OKLAHOMA CITY – When All-Star starters were announced Thursday night, there weren’t any real surprises, even if people in San Antonio howl that Victor Wembanyama wasn’t among them.

As was expected, neither Luka Dončić nor Kyrie Irving made the Western Conference starters. Irving will wait until the reserves are announced on Feb. 1. Dončić probably has missed too many games to be considered for a reserve slot, but stranger things have happened.

One thing that was no shock to anybody was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander being named to the West starters. The Oklahoma City guard leads the league in scoring (32 points per game) and had a 54-point outing on Wednesday. He was joined as West starters by Golden State’s Steph Curry, Denver’s Nikola Jokic, Phoenix’s Kevin Durant and the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James.

Mavericks’ coach Jason Kidd said before Thursday’s 121-115 Mavericks’ win that he’s been impressed with the way Gilgeous-Alexander has improved simply by doing what he does best.

“He understands who he is and he’s fine with that,” Kidd said. “He doesn’t fall in love with the three. He’s all about the paint, the rim. And he’s comfortable with that in his pace. His pace, he goes when he wants, he gets what he wants. And he’s (got) confidence. He’s in rare air right now. He’s on a different planet – probably the favorite to win MVP. And it’s well-deserved.”

It almost sounded like Kidd was talking about Dončić. But this was a night for Gilgeous-Alexander.

OKC coach Mark Daigneault said his 6-6 guard has not let success go to his head. Rather, the fact that SGA is a leading MVP candidate and a top vote-getter in fan balloting for the All-Star Game has helped him become a more grounded player.

“A lot of times when guys evolve and reach that kind of success, it’s easy to become distracted by accolades, status, things outside your craft,” Daigneault said. “Some people become more entitled, arrogant.

“He’s gone the other way on that stuff. He’s remained a great person a great teammate, almost a better teammate as he’s gotten better. And I just think that’s super-impressive.”

Gilgeous-Alexander was his usual, productive self against the Mavericks on Thursday, finishing with 31 points, but it’s worth noting that he needed 25 shots to get those points and only took six free throws. In his 54-point game the previous night, he had 18 free throws.

“He’s worked at his game,” Kidd said. “(Being) comfortable with who you are instead of others trying to tell you what you should be doing. He’s done a great job of tuning out that noise and being comfortable with who he is. He’s a difference-maker.”

Here we go again? At least, that’s what the Mavericks thought for a moment in the second quarter.

The Mavericks were playing well at the time, but the headline out of the first half came Daniel Gafford got inadvertently kicked in the head with 5:16 to go in the second quarter. He was motionless on the floor, face down for more than a minute and finally sat up with some help from Mavs’ staffers.

He retired to the locker room and sat out the rest of the first half.

So what’s going through Kidd’s head at that point, knowing that Dereck Lively II already was out?

“That was tough,” he said. “When he’s not moving, I’m thinking Maxi (Kleber) is on a minutes-restriction. So Markieff (Morris) is got to step in. And maybe we play P.J. at the five.

“It was good to see Gaff move and be able to come back. Just the way the season’s been going, to lose another player would have been tough. It was good that Gaff came back and helped us win this game.

Gafford had a big part in the Mavericks’ strong third quarter and finished with 12 points and five rebounds.

Briefly: Some college kid hit the half-court shot in the second quarter and pocketed $20,000. He then did the “Horns down” sign in his victory celebration . . . Kidd had to improvise with the starting lineup because of all the injuries and inserted Kessler Edwards, one of the Mavericks’ two-way players. It worked out well as Edwards had seven points and four rebounds in 22 minutes while also playing effective defense . . . O-Max Prosper had one of his most assertive games of the season with 14 points in 21 minutes.

X: @ESefko

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