Dallas Depression - X's and Owen's

I was supposed to start the Mavs recaps last game after their terrible loss against the Houston Rockets, but unfortunately following Friday night's game I was plunged into a deep depression that lasted until just a couple of hours ago. The only thing that saved me from this spiral was the confidence I had in our talented young Mavericks squad to wipe the floor with the Phoenix Suns. And now here I am, having just witnessed the Mavericks make 1 three point shot in the second half and losing to arguably the worst team in the bubble, still depressed.

First we will start with the decision making in clutch time. I love Rick Carlisle, I think he is a great all around coach who understands how to develop players and build a team with a winning culture, but the choices he made at the end of this game were highly questionable. With 3 seconds left in the game, we have the ball on our baseline. The score was 115-117 Suns advantage, Devin Booker had fouled out, Deandre Ayton and Mikal Bridges both had 5 fouls. I might be wrong but in this situation I would be looking to get an easy 2 to send the game into overtime, especially because we were 6 for 31 from three point range for the game and had only made one in the second half. Instead Carlisle chose to run a play for a three point shot. The ball is inbounded to Tim Hardaway Jr., who at this point was 0/7 from 3, and of course knowing how the mavericks have performed in the clutch this season, he bricked it.

Being a Huge fan of the Mavericks, I was obviously very excited when we secured our spot in the bubble playoffs with the Grizzlies loss to the Spurs today (apologies to Basketball Beeswax founder and diehard Memphis fan Simon Pruitt), but losses like this make me worry about the substance that our playoff run will produce. Standing at 13th in the west and 27-39, the Suns have the second worst record of the 22 teams included in the bubble, and losses to a team like that especially when we are in the pursuit of the 6th seed are not reassuring. Being a young team that has had some issues with players coming off serious injuries, it is understandable that there will be screwups like this, but some things are pushing the envelope of what I can accept. Coming out of halftime Dallas was up on Phoenix 73-60, and I was starting to feel really good about having a solid win. Then we began the 2nd half 0/5 from the field, and the game slowly slipped away from them as they missed shot after shot and the Suns bench torched us from the field. The team as a whole looked lackadaisical in their movements on both the offensive and defensive ends of the court, and there seemed to be no sense of urgency as we all watched them give up a game that was theirs for the taking.

On Tuesday the Mavs take on the 28-38 Sacramento Kings, who are currently 0-2 in the bubble. This is a huge game if we want to have any success in these 8 seeding games. A win here will give us momentum going into the rest of our tough schedule as we go on to play the Clippers, Bucks, and Jazz.