Mavericks versus (what’s left of) the Golden State Warriors

Welp, let’s see how much strength there really is in our numbers!

No Steph Curry (but we knew that), plus no Draymond Green, Zaza Pachulia, or Nick Young could make this night interesting. While the Mavs may be last in the West, the Warriors are playing without a ton of assets - about 93 minutes of our normal rotation to be exact.

The Warriors have dealt with this before, but this is just about as stringent a test of the “Strength in Numbers” catch phrase as I can ever remember. Coach Steve Kerr announced that he would run the same substitute starting lineup out as he did against Portland in our last game - Shaun Livingston in for Steph Curry, with Omri Casspi and Jordan Bell covering for Draymond Green and Zaza Pachulia, respectively.

Last time we faced the Mavs, rookie Jordan Bell set the internet on fire with some amazing (and possibly disrespectful) play.

At the time, I remember that coach Steve Kerr pulled Bell aside and told him to watch out for retaliation. Now, I’m not saying that the Mavs are dirty, or that we should all expect Bell to get roughed up - but it may be something that bears watching, especially since Mavs center Salah Mejri was trying to pull some after-action shenanigans against the San Antonio Spurs recently. Here he is taking a weird kick at an opposing player in the post-game high five line (edit: if there’s no video here, blame AMP and click the embedded link above):

I’m going to go ahead and post this early to spread the word about the starting lineup, but is anyone else watching the Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Lakers?

LGW!