The One Thing the Mavs Simply Can’t Afford to Happen…Happened This Weekend

Things are not good these days in Mavs land. As if it weren’t enough losing the last 3 games to contenders from the West, which I thought Dallas needed to at least win 2, and as if it weren’t enough that Dallas is now 0-8 vs. Western conference playoff teams since the Kidd trade, now their best player is hurt and could possibly miss 2 weeks. In yesterday’s loss to San Antonio, Dirk went down with a “lower leg injury” and so now all Mavs fans are looking down the playoff ladder hoping to hold off Golden State and Denver. How the mighty have fallen!

It was just 1 year ago that Dallas won 67 games and 2 years ago that Dallas went to the NBA Finals. Now, the Mavs are just hoping to make the playoffs. I know 2 years ago Miami won the championship and are now the worst team in the league. However, their roster is completely different than the team that won the championship…the majority of the Mavs roster is the same. What on earth has happened? This weekend, while at 7-11, the counter clerk told me he didn’t think the Mavs would make the playoffs. I scoffed, thinking that there was no way Dallas would not make the playoffs (however this was before Dirk’s injury). Now, I’m not so sure.

I try to be a realist, as much as I can, and looking at the remaining schedule and how the team is playing, I really can’t be sure Dallas will be in the playoffs this year…especially if they will be without Dirk for the next 2 weeks. We all saw how the Mavs played without Dirk a few weeks ago when they got blasted on their home court by Houston (Dirk was suspended for a game for a flagrant foul in a previous game). Dirk seems to be the only constant good thing about this team lately. And now, with him gone, I’m just not sure how the team will manage. Dallas only has 4 cupcake games left on its schedule: the Clippers (twice) and the Sonics (twice). The only good thing is that Dallas plays the Clippers twice in the next two weeks so hopefully Dirk won’t miss more than that. Otherwise, things can go from bad to worse. The rest of their schedule looks like this: Nuggets, Warriors (twice) Lakers, Suns, Jazz, Hornets and Trail Blazers (who are tough at home). With the team playing the way they are now, most of those games (without Dirk) are a loss.

Dallas hasn’t put together a complete game in quite a while. When the starters have a good game, the bench doesn’t give good support. When the bench comes up big, the starters have an off night. And when the team plays good defense, the offensive game of the Mavs comes up short. Dallas did a good job defensively on Boston and San Antonio holding them to 94 and 88 points respectively. Think about this: in yesterday’s loss to San Antonio, the Mavs held 3 of the Spurs top 4 offensive performers (Duncan, Parker, Finley) to 11-49 shooting…and San Antonio still won the game. The team simply has to play better than they have, which they ARE capable of…they just have to figure out how to get it done. They say all the right things after losses in the locker room but those things haven’t translated to the court.

And as a Mavs fan, I dread asking this question: if things don’t go well for the Mavs this final 3 weeks and they end up missing the playoffs, what then? You can’t come back next season with the same roster so who stays and who goes? And really that same question can be asked if Dallas does make the playoffs but gets swept in the first round, which is highly probable at this point. I don’t know where the team goes (I think Dirk is about the only untouchable) if that happens and frankly don’t like thinking about it.

Get well Dirk…fast. Otherwise, you could be going down on the Titanic.