According to Maxi Kleber, he already knew in the morning how the evening should go for him - and then excelled in the NBA playoffs with a personal best and eight converted threes.

"I'll let ten threesomes fly today," he said to a teammate, the national basketball player from Würzburg reported after the best playoff game of his career.

In the 110:104 of the Mavericks against the Utah Jazz on Monday evening (local time), the 30-year-old even threw eleven times from behind the three-point line.

Eight of the throws went in.

Dirk Nowitzki never managed to do that in the playoffs either.

"It was a hot hand and if I'm open then I like to throw further," said Kleber of the German Press Agency.

Victory without star Luka Doncic

By equalizing to 1:1, the Mavericks still have every chance of moving into the second round of the playoffs, something the team hasn't achieved since the championship with Nowitzki in 2011.

Whoever has four wins first is through.

Next up are two games in Salt Lake City hosted by the Jazz.

"With an excellent feeling" he is now traveling to Utah, said Kleber.

The injured Luka Doncic should finally be back on Thursday.

The star has a calf injury.

Jalen Brunson topped the Doncic position with a career-best 41 points.

The Mavericks' second-best pitcher was Kleber with 25 points and an extraordinary hit rate of 72.7 percent.

"I'm very happy for him.

The way he played tonight - outstanding," Brunson said.

Kleber's personal best in the NBA is 26 points in a game.

He has never scored more than 14 points in a game in the playoffs.

Kleber had only sunk 19 percent of his threes since the All-Star break.

"He didn't hit them in the last games of the main round.

But he's a pro.

He just keeps going.

He has to shoot them because he can.

And today he made them.

He was big today," said Mavericks coach Jason Kidd.

Despite the difficulties and the injury break at the end of the main round, Kleber had no self-doubt.

"It's obviously a big boost.

But even in the previous games where I didn't throw well, I did a lot of things right and we won.

That's the most important.

We're in the playoffs, so the numbers don't matter," he said.

That's why he was most happy about the comeback in front of his own fans, because in the meantime Utah already had a ten point lead in the second half.

"Very, very, very important," said Kleber.

“We stuck together and we fought.” Dirk Nowitzki, who cheered the victory with a tweet immediately after the end, also liked that.