Following a season-high seven-game win streak, the Dallas Mavericks have fallen on hard times over the last week, having lost four of their last five matchups with Western Conference postseason position on the line. The latest loss came on Sunday afternoon against the Joel Embiid-less Philadelphia 76ers. After jumping out to an electric 11-0 start, the Mavs weren't able to keep up that energy and ultimately lost the game, 120-116, falling to 34-27 and staying at No. 8 in the West.
Despite winning the fourth quarter 40-30, it was a case of too little, too late for Dallas. Luka Doncic led the way with his third consecutive triple-double, finishing with 38 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. Kyrie Irving pitched in with 28 points, five rebounds and four assists. Unfortunately, though, both stars combined for 11 turnovers on the night.
"You look at being desperate, understanding you have no room for error. I thought the guys in the fourth quarter played at a high level," Mavs head coach Jason Kidd said after the loss.
"The execution defensively — a lot of our schemes we didn't do until the fourth and when we did execute them, they went the way we thought. Offensively, I've said this earlier in here, our offense is our defense. When we score, we're one of the best teams in this league. When we don't score, we're one of the worst teams. When we struggle to score, we tend to not do anything on the defensive end, and we're trying to find a way to score. We're getting great looks but they're just not falling for us. In the fourth, we had a 40-point quarter, and it's one of our better defensive quarters of our games."
For most of this season, the Mavs' biggest (and legitimate) excuse for their shortcomings was a lack of health. Although the team is finally healthy again, Kidd now says there's going to be an adjustment period for him and his coaching staff to figure out the best rotations.
"With being healthy, you've got to go through a rhythm and understand we've got guys coming back. We're looking at different combinations and we're still trying to win," Kidd said.
"We've got two new guys. We're trying to get them used to the schemes. There's going to be some breakdown and we've got to continue to be working through that. The one thing that we are trying to encourage our group to do is talk. We can't take our phones out there to text one another. We can't look at Instagram or Twitter while we're playing. We've got to be able to talk to one another, to help each other. This afternoon, it was at a low. We have to be better talking to each other, being able to take that criticism and be positive moving forward."
One big issue as of late has been the play of Tim Hardaway Jr., who finished Sunday's loss with two points on 1-8 shooting from the field and 0-6 from deep in 15 minutes off the bench. During this five-game stretch where the Mavs have gone 1-4, Hardaway is averaging 8.6 points while shooting just 34.1 percent from the field.
"Right now, I've got to go back and look [at what adjustments are needed]. We all know Timmy's not shooting the ball well. Maybe we watch Major League, get some Kentucky Fried Chicken and put that in his locker," Kidd said in an attempt to be lighthearted about the situation.
"But no, we trust that Timmy's going to get out of it. The beauty of sport is you've got to fail to be successful. We just were in Boston, and I give those guys a lot of credit; they didn't just start off winning and going to championships, they had to struggle. Right now, we're struggling, and we've got to stay together and stay positive and understand when the ball goes in the basket for us, we're really good. The next step is if the ball isn't going in the basket, how do we get stops? That's what a young team is going through and that's what we're going through right now."
Early in the season, Hardaway was one of the favorites for Sixth Man of the Year with his play off the bench. Despite his recent struggles, he could still be in that conversation if he can regain his confidence from deep. Through 57 games, Hardaway is averaging 16.7 points while shooting 36.3 percent from deep. If he can't start hitting his 3s, though, Kidd will have to make the decision to bench him in order to give the Mavs their best chance of winning games.
"We did have a lot of turnovers," Kidd said. "When we are one-for-one in assists-to-turnovers, that's not going to be a recipe for success. We have to be better. We're a team that doesn't turn the ball over. Here of late, we've been having some turnovers. This afternoon, we had a lot of turnovers. If you're not getting shots, that's going to put a lot of pressure on your defense. We have to be better with the ball and we'll be better on Tuesday [versus Indiana]."
The heat on Kidd's seat is going to be turned up some in these final 21 games if the Mavs don't make it out of the Play-In Tournament. Given the star power and depth the Dallas roster has, even a first-round playoff exit could be viewed as a failure this season. The talent is there, Kidd and his staff just have to find a way to get that talent to stay engaged on a nightly basis in order for the Mavs to reach their potential.
More must-reads: