About last night... Loss to Suns

Woooohooooo!!! The Dallas Mavericks have clinched a spot in the playoffs for the first time since 2016!!! Everyone celebrate... or not. Thanks to the Spurs for beating up on the Grizzlies. Mavs have done nothing so far in Orlando to sure up their spot, it doesn't feel earned at this point. Especially with a loss on the same night. Don't get me wrong, the Dallas Mavericks deserve to be in the playoffs. It's just such a lousy way to hit that goal. Let's get into it. 

This game was a snooze fest from the jump. Mavs were running away with it. Getting wherever they wanted on the court, drawing fouls on anybody and everybody that stood their way. Still, they kept the door open for a comeback by Phoenix. It never felt like we were dominating them, even though being up by 13 at half. 

The third quarter was the time to strike! Mavs were still holding off a comeback by Booker and the Suns. Trading buckets up and down the floor, then BOTH Booker and Ayton left early on due to having five fouls each. I begged for the Mavs to put the hammer down. Now is the time where you show how much better you really are, especially now that their two corner stones are stuck riding the pine til next quarter. They didn't. Basketball became ugly, tons of turnovers, and tons of threes by the Suns and NONE by the Mavericks. The Suns regained the lead for the first time since the first quarter with both of their stars out, relying on Texas Legends star Cam Payne for some critical buckets. It was gonna be a long night. 

In the fourth, the Mavs made a comeback. Luka racked up 40, getting to the paint as he pleased. KP helped out with 30 on his birthday and some critical defensive plays that made the comeback possible. On top of all that, the suns lost Booker with just over a minute left to play. Lets. Go. MAVS! 

unfortunately, DFS committed a flagrant foul (weird) and the mavericks allowed Rubio to out rebound them on three possessions, then sell a foul and get two free-throws to put the suns up by 3. Even still the mavericks ended up with an opportunity to tie or win the game with 22 seconds left on the clock, Rick calls a timeout. He gets Luka the ball, Luka dives inside for the easy layup/foul but instead decides to dish it out to Hardaway jr. (who hit only one shot all night 0-8 from three) the pass gets deflected. Time for another play. Similarly Luka gets the ball, gets in the paint, could go up with it, but dishes it out. The ball finds KP on the perimeter. He promptly takes a sidestep 3 over Ayton that falls short. Mavericks get the ball back after a successful ou of bounds review and get the ball to who with 3.7 seconds left!?? Thats right Tim Hardaway Jr.! clank. 1-12 from the game, 0-8 from 3. But hey, we clinched the playoffs. 

Role players

Rick decided to go with Cleveland over Justin Jackson. I like it. He can actually play some defense and hit that corner 3. More minutes for him lets go! I liked the staggering Rick did tonight swell, unfortunately it died in the 3rd. Delon wright got more minutes than Trey Burke did, and I'm not exactly sure why. (25 vs 12 min.) Sure, Wright played better tonight than he did against the Rockets, and Burke wasn't gonna drop 30 but man are we sure he's that much more deserving of minutes? What really ticked me off was in the 4th. The Mavs were trying to claw back, looked lifeless. Burke comes in, hits a nice shot over Booker, and makes a nice pass to KP who got fouled going to the rim. Then Burke gets taken out immediately. Why? 

Kleber is good when he wants to be, but when his 3 isn't falling its hard for him to be a threat with that bench unit. Another thing, are we sure Seth doesn't need to be playing more with that bench? Sure he can start, but stagger that dude so he can heat up some and make some plays. There's not really anybody else on that second unit that can do that, and I'm not confident relying on Burke to carry them through the playoffs. Sorry. Curry Quietly had 16 on a 50% night from 3. 

The two stars played well, the role players? not so much. There needs to be some sort of gameplay for when those guys come in. Right now it just seems like chaos. Luka's unselfishness, one of his many great parts of his game, is being exploited by having role players who cant deliver. As we saw in the clutch last night. 

After the game Luka added this:  " We've got to learn from these mistakes. It's little details... We've got to start the 3rd quarter stronger and be physical..." Very very very true young Allstar. It's been known. On the bright side, it's just one hump the Mavs need to get over to become a very good team. Down side is... they haven't been able to get over that hump all year. 

The Mavericks are now 3 games behind the Thunder, who sit in the 6 seed. Thanks to the loss, they are 3.5 back from the Rockets and also the Jazz for the 5 spot. It's almost a lock that the Mavs are going to be stuck playing the Clippers in the first round. The Clippers are 2 games up on Denver and 3 up from the Jazz/Rockets. There are 6 games left in these seeding games. Lets just hope that they can gain some type of momentum. Moral is very low, but hey...we clinched the playoffs