Mavericks can’t match Thunder’s awesome athleticism

1:13 AM ET

DALLAS – Sensing an opportunity, Dirk Nowitzki found his highest gear and kicked it into a full sprint as he crossed halfcourt, never mind the 37-year-old 7-footer’s sore right knee. Nowitzki caught a fastball from Raymond Felton near the free throw line, took two steps and jumped as high as he could at his ripe old age, hoping to finish the fast break with his just second dunk of 2016.

Denied.

Russell Westbrook, the ridiculously springy Oklahoma City Thunder superstar, swooped in from the other side of the lane and swatted the ball off the glass. Seconds later, Westbrook fired a lefty bullet to Enes Kanter for an uncontested dunk, a four-point swing in Oklahoma City’s favor in a flash.

“I felt like my knee buckled, so I was actually kind of glad he got there, because I probably would have got hung on the rim, to be honest,” Nowitzki said after the Thunder regained the series lead with a 131-102 rout of his Dallas Mavericks in Thursday’s Game 3 at the American Airlines Center. “I’m kind of glad he blocked it. But heck of a play on his part.”

Some fights — and some flights — just aren’t fair. That pretty much sums up this series so far.

Not many playoff series present athletic mismatches that are this dramatic. Precious few teams in NBA history have featured a pair of athletic freaks the caliber of Westbrook and Kevin Durant, and they’re surrounded by young, long-limbed leapers in the starting lineup. By contrast, the Mavs are one of the oldest and slowest teams in the league even when they aren’t dealing with a long list of medical issues, as they are now.

It’s a minor miracle that Dallas is only down one game despite a 66-point differential in the series. Tip your cap to the Mavs for making Game 2 ugly enough to pull off a massive upset — and getting lucky enough to have Thunder center Steven Adams’ potential game-winning tip come a …

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