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Over the course of a long 82-game season, what happened to the Dallas Mavericks on Monday night will likely also happen to the other 29 NBA teams on multiple occasions this season. For the Mavs, it just leaves a sour taste in their mouth when it happens.
Favored to win a game this season for the first time – against a Sacramento team that was the league’s only winless squad – the Mavs surprisingly played down to the competition and wound up losing to the pesky Kings, 115-100, at American Airlines Center.
In having their three-game winning streak snapped, the Mavs fell to 4-3 as they head to San Antonio on Wednesday, while the Kings improved to 1-6. Afterward, Mavs coach Dusty May didn’t make any excuses for his team, who looked nothing like the team that swept through Miami, Oklahoma City and Houston last week.
“I want to credit Sacramento,” May said. “They were the more determined team tonight and the more prepared team, and they came in here and earned it.
“We didn’t put much pressure on the paint and on the rim, and we were on our heels. Win or lose, we’re going to look back at our process and see: Did we prepare the right way, did we have the right game plan, what would we do different the next time?”
The Mavs couldn’t contain rookie Darius Acuff Jr. (25 points, five rebounds, six assists), Malik Monk (24 points, seven assists) or Zach LaVine (23 points, 5-of-9 three-pointers). And for that, they paid dearly against a Sacramento squad that has lost five of its games by 11 or more points.
“To be honest, I think they were more hungry than us tonight,” said Mavs guard Walter Clayton Jr., who scored a team-high tying 20 points and converted 4-of-5 three-pointers. “I think we kind of played to their record.
“We didn’t play up to our abilities. We lost the rebounding battle (42-35). That was a big one. They beat us to a lot of 50-50 (balls). We just got to come out with more energy.”
Yes, the Mavs played without superstar guard Kyrie Irving, who was resting as Dallas played the first of five games in eight days. And when Cooper Flagg struggled with just 17 points on 3-of-19 shots, not many players stepped up to become a factor.
May acknowledged that the Kings loaded the paint and forced Flagg to become a jump shooter, and he kept missing the mark.
“There’s a cadence to it where he’s fanning out early and then we missed our first (10) threes and we thought several of them were good looks,” May said. “At that point it fuels their fire to get to him even more in the paint. . .and they’re running a second guy and a third guy at him.
“I don’t think our spacing or relocations were great as a whole, and we didn’t find any rhythm together.”
The Mavs, who got 13 points in 17 minutes from rookie Morez Johnson Jr., entered the fourth quarter down, 81-74. And whenever they tried to nip away at the deficit, either Acuff, Monk or LaVine kept burying big shots.
“They spread us out and they made tough shots,” May said. “I thought LaVine was very, very sound. Obviously, Acuff is dynamic. I thought they picked their spots well.
“But Monk, every time we made a run he came back with a step-back three dagger after dagger. It wasn’t as if they didn’t make plays.”
In the meantime, the Mavs missed their top playmaker – Irving.
“He does so much for us in making big shots and calming us down,” May said. “We haven’t been able to answer runs very well, and that’s one area that he does.
“When one of your guys is out and another one just has an off night, you’ve got to have some other guys step up. And making shots is part of that, and it just didn’t drop tonight.”
On playing without Irving, center Daniel Gafford said: “We definitely missed him. He has a lot of gravity when he’s on the floor. He makes everyone’s job a little easier.
“But whenever he’s not on the floor everybody knows it’s the next man up. Everybody has to take that next step and find ways to make an impact whenever one of our star players is not on the floor.”
Overall, the Mavs shot 41 percent from the field and just 21.2 percent (7-of-33) from beyond the three-point arc. They started slow – down 19-18 after the first quarter and 54-53 at the half – and finished even slower.
Indeed, it was not one of the Mavs’ finer moments, especially considering the competition.
“I felt like the energy was a little low,” said Gafford, who collected 20 points and seven rebounds and was 9-of-10 from the field. “P.J. (Washington) said it a lot in the locker room -- we played their record tonight, 100 percent. They came in and they played like pros tonight.”
Sacramento shot 52.4 percent from the floor and 44.2 percent (19-of-43) from three-point land. For the most part, the Kings were in command of this game.
“We’ll have several learning experiences from this game,” May said. “We do have a young team and when it’s not going well, we just kept stressing everything’s going poorly for us, but let’s just find a way to hang around and get it to the end.
“Their shot-making prevented us from doing that. Those guys, they found great connections -- especially in the fourth quarter -- found some matchups, and I thought they played unselfish basketball.”
Now the Mavs must regroup and battle a Spurs team that defeated them in Dallas, 122-106, on Oct.24.
“We can’t let the record fool us, at the end of the day,” Gafford said of the Kings. “An 0-6 team coming in with a fire under their tail. We had to be ready for anything. There were times when shots didn’t fall and I felt like we kind of let go of the rope in those situations.
“We’ll let this hurt until midnight, and then we’ll focus on the next one. We’ve got a big game coming up in two days against a good Spurs team. We can’t dwell too much on this one.”
X: @DwainPrice