What a horrible run Dallas is on right now. It's not a good time at all to have Denver, New Orleans, and Utah coming up. A five game losing streak, which has to be a real possibility would be pretty awful -- particularly since Dallas fell to 9th in the West after the loss last night.
Pretty obvious when you look at the box score what went wrong last night.
"Our undoing was the 3-point line," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said. "We didn't shoot it well (3-of-20) and they shot 50 percent (8-of-16). It's a disappointing loss. We played well to get a lead, but we just couldn't hold it."
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Sefko says the game showed how important Josh Howard is.
For those who question the value of Howard, the Mavericks' 102-95 loss to the Kings provided a hard argument to fight. Without a strong third scoring option, the Mavericks' twosome of Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry were swarmed and the rest of the Mavericks had trouble taking up the slack.
It certainly would have helped, but Howard's presence really shouldn't have been necessary.
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Sefko says Diop's DNP raised eyebrows, but was mot likely a legitimate "DNP - Coach's Decision". It was Diop's 4th DNP of the year, but two of those came against the Knicks where Dampier hardly played either. Somewhat ironically the other was against Charlotte.
Sefko adds that talks with Charlotte were "on life-support Sunday night, if not completely dead."
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Dallas used ten players in the first quarter last night.
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Mike Fisher gouged out his eyeballs watching the Mavs game, but fought through it enough to wonder why Gerald Green can't get more minutes.
Given a legit shot in the first half, he totaled nine points and four rebounds in nine minutes. In the second half, given situational shots and just four total minutes, he didn't replicate those numbers.
In total, what did he do wrong? How are Green's lapses any more damning than, say, George's lapses? Or Wright's lapses?
I bolded that second part because it's what I haven't been able to figure out all season. Green is far from perfect, but this is also a far from a perfect team.
Gerald Green on possibly getting more minutes with Howard out.
"Even though somebody's hurt, I hate to see that because my boy got hurt, but I've always stayed ready like I'm going to play every game. That's the way I've got to be. I've honestly got to keep my mind focused at all times."