Don't look now, but the Dallas Mavericks are officially streaking as the race toward the NBA playoffs heats up ... and they're starting to look like a legitimate title contender.
Following an extended All-Star break, Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving picked right back up where left off, extending their season-high win streak to seven games with an impressive 123-113 win over the Phoenix Suns. Doncic finished with 41 points on 14-27 shooting to go with nine rebounds, 11 assists and three steals in 38 minutes, and Irving put up 29 points on 11-18 shooting to go with five rebounds, three assists and a steal in 36 minutes while being a team-best +20 on the night.
With the win, the Mavs clinched the regular-season tiebreaker over the Suns while also moving ahead of them into sixth-place in the Western Conference standings.
"Feels good," Irving said when asked about his team's recent success. "Just want to keep it up. ... We just started locking into the game plan [against the Suns], and we stopped giving up a lot of easy baskets and started bringing over the help side a little bit more."
The seven-game win streak ties the longest win streak of Jason Kidd's tenure as head coach of the Mavs, and Dallas is now 10 games over .500 at 33-23 for the first time in nearly two years. As good as Doncic and Irving were, it was the defensive effort from P.J. Washington on Suns stars Devin Booker and Kevin Durant that stood out to Kidd.
"I think P.J. is playing great defensively," Kidd said. "He's taking the challenge of [guarding] Durant. He switches onto [Devin Booker]. I thought he got his hands on a lot of [deflections] tonight."
Washington finished with 12 points on 4-10 shooting to go with six rebounds, one assist, one steal and one block while being a +11 in 31 minutes as a starter. Although his offense hasn't gotten off to a hot start, he's getting better with each game, and he's just happy to be in a winning environment for the first time in his career.
"I was just telling somebody in the locker room, I think this is the longest win streak I've ever had in my career," Washington said. "So I'm just happy to be here."
The Mavs will now head out on a tough four-game road trip with matchups against the Indiana Pacers, Cleveland Cavaliers, Toronto Raptors and Boston Celtics. It will be tough for Dallas to keep its win streak alive on this trip, but with newfound depth and its superstar backcourt playing at such a high level, nothing is off the table at this point.
"We're deep," Kidd said. "This is the first time the Mavs have been deep in a long time. ... [Luka and Kyrie] co-exist quite well. I think it just shows again, our health, our energy, everything's in a positive way right now."
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