He turned 32 on Saturday, although his birthday present could have arrived a few days earlier.
Tim Hardaway Jr. — the Mavericks’ sixth veteran who, over the past two months, has been on the wrong side of the ups and downs of a basketball season — might have finally put an end to his bad patch.
Hardaway scored 23 points on 8 of 13 shooting the Mavericks’ 126-119 loss to the second-ranked Oklahoma City Thunder. His 31 minutes played was his most since 38 against the Milwaukee Bucks on February 2. His point total was the most he had scored since. a 36-point explosion against the Orlando Magic on January 29; it was also the last time he converted more than 60 percent of his shot attempts before Thursday. His nine rebounds were a season high and he made five of his nine 3-point attempts.
“I felt good,” Hardaway said Saturday. “[It was] an opportunity to go out there and compete.
It looked a little more like Hardaway ranked second in the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year ratings in February, when he sometimes took over entire quarters while Luka Doncic or Kyrie Irving rested. He averaged 19.4 points per game on 40.2% shooting in December and 19.2 points per game on 44.5% shooting in January.
But his minutes — a byproduct of a healthier Mavericks team and trade deadline acquisitions that reshaped Dallas’ roster – declined shortly after. His play followed suit.
He averaged just 10.6 points (on 35.3 percent shooting) in 26.6 minutes per game in February. That figure dropped to 9.8 points per game on 18.6 minutes per game in March, and until Thursday’s game at Oklahoma City, he had only played more than 18 minutes in two of the month’s seven games. .
Hardaway spent the final four seasons of his tenure with the Mavericks as a part-time starter and part-time bench player, although this season he only started 10 of the 64 games he played. Head coach Jason Kidd praised Hardaway’s professionalism and called him the “substitute teacher” of the Mavericks’ roster.
All of this – the role changes, the minutes change and the shooting slip-ups – is nothing new to him, however.
“I’ve been dealing with this since I’ve been here, man,” Hardaway said. “Adversity hits and I try to get out of it as much as possible. I’m not trying to hurt myself — I want to get a few games in first — but, for the most part, since the first day I was traded here, it’s been adversity. From start to coming off the bench, to shots, minutes played, not minutes, it’s just adversity, man.
Yet, he says, his spirit and confidence have not diminished.
“If that had changed, I wouldn’t have been there shooting,” Hardaway said. “I would have just been there to pass the ball, pass the ball, not try to be aggressive. I don’t think anything has changed, from that point of view, it’s just that the shots weren’t going in.
“I felt good, I felt confident, my teammates always had confidence in me.”
As the eighth-seeded Mavericks continue to attempt to climb into a more favorable playoff position — starting Sunday against the West-leading Denver Nuggets — they’ll need Hardaway at his best. The numbers suggest Dallas is a better team when it is; The Mavericks are 11-5 in games where Hardaway scores more than 20 points this season, and they are 5-1 when he scores more than 30 points.
“Just keep taking good shots, don’t force the issue,” Hardaway said. “When you have an opportunity to be aggressive, take it. Most of the time you don’t know when you’ll get the chance again. Just be confident, be persistent in everything you do on the field.
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