Chandler Parsons returned to Earth Wednesday night.
His 3-for-8 shooting was something of a crash landing after the 6-foot-10 small forward's notoriously flat shot had gained some altitude and was making it rain for the previous three games.
"Parsons didn't have a great night," Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said afterward. "But it happens."
When those nights do happen, the Mavs' chances of winning significantly diminish. Consider that when Parsons scores at least 18 points, Dallas is 16-6. When he scores fewer than 10 points, the Mavs are 5-7, with all five wins, including Wednesday's 107-102 hang-onto-your-hat victory over Orlando, coming against sub-.500 teams.
When he's not in the lineup at all, they're 5-5, with only two wins coming against winning teams. Just before returning to the lineup on March 8, Dallas went 3-4 without him, causing a certain amount of knee-jerk panic from the fandom.
All-in-all, that's a 10-12 record when Parsons scores fewer than 10 points or doesn't play at all for a club that is 19 games above .500 and boasts championship aspirations.
It shows just how valuable, or perhaps how indispensable, Parsons is to producing Dallas' first meaningful postseason run since Dirk Nowitzki, and the since-returned Tyson Chandler and J.J. Barea won the championship in 2011.
Just 13 games remain starting tonight with a showdown against struggling Memphis. And with the Western Conference playoff race for the top four seeds, and homecourt advantage in the first round, in total flux, every victory is critical. Just as critical is every minute that Parsons becomes more comfortable within the Dallas system, and now playing alongside point guard Rajon Rondo.
It has certainly been an interesting transition for the fourth-year player who was picked in the second round by the Houston Rockets in 2011 and thrived in Houston's run-and-shoot, analytics-based offense.
His game was tailored for it, a good 3-point shooter who can also put it on the floor and get to the rack. That Houston failed to match Dallas' three-year, $46 million offer sheet took the league by surprise and allowed the Mavs to replace the aging Shawn Marion with a taller player with a far more dangerous offensive arsenal at this stage of their careers.
Parsons hasn't discovered the defensive prowess that made Marion so valuable to Dallas during its title run, and that showed Wednesday when Carlisle sat the sharpshooter during a key stretch of the fourth quarter in order to put a quicker defender, Al-Farouq Aminu, on the floor, Carlisle said.
From the very moment Parsons arrived in Dallas, Carlisle has made it a point to keep the talented, but still young and learning Parsons under his thumb. Carlisle intimated that Parsons was a bit pudgy entering training camp. It got under Parsons' skin enough that he posted a photo of himself shirt-less on his Instagram account.
Carlisle has talked about Parsons' flat shot and has worked to help him launch it with more arc. As Parsons struggled to boost his shooting percentages to the standard he set in Houston, Carlisle said that Parsons will round into form, and will be one of the league's top players by the All-Star break.
A month later and Parsons, averaging 15.6 points a game, has fulfilled that statement for much of this important, season-long five-game homestand.
"I've got to continue to play well," Parsons said following Monday's win over Oklahoma City when he poured in 31 points. "I think I'm a really good playmaker and can make the guys around me better. I think good things happen when I have the ball."
In the three games prior to Wednesday night, Parsons was 25-for-38 from the floor and 11-for-15 from beyond the arc, boosting his season percentage from downtown to 38.9 percent.
And while it is his 3-point shooting ability that always seems to generate the most buzz, Parsons' playmaking, his sneaky ability at his height to put it on the deck and slide through defenders for scoops at the rim is uncanny.
He allows the Mavs to take some pressure off leading scorer Monta Ellis to be the lone penetrator, and forces defenses to defend the drive, which helps to further space the floor.
"He can play point guard. He has those kinds of ball skills and that kind of awareness out there," Carlisle said. "There's just times when we need to take pressure off Monta Ellis. Monta, we've dumped so much on his plate this year, that there's times we need to give him a break and attack with other guys."
Parsons is 26, but is in just his fourth season and is far from a finished product, and far from bringing consistent production game after game.
It's what Dallas will need to make a deep playoff push.
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