On Wednesday evening, Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks went on the road and picked up an impressive Game 5 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder to take a 3-2 lead in their best of seven Western Conference Semifinals series. Doncic bounced back from a rough game 4 with a great showing in this one, and although Kyrie Irving was quiet once again, the Mavericks' defense stepped up in limiting a Thunder team that showed their youth and inexperience throughout the evening despite playing in front of their home fans.

This series has followed a similar trajectory to the one that the Mavericks just completed in the first round vs the Los Angeles Clippers, as the team lost Game 1 in blowout fashion, won Games 2 and 3 convincingly, choked in Game 4, and then bounced back in strong fashion in Game 5.

The Mavericks will certainly hope that the series continues to follow that same script on Saturday, which would mean the team would defeat Oklahoma City in Game 6 at home and advance to the Western Conference Finals for the second time in three years.

One person who sees things playing out that way is none other than ESPN sports media personality Stephen A. Smith.

“Even though Luka has been up and down this series, averaging 22 points, shooting like 39 percent from the field, hasn't been his normal self… the flip side to it is look at the effect Luka's greatness has on the rest on the Dallas Mavericks,” said Smith, per First Take on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “…These brothers now what role they have to play and know how to feed off of Luka better than Oklahoma City players apparently know how to feed off of Shai Gilgeous-Aelxander as of yet. That is why you go with Luka instead of SGA at this particular moment in time.”

Smith went on to pick the Mavericks to win Game 6 on Saturday.

A bounce back performance

After looking relatively pedestrian throughout the first four games of the series, Doncic put together maybe his most impressive performance of the playoffs so far on Wednesday evening, notching 31 points, 11 assists, and ten rebounds on impressive efficiency and hitting several timely shots that acted as daggers for the Thunder as they attempted to make a comeback late.

While the Mavericks didn't get Herculean production from PJ Washington in Game 5, this time it was Derrick Jones Jr. stepping into that role and torching the Thunder every time they paid too much attention to either Doncic or Irving.

Overall, the Mavericks have looked like the clear better team than the Thunder in this series, and they probably can't help but feeling at this point that they should have closed out Oklahoma City in Game 5 after controlling the majority of Game 4 before letting it slip away late.

In any case, Game 6 will get underway in front of what figures to be a raucous Mavericks home crowd on Saturday at 8:00 PM ET in Dallas. The game will be carried nationally by ESPN.