Good things usually happen when a team gets an All-Star caliber player back from injury, let alone two of them. The Mavs pulled away in the 2nd half of last night’s 118-102 win at Philadelphia, Kyrie Irving led all scorers with 23 points and 8 assists. It’s a short turnaround as they head straight to Brooklyn for a date with the suddenly good Nets. In this scenario the Mavericks are 4-4 SU this season, it’ll be interesting to see if they play both Doncic and Irving following their recovery from injuries. In head-to-head meetings Dallas has enjoyed quite a lot of success winning 7 of the last 8, but they’ve had issues covering the spread, doing so once in the last 5 meetings. In games played at Barclays Center they’re 9-3 SU in their last 12 visits, optimism will be on a high coming into tonight’s game.
After 3 wins in 4 games, the Nets were brought back down to Earth a bit last night as the Golden State Warriors held them to just 98 points in an 11-point defeat. Ben Simmons missed yet another game, so the defeat can easily be attributed to that as the Nets reverted back to playing poorly on the offensive end. Simmons will be a game-time decision here, but I think he will play after skipping last night’s game. His presence should lift the Nets’ offensive production, plus he matches up size-wise pretty well with Luka Doncic here, that’s another thing worth keeping an eye on. Lonnie Walker IV and Cameron Johnson are both questionable after leaving the game against Golden State with hamstring and groin injuries.
