Parsons sizzles but Carlisle takes swipe at sieve at other end
File this under the category of feats rarely seen: Dallas Mavericks forward Chandler Parsons scored a season-high 31 points, yet his team was outscored by 30 points in the 36 minutes he played and lost to the Houston Rockets.
That's hard to do.
Afterward, Mavs coach Rick Carlisle thought so, too. He seemingly put the finger of blame directly on Parsons for not working hard enough on the defensive end. Carlisle told reporters, via ESPN:
Parsons didn't seem all that pleased to be singled out by his coach, saying, via ESPN:
Halfway through the season, Parsons looks to be physically past the microfracture surgery he had on his right knee during the offseason. Recently he has absolutely sizzled offensively with 30, 26 and 31 points in his last three game while going 31-of-51 from the floor and 12-of-18 from beyond the arc.
However, Dallas is 1-2 during that stretch and is 6-8 during January as it slipped to sixth in the Western Conference and is just one game ahead of the seventh-place Rockets.
It's not as if the Mavs entered Sunday's game as a lock-down defensive unit. They're a middle-of-the-road defensive team that lacks even one solely defensive-minded player. They have to help Dirk Nowitzki, 37, who is always hard-working but wasn't exactly a bullying defender even in his prime. And against Houston, the Mavs were also without starting center Zaza Pachulia.
Pointing the finger at Parsons against a Rockets team that features James Harden and streaky 3-point shooter Trevor Ariza, who was red hot Sunday with six 3-pointers, might be more of a motivational ploy by Carlisle to emphasize how badly the Mavs need him to concentrate on being a consistent two-way player.
