There is never a good time, especially in the postseason, to lose a player of Maxi Kleber’s caliber.

But if Mavericks fans are looking for a silver lining after Sunday’s confirmation that Kleber will miss a minimum of three weeks with a right shoulder AC joint separation, there are worse second-round opponents to face under the circumstances than the Thunder.

“Oklahoma’s not a big team,” coach Jason Kidd noted Sunday, after the Mavericks’ first practice in preparation for the Western Conference semifinals, which open Tuesday in Oklahoma City. “We’ve got quite a few bigs that we can go to.”

Not that Kidd in any way is downplaying the significance of losing Kleber, Dallas’ best-defending big man. The reality is there’s nothing the Mavericks can do about Kleber’s absence and, if anything, Dallas on paper has a decided muscle advantage in the middle in this series.

Granted, Thunder rookie sensation Chet Holmgren stands 7-1, but at 195 pounds he will be challenged to contain Mavericks counterparts Daniel Gafford (6-10, 234) and Dereck Lively II (7-1, 230) if they catch the basketball anywhere near the basket.

Starting with MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 57-win, No. 1 seed Oklahoma City has a talent array that belies the team’s average age of 24, with only one basket scored by a player age 25 or older during its first-round sweep of New Orleans.

Dallas’ two most notable matchup advantages, though, are that it has two superstars – Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving – to OKC’s one; and that it has become more physically imposing since the Feb. 8 acquisitions of Gafford and P.J. Washington Jr.

Two days after those trades, Dallas hosted OKC in what would be the Mavericks’ only meeting this season against the Thunder with both Doncic and Irving on the court.

Oklahoma City was playing with three days of rest, but the Mavericks pummeled the Thunder 146-111. Despite playing without Lively (nasal fracture), Dallas outrebounded OKC 54-40 and dominated in paint points, 66-34.

“That’s just a regular-season game; playoffs are a little different,” Kidd said. “But making those trades and having Kai and Luka play for the first time against Oklahoma City, we can look at some of the things that we had success with and hopefully we can do that again on Tuesday.”

Kleber, though, not only played in that Feb. 10 game, but started and finished with 12 points and 12 rebounds.

Kleber was limited to 43 games this season, with 38 of his absences coming as a result of a right small toe dislocation. How important is he to Dallas’ success? The Mavericks were 27-16 with him this season; 23-16 without him.

According to NBA.com tracking, opponents shot 43.1% this season when guarded by Kleber, the lowest percentage among Mavericks.

In the first round playoff series, Clippers players shot 27.9% against Kleber before his scary fall and hard landing in the second quarter of Game 6, when Amir Coffee tried to take a charge – after Kleber became airborne.

“Just seeing one of our family members go down that, we all get hit,” Lively said Sunday. “Just being able to know we’ve got to be able to pick him up, there’s a lot of people who were looking at us; a lot of people was questioning what we were going to do.

“Maxi knows that we’ve got his back and we know that he’s going to do whatever we can to get better. But we’ve got to be able to take it game-by-game. Next man up.”

A Mavericks official on Saturday told The News that Kleber suffered a third-degree sprain of his AC joint ligaments. The Clippers’ Chris Paul in 2014 sustained a similar injury and did not require surgery, but he missed 18 games.

The Mavericks on Sunday announced that Kleber will be re-evaluated in three weeks, seemingly meaning the soonest he would be cleared to practice is May 26.

The conference finals are scheduled to begin May 21-22. If Dallas is able to get past Oklahoma City, they would face either Minnesota – a team with a deep and formidable front court – or Denver and MVP favorite Nikola Jokic. If the Mavericks are still alive then, those are challenges they’ll gladly embrace, with or without Kleber.

Until then, they’ll miss him, but in terms of second-round matchups, it could have been worse.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Kidd said. “It’s on to the next guy.”

Find more Mavericks coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.

Lineups 
FC Dallas — Maarten Paes, Sam Junqua, Nkosi Tafari Burgess, Sebastien Ibeagha, Marco Farfan (Eugene Ansah – 68’), Liam Fraser, Patrickson Delgado (Asier Illarramendi – 54’), Ema Twumasi, Paul Arriola (Jesús Ferreira – 45’), Bernard Kamungo (Tsiki Ntsabeleng – 54’, (Dante Sealy – 72’), Petar Musa

Substitutes not used — Jimmy Maurer, Omar Gonzalez, Carl Sainté, Logan Farrington.
 
Toronto FC — Sean Johnson; Raoul Petretta (Sigurd Rosted – 17’), Nickseon Gomis, Kevin Long; Tyrese Spicer, Alonso Coello (Matty Longstaff – 64’, Deybi Flores, Federico Bernardeschi; Jonathan Osorio, Derrick Etienne Jr. (Kobe Franklin – 65’), Prince Osei Owusu (Deandre Kerr – 79’). 

