Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison says he miscalculated the depth of love his club’s fans had for Luka Doncic before the trade that sent the young superstar to the Lakers for Anthony Davis.

Despite the persistent catcalls from fans for him to be fired in the 2 1/2 months since the deal, Harrison still believes it was the right move for building a championship contender in Dallas.

“I did know that Luka was important to the fan base,” Harrison said Monday during his season-ending news conference, six days after a session with a smaller group of reporters that the club called to try to move on from the exhaustively discussed Doncic trade. “I didn’t quite know it to what level.”

As he has said before, Harrison expected plenty of blowback from the trade, but thought it would have eased sooner if Davis had been able play with Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson, P.J. Washington and Dereck Lively II for most of the rest of the season.

Instead, those five haven’t played together yet, and the star combo of Davis and Irving shared less than three quarters together before Davis injured a groin in his Dallas debut. Irving tore the ACL in his left knee while Davis was out.

“We feel that’s a championship-caliber team and we would have been winning at a high level and that would have quieted some of the outrage,” Harrison said as part of the same answer about the fans’ love for Doncic. “And so unfortunately we weren’t able to do that, so it just continued to go on and on.”

The Mavericks almost didn’t have enough players to meet the NBA’s minimum requirement for several games while Davis was sidelined. Once he returned, the Mavs steadied themselves and qualified for the final spot in the Western Conference play-in tournament at No. 10.

Dallas won at Sacramento for a shot at the eighth seed in the playoffs before losing at Memphis.

But when asked what Dallas needed to become a contender again, Harrison said, “Really, we just need to get healthy. I think the team we’re bringing back is a championship-caliber. We fully expect to have Kyrie back with us next year when he gets healed from his injury. And we believe we’ll be competing for a championship.”

Cade Cunningham had 33 points and 12 rebounds, Dennis Schroder made the tiebreaking 3-pointer with 55 seconds left, and the Detroit Pistons snapped their NBA-record, 15-game postseason losing streak by beating the Knicks 100-94 on Monday night in New York in Game 2 of their playoff series.

The Pistons, who hadn’t even been to the postseason since 2019, recovered after the Knicks erased a 15-point deficit to earn their first playoff victory since Game 4 of the 2008 Eastern Conference finals against Boston. The Celtics won the final two games of that series and the Pistons were then swept in 2009, 2006 and 2019 before dropping Game 1 at Madison Square Garden.

Now they are back in the win column, all tied in the series and will host Game 3 on Thursday night.

Jalen Brunson scored 37 points for the No. 3-seeded Knicks.

NHL

Alex Ovechkin scored the first playoff overtime goal of his NHL career to give the Washington Capitals a 3-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series on Monday night.

Fresh off breaking Wayne Gretzky’s record for the most goals in league history 15 days earlier, Ovechkin’s second of the game 3:26 into OT allowed the Eastern Conference top-seeded Capitals to escape after blowing a two-goal third-period lead.

Pierre-Luc Dubois’ penalty paved the way for Cole Caufield to start Montreal’s comeback bid with 9:28 left in regulation. The Capitals tried to hold on, and a defensive-zone mess allowed Nick Suzuki to tie it with 4:15 left on a shot into a wide-open net after goaltender Logan Thompson slid out to his right and was inadvertently knocked out of the crease by teammate Connor McMichael as he tried to keep the puck out.

Mark Scheifele had a goal and assist, Kyle Connor scored his second consecutive game-winner in the third period, and the Jets beat the St. Louis 2-1 late Monday night in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Connor Hellebuyck stopped 21 shots to help the Jets take a 2-0 playoff series lead for the first time in three seasons.

Rookie Jimmy Snuggerud scored his first playoff goal and Jordan Binnington had 20 saves for the eighth-seeded Blues.

Colin Blackwell scored 17:46 into overtime as the Stars beat the Colorado Avalanche 4-3 on in Game 2 to even up their first-round Western Conference series on Monday night in Dallas.

Blackwell took a shot that was blocked in front of the net by a teammate, but with the loose puck wobbling on the ice, he circled around and knocked it into the top of the net for the winner.

Tyler Seguin, Thomas Harley and Evgenii Dadonov also had goals, and goalie Jake Oettinger stopped 34 shots for Dallas.

Nathan MacKinnon, Jack Drury, and Logan O’Connor also scored, and Mackenzie Blackwood had 35 saves in his second career playoff game for Colorado.

TENNIS

Naomi Osaka’s clay-court season started with a loss in the first round of the Madrid Open against Lucia Bronzetti on Tuesday.

Japan’s four-time Grand Slam champion stumbled on match point as Bronzetti completed a 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 win before checking Osaka was OK as they approached the net for a post-match handshake.

The 55th-ranked Osaka was unseeded in Madrid for her first match in almost a month since reaching the fourth round of the Miami Open. Italy’s Bronzetti will play fifth-seeded American Madison Keys in the second round.

U.S. women also advancing: Caroline Dolehide, 6-4, 6-4 over Elina Avanesyan, and Peyton Stearns, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 over Kimberly Birrell.