NEW YORK -- Playing for the first time in over six weeks since aggravating an adductor injury, Dallas Mavericks forward Anthony Davis said he felt "great" while finishing with 12 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, a steal and a block in 26 minutes in Monday's 120-101 victory over the Brooklyn Nets.

"Physically I felt great," Davis said afterward, while seated in the visitors locker room at Barclays Center. "It's the mental aspect when you're coming back from something like that. To mentally be ready to go out and play. I was mentally ready. But then getting into game action where you can't anticipate what the other team is going to do. I overcame that in the first minute or so. From there, it was just about being smart. Obviously, I'm on a minutes restriction."

Monday's game marked just the second time Davis had taken the court for Dallas since coming to the Mavericks in exchange for Luka Doncic at the start of February. Davis, already dealing with an abdominal strain at the time of the trade, made his debut in Dallas against the Houston Rockets on Feb. 8 -- playing 31 minutes and scoring 26 points to go along with 16 rebounds, 7 assists and 3 blocks -- before aggravating his injury.

Then, as Davis has sat out for the past six weeks, Dallas has seen a series of players -- from Kyrie Irving (torn ACL) to Daniel Gafford (knee sprain) to Dante Exum (fractured hand) to Caleb Martin (hip strain), among others -- all go down with injuries, often leaving the Mavericks flirting with not having the eight healthy bodies required by league rules to play an NBA game.

To that end, Mavericks coach Jason Kidd joked before the game that over the past few weeks he'd told his players to wait until the 15-minute mark to come to the court to warm up, rather than the more typical 20 minutes before, in an effort to try to conserve their energy. Monday, though, marked at least a beginning of a shift in the other direction, with third-year big man Dereck Lively II potentially to return sometime in the next couple of weeks.

"It was tough seeing these guys battling every single night. Winning close games," Davis said. "Losing close games. Blowing teams out. Getting blown out. They are laying it on the line. For me, it was never a thought about if I was going to come back and play. Especially if I was healthy. We are undermanned. Guys are hurt. Gafford. Lively. Kyrie goes out. It was tough. Guys were leaving it on the floor. Guys laying on the floor in the locker room afterwards just gassed -- to the point of exhaustion. There was no doubt I was going to come back and play. That makes you want to come out and play with these guys. Leave it on the floor and battle each and every night.

"As one of the leaders of the team, I just wanted to go out there and give them a breather at least."

Irving's injury, in particular, was a devastating blow to the Mavericks, as he tore his left ACL after landing awkwardly on a drive against the Sacramento Kings three weeks ago. After Irving shot a pair of free throws while clearly in immense pain, Davis was one of the people who helped him off the floor.

Now out for this season and likely at least a significant chunk of next season as well, Irving was with the team in Brooklyn, where he spent parts of four seasons of his career playing for the Nets.

"It was devastating," Davis said of Irving's injury. "Kyrie is a phenomenal basketball player. But even more phenomenal human. Any time anyone goes through something like that, an injury like that, it always sucks. Obviously, the initial injury, the initial moment, you want to give him space. Then he came back to the locker room. Got everything out of his system. Now he's excited about the rehab process.

"He's in a good headspace now ... to see him in a great headspace, it's good for our team. Good for me. And, I'm pretty sure, good for him. Obviously, it sucks. But we have to hold the fort down for this season, and into next season, until he's ready to come back."

Davis, however, was ready to come back Monday. And after Kidd said before the game that he hoped it would be both a positive, and healthy, experience for Davis after his, and all of the other injuries, that Dallas has experienced in recent weeks, he was pleased with how it went.

"It was a positive experience," Kidd said. "We tried to keep his run short. We tried to keep him under his minutes and I thought he did an incredible job. I thought his rhythm was good. Sometimes when you get a player back like AD, you wanna dump the ball to him every time. I thought the guys did a good job of being aggressive and letting the ball find him."

But despite the brief ray of optimism around Davis' return, the team he came back to is one with totally different expectations than the ones Dallas had after the controversial trade was made, when Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison declared the team had a "3-to-4 year" window to win titles. After Monday's win, Dallas sits a half-game ahead of the Phoenix Suns for the 10th and final spot in the Western Conference play-in picture, pending the result of Phoenix's game against the Milwaukee Bucks later in the night.

That, however, didn't stop Davis from pushing to return as soon as he was able to.

"I stressed that to them," Davis said. "Once I'm 100 percent, whenever that time was, and we have games left, I'm going to play. We all huddled up and got on the same page. Went through the rehab process and was able to play tonight. There was never a moment in my mind -- unless we ran out of games -- that I wasn't going to play.

"Seeing these guys playing with seven guys. Guys playing 38, 40 minutes. We just don't have enough bodies. Kessler Edwards is playing the 5. Naji [Marshall] is playing the 5. Added a little bit more motivation for me. I was already motivated to get back. But it added a little bit more motivation seeing those guys battle each and every night. And leaving it on the floor.

"There was no doubt in my mind I was going to come back."