Today: the now. The Dallas Mavericks closed out the Oklahoma City Thunder, everybody’s favorite “look at this team!” team for the second decade in a row, in a sixth game on Saturday night to advance to the Western Conference Finals, where they’ll meet the winner of the ridiculous Denver Nuggets-Minnesota Timberwolves series, those teams entering a Game 7. 

With MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the now-underrated 2024 rookie do-everything big Chet Holmgren in tow and singing Aguilera to their hearts’[1] content, OKC dropped a 17-point lead. Melding at just the right time, Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving and the rest of the Mavs had come into the series operating an offense which countered Harden-era Rockets isolations with Curry-led dictation in Golden State circa-2017 to great success.

Against a calling-all-cars Thunder defense, the Mavericks offensive plan fell apart, but Dallas kept pushing. Its stars shining, and role players inhabiting exactly their spaces, they put a mirror to the slightly younger, slightly-brighter Thunder. In so doing, they put away a new-era league darling, one that calls to the past while looking toward a different future.