Denver has gone white-hot with an 11-1 record since the All-Star Break.

The Dallas Mavericks (38-29) play host to the west-leading Denver Nuggets (47-20) on Sunday in yet another nationally televised measuring stick game at the American Airlines Center. And once again, the Mavericks feel vaguely ill-prepared for the singular challenge the defending champs pose.

Is it too much to ask for a little luck on St. Patrick’s Day?

Luka Dončić’s availability for the showdown with Nikola Jokic & Co. is up in the air as of this writing after he tweaked his left hamstring in the fourth quarter of the Mavs’ 109-99 win over the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday. He sat out of the team’s 126-119 loss at Oklahoma City on Thursday but did practice with the team on Saturday, according to DallasBasketball.com. Dončić is officially listed as questionable heading into Sunday’s game.

The Nuggets have put the Mavericks in their place in the teams’ two previous meetings this season, beating Dallas by a combined 35 points. In their last meeting, the Denver starters only had to play for around 25 minutes apiece on their way to a 130-104 win over the Mavs on Dec. 18, when Kyrie Irving was out with a heel injury. Dončić scored 38 points on 13-of-24 shooting, including six 3-pointers in the loss, but he just didn’t have the running mates to challenge one of the best teams in the NBA on that night.

Here are three of the biggest hurdles the Mavs will face when the Nuggets descend upon Dallas:

Firepower

The fact that Dončić was able to practice Saturday bodes well for his potential availability against Denver, but if he can’t go, averting your eyes from the horror to come may be your best bet. Irving stepped in admirably in Friday’s loss at OKC with 36 points on 12-of-18 shooting and 12 assists, but no amount of hot shooting or inspired defensive play from the role players is going to make up for the giant hole created by Dončić’s absence against the mighty Nugs.

Dante Exum is also listed as questionable for the Mavericks with a right plantar fascia sprain, and Josh Green is out after rolling his ankle in Oklahoma City. The Nuggets, as the basketball gods are inherently cruel, are completely healthy going into Sunday’s game. Denver has rattled off wins in 11 of 12 games after the All-Star Break and have demonstrated their ability to beat teams in whatever way the game in front of them dictates.

Jokic is averaging 26.0 points per game and a near triple-double since the break and has Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. by his side as potential game-breakers in the Nuggets No. 2 and No. 3 options. And then there’s that ever-present back-door lob action from Jokic to Aaron Gordon that has become one of Denver’s favorite options when teams send a second defender the big man’s way.

It’s a lot to deal with, whether or not Dončić can play, balancing the scales with his own offensive brilliance. The Mavs have played good defense in spurts lately, but the Nuggets have so many counters and Plans B to anything you throw at them defensively, that simply slapping the floor and playing harder on that end isn’t really the solution you think it is.

How do you solve a problem like Nikola?

How do you solve a problem like Nikola?

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

How do you find a way to stop Nikola?

As he makes your post defenders look a clown!

Pardon the show tunes reference there, but the Mavericks’ matchup options against Jokic himself aren’t particularly inspiring. Dallas has gotten good play down low on both ends of the court from Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford in recent games, but neither is a good matchup against The Joker. Few are, really.

In similar matchups recently, Gafford has been relegated to the Jason Kidd Phantom Zone waiting area, much to the chagrin of many Mavs fans, with Maxi Kleber seeing increased minutes for defensive purposes. I guess. But in some of Kleber’s own recent stretches of play, he’s looked a little on the washed side, so again, there just aren’t many elegant solutions for a problem like The Joker on the Mavericks roster.

It should be noted, however, that in the 130-104 blowout in December, Jokic had one of those weird games when he employs a pass-first mentality to the point he’s almost refusing to shoot (8 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists), but still impacts the game with his superior rebounding, intelligence and intangibles.

3-point shooting

The Mavs’ 3-point shooting has the potential to be a great equalizer, but during the team’s four-game win streak before the loss at OKC, the team was shooting just 29 percent from 3-point range and finding other ways to get it done. They snapped out of the shooting funk and went 12-for-29 (41.4%) against the Thunder, but were ultimately one Luka Dončić away from winning that one.

In the same vein, Tim Hardaway Jr.’s bounce back against Oklahoma City makes for a decent enough conversation point leading up to the game against Denver, as he scored 23 points, grabbed nine boards and made 5-of-9 attempts from deep in the loss. If that was an aberration and Hardaway reverts to brick form on Sunday, this is going to be an especially hard game to get for the Mavs. If he can continue to warm up against the Nuggets — if he can be a dependable part of the rotation on offense (because playing any defense at all would be asking far too much) — and bang home a few more 3-balls, the Mavs have a much better chance of staying in this game. Denver has so many options in their offensive attack that Dallas needs to be able to depend on Hardaway as an option in their arsenal on the other end.

Coming into the game, the Mavs are shooting 37.1 percent on 3-point attempts this year, compared to 36.5 percent for Denver. However, the Mavericks are second in the NBA in 3-point frequency per 100 possessions (44.2%), while the Nuggets are dead last at 35 percent, which goes to show how much less dependent Denver is than Dallas on shooting the ball well from outside.