Dorian Finney-Smith might be the best bargain in the NBA the way he’s played the last month.
He’s averaged 12.7 points and 6.3 rebounds while shooting better than 46 percent from 3-point range.
Not bad for a player who is in the middle season of a three-year deal that pays a modest $4-million per season.
The recent uptick in scoring has pushed Finney-Smith’s season scoring average to 10.0, the first time in his career his points per game total has been in double figures. He’d scored in double figures in 10 of 11 games before Friday’s meeting with Cleveland.
“It’s great because a lot of teams are putting their weaker defenders on Doe-Doe,” Tim Hardaway Jr. said. “But Doe-Doe is very, very versatile and is starting to get a lot of confidence now, driving the ball, getting the rebound, pushing it on the break and just doing an amazing job on the defensive end, guarding the best player night in and night out. We wouldn’t be in this situation without his play.”
Finney-Smith was the primary defender against Kevin Durant Thursday night when the future hall of famer had 20 points, eight under his season average, and needed 21 shots to get them.
It’s those efforts that have led Rick Carlisle to call Finney-Smith a hard person to get off the court during a lot of games.
Finney-Smith’s play has mostly coincided with the Mavericks going 15-7 since late March.
He said the success is a function of the Mavericks having a relatively healthy roster.
“We’ve had our full team,” he said. “The first (part of the season), it was just weird. We knew we had a great team. Coach told us, whoever stays the healthiest is going to put themselves in the best chance to have a great year. We didn’t start out right. We had some unfortunate circumstances. But when we have everybody, I feel like we can beat anybody.”
Injury update: Carlisle said that he expects all players to make the trip to Cleveland and Memphis, but he’s uncertain about the availability of Maxi Kleber and Kristaps Porzingis.
Asked if Kleber could return on the trip, Carlisle said: “Possible. I do believe he’s going to travel. He’s making progress. I don’t see him playing Sunday. That’s just my personal opinion.”
As for Porzingis, he added: “I’m not as certain where he is exactly. But, look, we got to go with what we got and who’s available. It’s been next-man-up all year and we got to keep it that way.”
Porzingis put in about 30 minutes of shooting on the court at American Airlines Center before Friday’s game.
“We obviously need him back,” Carlisle said. “We have a little different style of play when he’s unavailable. Our guys have done a good job with that. We have a three-headed center with (Willie Cauley-Stein, Dwight Powell and Boban Marjanović). We try to just figure it out. Some nights, we got to play smaller like tonight with a lot of little guys running round out there. And other nights you play bigger.
“But not having Kleber or Porzingis puts us in a more precarious situation. But we just got to figure it out. Five games left. Every game, super meaningful. We understand it.”
Passing Cotton Fitzsimmons: With Friday’s win over Cleveland, Carlisle reached 833 coaching victories in the NBA. That moved him into sole possession of 15th place on the all-time wins list, passing the late Cotton Fitzsimmons, who coached five different franchises, led Phoenix to the Western Conference finals in 1990 and was coach of the year twice.
Carlisle had an interesting story about how Fitzsimmons impacted the Mavericks’ coach’s career many, many years ago.
It came in 2000 when Carlisle took a one-year hiatus from coaching to spend time learning the craft from others. He also worked in broadcasting for Seattle that year. While watching Nate McMillan take over in Seattle and turning that team around, at the end of that year, Carlisle got a phone call from Fitzsimmons, who was recruiting coaches for a college all-star tournament in Phoenix.
“It was coaching three games with a team,” Carlisle said. “You get a team, you coach them for two practices, then you play three games. I said yes.
“It turned out that was a really important opportunity for me because my future employer, (Detroit executive) Joe Dumars, was there watching. Our team won two out of three games. And he told me watching me coach in that setting as a head coach was very helpful for him to actually visualize me as an NBA head coach.
“So that was a big tip of the hat to Cotton. I thanked him many times in the ensuing years for thinking of me (with) that opportunity.”
Carlisle said Fitzsimmons, who died in 2004, “would light up a room when he would come in. He had such a magical, magnetic personality. So many people have so many amazing, fond memories of him.”
Speaking of Carlisle: The Mavericks’ coach is nothing if not prepared.
He is doing everything he can to keep the Mavericks out of the NBA’s play-in tournament.
But what happens if the chips don’t fall in the Mavericks’ favor and they have to be involved in the games between teams that finish seventh through 10th to see who gets into the playoffs?
Glad you asked.
“The tournament has really stimulated interest and conversation – a lot of polarizing opinions,” Carlisle said before Friday’s victory over Cleveland. “My position on it is this: if it’s in place and it’s going to happen, it’s great. You got to embrace it. If you’re in a situation where you end up playing in a play-in tournament, it’s going to be a great experience. That’s how you got to look at it.
“That said, everybody’s trying to avoid it.”
And that includes the Mavericks, who must stay ahead of Portland and at least even with the Los Angeles Lakers to avoid the play-in tournament.
“I don’t know what they’re going to call it now going forward – guaranteed playoff position, one through six,” Carlisle said. “My answer is simply that. If it’s there, you got to love it. And you got to do your best to try to avoid it.
“But if you’re in it, that’s going to be a great experience especially for a young team. But we hope to avoid it, as do a bunch of other teams right now.”
Twitter: @ESefko
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