Substitutes not used — Aimé Mabika, Kosi Thompson, Jesús Batiz, Luka Gavran

Scoring Summary: 
TOR: Federico Bernardeschi (penalty kick) – 45’+8’
TOR: Federico Bernardeschi (Jonathan Osorio) – 53’
TOR: Matthew Longstaff (Federico Bernardeschi) – 82’
DAL: Sam Junqua (Jesús Ferreira) – 87’

Misconduct Summary:
DAL: Petar Musa (caution) – 9’
DAL: Ema Twumasi (caution) – 56’
TOR: Nickseon Gomis (caution) – 72’
TOR: Sigurd Rosted (caution) – 95’

Weather: 57°F, Cloudy

Stats

FC DALLAS POSTGAME QUOTES
Head Coach Nico Estévez
General thoughts on the match…
“We had opportunities and chances to make the difference early in the game but we were not clean enough, we have to learn from that, we have to be better in order to win. We cannot be dominant, create good situations, put ourselves in good spots and then after make the wrong pass, or rush the last pass. A player like (Federico) Bernardeschi made the difference today.”

On the second half adjustments…
“At halftime, what I told the guys is that we could win this game, we had to adjust a couple of things. Subbing Tsiki, Asier and Jesus, helped us a lot to get balls into the pocket. It was just the last pass, the last action that was not connected.”

On the team bouncing back…
“Every game gives you a good understanding on where the issues can be and where we have to get better. And we have to be better. We’re not good enough right now. And this is my takeaway from today. We are not good enough. We are making good steps but we are not at the level that we all would like to be.”
 
Forward Paul Arriola
On tonights game…
“Two teams that matched up together in similar formations. We knew where these spaces would be, but we did not execute those. Obviously (Federico) Bernardeschi had an amazing game and was the game changer for them(Toronto FC). It feels a lot worse than what the game actually was, but that’s my first initial feeling. We have to look back at the game and see what we can fix. We don’t have time to dwell on it, we have an opportunity to bounce back on Tuesday in Open Cup play.”

On the Open Cup match on Tuesday…
“Regardless win or lose, the Open Cup match on Tuesday is important for us. It’s an amazing opportunity to play in front of our fans at home, and it’s a great match up. There’s not much time to think about this game. We will study this game to correct what needs to be fixed ahead of the match on Tuesday. But we will move on and look forward to the next one.”

It is rewarding to see that efforts to reduce homelessness continue to yield results. Based on the latest point-in-time count, homelessness in Dallas and Collin counties declined for the third consecutive year.

This trend indicates that homelessness strategies are working for some individuals who have fallen on hard times. However, the strategies aren’t working for a significant number of visibly homeless individuals on streets and encampments within the city of Dallas, including those on City Hall’s doorstep. Homelessness intervention efforts now must make shuttering encampments and safely housing these homeless individuals a pressing priority. Too many chronically homeless people have been on the streets for years and must have humane but clear intervention.

Toward that end, Housing Forward, which coordinates homelessness strategies in Dallas and Collin counties, last week announced a goal to cut street homelessness by 50% by 2026 from 2021 levels when homelessness here reached an all-time high.

The $30 million, public-private plan would emphasize closing encampments in public spaces with a targeted “Street to Home” strategy to deploy behavioral health care and rehousing assistance onsite to speed up the process. Much of that focus will be on the central business district — including the area outside City Hall — where homeless advocates estimate that 300 to 400 people regularly gather.

This is a much-needed next step to address a multilayered problem that negatively affects homeless individuals and Dallas neighborhoods. The most recent point-in-time count conducted in Dallas and Collin counties in January revealed 3,718 homeless individuals, a 12% drop from 2023. And since 2021, when the homeless count reached its peak of 4,570, overall homelessness has declined 19% and unsheltered homelessness 24%. The homeless count in the city of Dallas stood at 2,929, an 8% decline from last year and a 20% decrease since 2022.

However, visible street homelessness, often synonymous with chronic homelessness, fell just 6.5% from last year’s count, suggesting that a new strategy is needed to more effectively empty, close, clean and secure homeless encampments so that these enclaves don’t reconstitute.

The reality is that public encampments pose unacceptable public health and safety problems. Unfortunately, transition of the most visible homeless individuals from life on the streets to rehabilitation services, housing and a better life isn’t happening fast enough.

Housing Forward’s new approach wisely recognizes the need for a more urgent response to mitigate public health, safety and quality of life concerns of entrenched encampments without compromising successful strategies. Housing Forward says the region has successfully housed over 10,000 previously homeless individuals — many of them families, homeless youth and veterans — since 2021.

Dallas is moving in the right direction, thanks in part to a more coordinated homeless response system than existed a decade ago. But in the interest of recapturing quality of life, Dallas must redouble its efforts to reduce the erosive impact of chronic homelessness and visible public encampments.

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