Mavericks still seeking answers, hold team meeting after latest brutal loss
Only the Sixers have a worse record than Dallas
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2 min read
The Dallas Mavericks' dreadfully disappointing season hit a new low Wednesday with a 120-89 home loss to the Sacramento Kings. The defeat dropped their record to 4-17, and only the 4-18 Philadelphia 76ers are keeping them away from the very bottom of the NBA standings.
Dallas has a ready-made excuse for its record -- injuries, so many of them! -- but coach Rick Carlisle told reporters he had to do a better job preparing the team to play.
"This was a very, very disappointing performance," Carlisle said, via ESPN's Tim MacMahon. "It starts with me. I've got to do a better job getting these guys ready to play, getting them ready to compete. The second half was inexcusable: The way we played, just the way we performed all around -- everything from how we competed, decision-making.
"Shot-making comes and goes, but the competitive spirit has got to be there. We're going to do better."
After making that statement, Carlisle didn't take any questions. Reporters were told to leave the locker room early so the Mavericks could hold a 35-minute meeting, per ESPN.
In a vacuum, this one loss is sort of understandable. Without injured center Andrew Bogut, the Mavs didn't have the muscle to handle Sacramento star DeMarcus Cousins, who scored 24 points on 10-for-16 shooting, with 14 rebounds and seven assists. The Kings scored 68 points in the paint. The absence of Bogut, Dirk Nowitzki, Seth Curry and J.J. Barea also means Dallas lacked play-making -- it had 23 turnovers, which led to 34 Sacramento points.
The team meeting, however, could not have simply been about this one game. On the season, the Mavs are 29th in offensive rating and 28th in net rating. They rarely get offensive rebounds, get to the free throw line or score fast-break points. When a team is at a talent disadvantage just about every night, as Dallas has been this season, it has to make up for it by playing hard and being disciplined. Carlisle isn't seeing that right now, and that's a problem.
If you're looking for optimism about this situation, though, you just have to look at the big picture. While Mavs owner Mark Cuban has said that they won't tank, at least until the final weeks of the season, they might naturally finish near the bottom of the standings. For a team that hasn't had a top-10 draft pick at its disposal since the 1998 acquisition of Dirk Nowitzki, this could be an opportunity to find a franchise-changing player.
