The Dallas Mavericks woes continue as they have now dropped two straight games against opponents that sit six games out of playoff contention. Last night, the Mavericks defeat came at the hands of the Denver Nuggets in the Mavs 12th overtime game of the season.
The Mavericks (33-30) had a four point lead with 10-seconds remaining in the game but a foul by Wesley Matthews gave the Nuggets (25-38) two points and a horrible attempt by Chandler Parsons to bounce the ball off Gary Harris before the 5-second violation ended up in the hands of Emmanuel Mudiay, who hit a streaking Kenneth Faried, sending the game to overtime. Defeat would soon follow.
Absolute mayhem at the end of regulation between Mavs/Nuggets ? pic.twitter.com/zynrAe00Tz
— VEGAS, BABY? (@World_Wide_Wob) March 7, 2016
If it wasn’t panic time before, I’d say it’s panic time now. The sixth-place Mavs possess a 3 ½-game lead over the ninth-place Utah Jazz (29-33). If that doesn’t speak for itself, the Mavericks next nine-games are against teams with winning records, including two-games against the Golden State Warriors (55-6).
It needs to be noted that Dallas is 9-19 against winning teams and tonight will be another tough test as they host DeAndre Jordan and the Los Angeles Clippers.
I won’t beat the dead horse about Jordan returning to Dallas because we need to get over the sour summertime fling that left the Mavericks in a panic. I will say though, the crowd needs to be as loud, if not louder, when Jordan first came back to Dallas in November.
“For us, it should be another game, but I’m sure the crowd will remember forever,” Doc Rivers said of Jordan’s change of heart. “But I don’t think it’s going to be as big a deal as it was the first time.”
Things were a little testy the first meeting of the season between the two teams as the Clippers (40-21) took the victory but the Mavericks regrouped and took the second meeting. Tonight will be game three of their four meetings this season.
The Clippers are coming off a loss to the Atlanta Hawks in which Jordan had to be benched late in the fourth due to his poor free-throw shooting. He still carried the Clippers with 17 points, 11 rebounds, five rebounds and four steals.
Tonight will be huge for Dallas to fix two things, they can finally reach double-digit wins against winning teams and they can improve their point differential against opponents. Currently the Mavericks have scored 6,466 points this season and having allowed 6,466 points.
If you haven’t come to grips with the Mavericks being average, think again.
Will the Mavericks show signs of life or get rolled over?
How To Watch:
Game tips-off at 7:30 CT tonight and can be seen on Fox Sports Southwest.
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