ATLANTA, GEORGIA — After two tough close losses at home to the Phoenix Suns, the Mavericks are sitting at 8-13 and have lost six games consecutively. The frustration reached the tipping point and as Mavericks left the court Monday night, Luka Doncic made his frustrations known. Dallas’s largest lead was 11 points and that lead was maintained until the latter part of the fourth quarter.
The Suns were carried by stellar fourth quarter performances by Chris Paul and Devin Booker. Booker scored 15 of his 24 points in the fourth quarter and Paul couldn’t miss from the field and ran the Suns offense to perfection and won the game on a last second Devin Booker three. Not the way you want to begin the start of a home stretch with few times to travel in between.
But, let’s keep everything in perspective about the Mavericks.
It was the first game the entire roster was available to play and in their first loss against the Suns on Saturday the Mavericks played the majority of that game playing from behind. In their loss on Monday, Dallas was in control for most of the game, but a last second shot spurned the Mavericks chances of snapping their six game losing streak. This loss wasn’t about lack of effort. This loss specifically was just basketball. It happens all the time, teams get last second opportunities and some succeed and some fail, that is just the nature of the sport.
Let’s also remember, out of all of the teams in the NBA no team has had players miss more games than the Mavericks when you factor in the 5 players who entered Covid 19 protocol and Kristaps Porzingis who didn’t return to the rotation until mid January.
There is no such thing as moral victories, but if you look at the numbers over the course of the last two games, the Mavericks are close to being back on par with who they are offensively and defensively with the exception of their three point shooting performance. This leaves some reason to believe the Mavericks are actually closer to resolving their issues and further from continuing their conundrum of losing.
It’s fair to judge the Mavericks accordingly for their performance in the month of January, but not fair to define who they are as a team presently. Yes, a quarter of the season is over, but the Mavericks still have 51 games to play to turn things around. Based on their performance in the first two games of February, I like the Mavericks odds of being a better team going forward. It just takes time to get into rhythm and with a shortened offseason it threw a wrench in the Mavericks grand scheme.
Tonight, we will see if the Mavericks will overcome their long losing streak against the 10-10 Hawks who have lost two out of their last three games to begin their journey back to the .500 mark.
