I’ll admit it. My love for the Dallas Mavericks took over my body and mind going into last night’s game. No Dirk Nowitzki. No Derek Fisher. No Elton Brand or Brandan Wright either. How did my mind translate this?

“I’m not worried. The Mavs are going to take this game tonight.”

Then the game began. Mayo hit his first jumper, and the basketball gods were smiling down at me. Then they stopped smiling.

Lebron James rattled off 13 points on 6-7 shooting in the 1st Quarter, and the Mavs couldn’t buy a bucket. I mentioned Mayo hitting his 1st jumper of the game. He followed that by shooting 2-13 from then on. Some would say that this was a matter of Mayo struggling against the big boys. That isn’t really the issue. With the Mavericks missing Nowitzki, the Heat used their intense half court defense to shut Mayo down. The absent  Nowitzki lead the Mavericks to have nobody to help spread the floor.

“We’re playing a random game right now because of our personnel situation,” Carlisle said. “It’s not like we’re running a lot of plays for O.J.

If you want to really get an idea for how bad this game was, check this out.

 

STARTERS	+/-	PTS
Shawn Marion, SF	-23	10
Chris Kaman, C	-27	8
Darren Collison, PG	-10	11
Dahntay Jones, SG	-8	12
O.J. Mayo, SG	-24	8

Those are your starters from last nights game. Look at those numbers. The Mavericks would’ve had a better chance last night had they played their bench the whole game. After all, it was their bench that got them to within 3 in the 2nd half, and cut a 36 point lead to a final deficit of 15.

These types of performances are expected from time to time, but now we have the media once again demanding that we look ahead to the off season and our upcoming lottery pick. The Mavericks are 12-14 without Dirk Nowitzki. His return can’t come fast enough, but it is on the horizon. Are we really going to act like the Mavericks are going to continue this kind of play when he is back?

Believe it or not, the Mavericks once again cut it down on the turnovers(9). It was just a very poor shooting night that lead to this outcome. The Mavericks shot 38.5% from the field, and made only 3 of 22 three point attempts. That’s not going to win many games, especially against Lebron James and the defending champions.

What’s Next:

The Mavericks will have to erase their memory following last night’s game, because they don’t have much time between games. The Mavs will now head to Memphis to start a gruesome 5 game stretch that features the following:

@ Memphis – 12/21

@ San Antonio – 12/23

@ Oklahoma City – 12/27

Denver – 12/28

San Antonio – 12/30

We are just hoping that the Big German will be on that floor at some point during it.

As always, GO MAVS!