It's difficult to believe a stretch of nine games in 12 days once looked like a launching pad for the Dallas Mavericks to surge in the standings. Now, there's a decent chance it will be remembered for when the season fell apart.
The Mavs lost seven of those nine games, including three straight to the Suns, Kings and Warriors. They have dropped into seventh place in the Western Conference. It's still difficult to imagine this team missing the playoffs, but the Mavs are working on it.
Home games this week against the Washington Wizards and Charlotte Bobcats should offer a reprieve from the free fall, but nothing can be taken for granted at this point. Dallas has suddenly lost its identity as a defensive-minded team, as evidenced by its fall from a top-five scoring defense to No. 8 following losses to the Kings and Warriors.
"It was a great experience, wasn't it?" Dirk Nowitzki said sarcastically to reporters. "A lot of unexpected losses, obviously, and really what hurt us was the first couple of games out of the break. You can't lose out of the gate at home against New Jersey. You can't go to New Orleans when they're five, six men down and lose there. We just weren't sharp enough coming out of the break."
Mavs coach Rick Carlisle did a tremendous job in the first half of the season masking some of his team's deficiencies on both sides of the floor. But he simply has run out of solutions the past two weeks.
Nowitzki has his moments, but the Mavs need him to score at least 25 points to have a shot at winning. For whatever reason, that's not happening on a consistent basis. And when Carlisle chose to bench guard Jason Terry in crunch time against the Phoenix Suns, it just seemed to reinforce his insecurities about his future with the organization. In case you missed it, he recently told my radio colleague Ben Rogers that he thinks about his contract "all the time." And after a lopsided loss to the Kings, Terry made some pretty strong comments.
"I don't know about the frustration level, but it's time for change," Terry said. "You can only look at something for so long and you're getting the same result. So at what point are you going to change, or are you going to ride it out?
"I'm here. I'm here to do my job. As far as somebody else, I can't speak for them. I got to speak for myself. If it sounds selfish, it is what it is. We're not a team out there right now. It shows, so until we become a team and play together on both ends of the court, we're not going to be very good."
After the loss to the Warriors, Terry was much more diplomatic and optimistic about the rest of the season. He indicated that several players cleared the air after the loss to the Suns, but it didn't seem to translate to any on-court improvement the next two nights.
Maybe we shouldn't be so surprised by what's taking place. Vince Carter turned back the clock in the first half of the season and provided consistent scoring and hustle. Shawn Marion was making a run at Defensive Player of the Year. It's natural that two aging players would see a decline in their game with this type of schedule. And don't discount the injuries to starting center Brendan Haywood and the springy Brandan Wright, who both should return this week.
It speaks to how tired this team is that Carlisle decided to rest Kidd against the Warriors. This was a team in desperate need of a win, but Carlisle is trying to keep the big picture in mind.
As crazy as it sounds, the Mavs need to approach the games this week against Washington and Charlotte as must-win games. Once those games are over, Dallas has to face some of the top teams in the Western Conference, starting with the Spurs on Saturday.
"We're going to play some teams that are right there with us," Nowitzki said. "We've got San Antonio, we've got Houston, we've got Denver in the next two weeks. And we've got the Lakers at home one more time. It's going to be a fun challenge here in the next two weeks, and we always have a day (off) in between. We've just got to be better and make a run here."
Does that sound like false hope?
It does if you watched the past nine games.
