Mavs knew series vs. Clippers would be a battle. Even in Game 1 loss, Dallas looks ready to fight.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — This night, the beginning of the Luka Doncic-Kristaps Porzingis playoff era, culminated several journeys.

There was the Mavericks’ four-year playoff drought. And this coronavirus-protracted season. And 40 days of practicing, playing seeding games and waiting here in the NBA bubble on the Disney World campus.

So, finally, it began with a contentious 118-110 loss to the Clippers on Monday night in Game 1 of the teams’ first-round, best-of-seven playoff series, with Doncic scoring 42 points — the highest-scoring playoff debut in NBA history — but Porzingis getting ejected in the third quarter.

Seventh-seeded Dallas skittishly spotted the heavily favored No. 2 seed Clippers an 18-2 lead, then roared back with a 48-18 run.

The Mavericks kept the upperhand until a controversial sequence of events 2:50 into the second half.

With the Mavericks leading 71-66, Doncic committed a turnover and got shoved by the Clippers’ Marcus Morris. Doncic and Morris got chest-to-chest and Porzingis tried to intercede. Morris appeared to grab Porzingis’ throat. Porzingis pushed Morris.

After watching a replay, referees issued technical fouls to Porzingis and Morris. Unfortunately for the Mavericks, Porzingis had committed a first-half technical after arguing his block of a Paul George shot that appeared to be clean.

Porzingis’ ejection triggered outrage on Twitter: “Man that was BOGUS AS HELL MAN!!!!!,” LeBron James tweeted. “That ejection is super soft,” tweeted Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki.

After the ejection, the Clippers outscored Dallas 21-11 to end the third quarter and take an 87-82 lead. Porzingis finished with 14 points and six rebounds in 20 minutes.

Still, the Mavericks hung close. They were within 99-98 with five minutes left and 103-100 with 3:21 remaining.

After committing five turnovers in the opening quarter, Doncic finished with nine assists and seven rebounds to go with his point total.

Before the game, Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle spoke of the learning curve that a playoff-inexperienced team faces. He said one game goes “a long way for finding out what it’s all about.”

He also noted that playoff lessons can take years to learn, but stressed: “This is a beginning tonight, but our job is to jump into this thing full force.”

After the atrocious start, the Mavericks did just that.

The Clippers are one of the NBA title favorites. They made last summer’s most high-profile acquisitions, Kawhi Leonard and George, trading a slew of draft picks and thus putting an onus on the franchise to win now.

This series’ pressure is squarely on the Clippers, not that it showed in Monday night’s early going.

“It’s only going to be one team, so we want to be that team, and if we’re not, we will be disappointed,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said. “Us, the Lakers, Milwaukee, you can start naming the teams. But of all of us, there’s only going to be one.

“I love putting myself and my team in that position. We haven’t had a lot of those here for the Clippers, and we have one now that we can actually say with true honesty that we want to win it all, and if we don’t well be disappointed.”

The Mavericks, conversely, are viewed as a franchise of the future, led by 21-year-old Slovenian Doncic and 25-year-old Latvian Porzingis.

Dallas players entered Monday night with a combined 133 games of playoff experience. The only Mavericks starter with playoff experience was Tim Hardaway, with 15 postseason games played as an Atlanta Hawk. The Clippers’ Leonard alone has played 111 playoff games.

In their 40 seasons the Mavericks have been to the playoffs 22 times, including 16 of the last 20 seasons, but this was their first playoff game since April 5, 2016.

That was Game 5 of a 4-1, first-round series loss to Oklahoma City.

The 1,575 days that elapsed between that night and Monday is by far the longest playoff drought of Mark Cuban’s two decades of ownership.

“I’m really, really happy for our fans, our organization, to get back to playoff basketball,” Mavericks president and general manager Donnie Nelson said. “Look, we’re fearless and I think anything is possible. And that’s what really excites us internally.

“I guess the critics could point to inexperience. Sometimes you’re too young to know. And sometimes that can play itself out.”

This was the Dallas franchise’s first playoff game without Germany-native Nowitzki on the roster since 1990. On that May 1, 1990 night, Portland completed a 3-0 sweep.

Nowitzki joined the franchise eight years later. Now the Mavericks are led by two more young Europeans. The problem Monday night was that one of them wasn’t around to finish the game.

“We feel we have a tandem here that is just going to get better with time,” Nelson said. “It almost takes you back to the Dirk-[Steve] Nash days and the excitement that we felt internally about a world-class potential hall of fame quarterback and a front-line guy that’s got versatility and heart – and the defensive capabilities that maybe Dirk didn’t have.

“Those are really nice building blocks to have another nice run.”

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