span and all for the same reason. From November 14th to November 19th, the Mavs will play
(in chronological order) the Los Angeles Clippers, the Portland Trailblazers, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the New York Knicks. This stretch is significant for a couple reasons:
- Anthony Davis will presumably be back in proper playing shape after working out and shedding weight for the first time since his retinal surgery.
- All of these teams will be firmly in the heat of the playoff races in their respective conferences. Portland deserves special focus from us as I believe they and the Mavericks will be competing directly for 8th-9th seeding in the west.
- Lastly, all of these teams have double big looks ranging from adequate to excellent to counter that of the Mavericks. This will serve as an excellent stress test for how viable Nico Harrison’s tall ball Mavericks stack up against some of the best similar lineups in the league at large.
Michael: At the risk of my selection sounding like a cop out, I’m going with the season opener on October 22, against the San Antonio Spurs. While it seems a bit like Groundhog Day at this point to play the Spurs in the opener, it is intriguing to start things off against a division rival. The Lively vs. Wembanyama matchup is always good fun, and the true debut of Cooper Flagg in the NBA makes this game the choice for me. In respect of the aforementioned cop out, there is another motivation for selecting this game, and that is officially putting last season to bed. The post-Doncic trade and utterly absurd string of injuries was an exhausting endeavor last year. While memories of that will still linger this season and beyond, it will be nice to kick off the Cooper Flagg era with a fresh start.
Also, I can’t help but pick a second game aside from the opener. February 3, 2026, at home against the Boston Celtics. My reason for choosing this one? Kyrie Irving’s return to action! Ok, I of course have no actual insight to this game being his return, but it fits the rumored timeline, so why not? Despite it now feeling like a professional wrestling feud that ended years prior, such an occurrence will somehow elicit drama in the public and would make a good story for the NBA, even if it probably means nothing to the actual people involved at this point. And if its not February 3rd, I’ll shift this second choice to whatever game he does return!
Chris: My two dates are:
- 10/27 vs the Oklahoma City Thunder
- 3/13 vs the Cleveland Cavaliers
The October matchup with the Thunder will be incredibly interesting. Dallas’s recent success against Oklahoma City has largely been due to their size (and PJ Washington). But the Thunder now have size of their own in Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren. The West is going to run through OKC again and this will be the Mavericks’ first elite test. Not to mention, how Cooper Flagg handles the defensive presence of Lu Dort, Alex Caruso, and Cason Wallace. When it comes to perimeter defenders, this is the best of the best. The big question: how do the Mavs generate enough offense to beat the league’s top teams?
The March showdown with the Cavs is based on two assumptions: Kyrie Irving (hopefully) being back and that the Mavs haven’t sustained any other major injuries leading up to this game. Both are HUGE “ifs.”
I think Cleveland will come out of the Eastern Conference by June and this would be a real test to see what Dallas looks like with Irving back on the court. Cleveland also plays similar to the Boston Celtics in that half of their shots come from behind the three point line. Dallas will have matchup issues with the bigs lineup against this Cavs team. You need more spacing and perimeter defense to stay with Cleveland. This would be a good test to see what Anthony Davis at the five looks like with a hypothetical lineup of: Kyrie, Klay, Flagg, PJ, Davis. The big question: Does Dallas play the mismatch game with Cleveland and run a smaller lineup? Or will there be a formula they’ve figured out by this time that works against teams who bomb from three?
Sudarshan: There is a six game stretch early in the season starting October 28th where the Mavericks play at home against Oklahoma City, Indiana, Detroit, away to Houston, home against New Orleans & away to Memphis which looks like an interesting stretch which should tell us plenty about this roster. There is a whole variety of play styles that should test the depth of the Mavericks. From what we’ve inferred from preseason, Jason Kidd should be creating game by game rosters tailored to the opponents which means we should ideally see a whole bunch of weird lineups that will come to define the 25-26 season. The Mavericks whole “Defense wins Championships” roster is built to be malleable and fluid to react to different game situations and opponent play styles and if it fails during this stretch, then in some capacity, it proves that this two timeline roster building strategy is flawed and we’re in for a long season as Mavericks fans.
Isaac: Oct. 27 vs OKC and Jan. 24 vs LAL are the two immediate games that stick out to me. OKC will be a good, early test to see if this team’s size can translate to wins, as Dallas presents a serious challenge to OKC’s depth and size if everyone’s healthy. The Lakers game stands out for obvious reasons, but it still has to be mentioned in this conversation. Every time he comes back to Dallas, it will be must-see TV, and the fact that every reader knows exactly who I’m talking about without even saying his name proves my point.
Matt M.: The first time I opened our MMB game coverage spreadsheet, the only five games listed on there were the five October dates. I let out an audible gasp when I realized the team was opening up the season with five games in eight days. Sure, they’re all at home, but that is a hell of a way to open the year. That stretch includes the season-opener against San Antonio and games with the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers. You’d love to come away with a 3-2 start, but that’ll be tough to accomplish. I think we’ll learn a lot about how this team deals with adversity early on this year through this stretch of games. Will Daniel Gafford be good to go? What in the world will the guard rotations look like with uncertainty clouding the outlook for Dante Exum and Brandon Williams? Is Ryan Nembhard a viable option at backup right out of the gate? All interesting storylines to follow in the Mavs’ first five.
