Some things we don’t really need to talk about as the Mavs fall to the Bulls, 107-109

A team that was technically the Mavericks defeated a lost to a team that was technically the Bulls. Limping through the second game of a back-to-back, Dallas showed us just exactly what it looks like for a professional basketball team to collectively come down with a terminal case of the Mondays.

Tim Hardaway Jr led the Mavs in scoring with 24. He had some timely 3s in the 4th that made it seem like perhaps Dallas could sneak back home with a win, but the team-wide putrid shooting was too much to overcome as the Mavericks shot below 29% from deep and just 47.6% from the field.

For the Bulls, Denzel Valentine became the designated Maverick killer, scoring 17 to supplement a minutes-restricted Otto Porter, who contributed 18 points in 17 minutes.

Injuries to go around

It’s true that Dallas came in to this game with a lengthy roll call on the injury report. In addition to Powell and Brunson’s extended absences, Seth Curry, who has been on an absolute tear, sat with back tightness, and Kristaps Porzingis was getting his chance to rest after getting leading the Luka-less Mavs to a victory yesterday. The Mavs’ injuries were bad, there’s no denying it, but it’s hard to use that as an excuse when you look at who the Bulls were rolling out there.

Along with the aforementioned restricted Porter Jr, Lauri Markkanen and Zach LaVine were both out. Be that as it may, Chicago still managed to out-duel a Dallas team that seemed largely uninterested in being there.

Fringe players stay on the fringes

In a game like this, with a depleted lineup going against a bad team, it’s a given that the end-of-the-bench players are going to be seeing more time than usual. Boban Marjanovic, to his credit, did everything you can hope for Boban to do; 14 points, 12 rebound on 7/11 shooting in 22 minutes. However, guys like Justin Jackson, who has fallen out of the rotation, Delon Wright, who sees 20 minutes on a good night, Courtney Lee, the alleged Bradley Beal stopper, and J.J. Barea, who has been seeing more minutes with Brunson out — all of them got a shot to do something tonight to contribute to a win, and for the most part, non of them did.

Lee, while having some good defensive plays early, got in to foul trouble that limited his effectiveness. Even a guy like Barea, the ultimate “Carlise guy” wasn’t clicking on offense and showed some frustration on the bench.

5 points in 7 seconds

In a game devoid of highlights, that was an absolute slog from start to finish, let’s just look at this one fun thing that happened, and then we can all just go our separate ways and not talk about this game again.

Those five missed free throws are looking pretty bad right about now.

Here’s the postgame podcast, Mavs Moneyball After Dark. If you can’t see the embed below “More from Mavs Moneyball”, click here. And if you haven’t yet, subscribe by searching “Mavs Moneyball podcast” into your favorite podcast app.