DALLAS — By all indications, Friday was going to be the night on which a lot of what has been wrong in Mavs Land would begin to be right again.
Kyrie Irving was back. Twenty-three-win Charlotte was in town. If not a cure-all, surely this night in American Airlines Center would bring symptom relief, right?
Wrong. The Hornets pummeled the listless Mavericks so badly that when Dallas fell behind by 21 points in the third quarter, fans rained boos on the home team. That disapproval ignited a furious rally, but one that fell short in another playoff-race-crippling defeat, 117-109.
How bad was Dallas’ first-half effort?
“Awful,” coach Jason Kidd said. “Dog s---.”
Put this defeat alongside those at Orlando and at Detroit and vs. Houston as the season’s most embarrassing for Dallas, except the timing of this one made it worse.
With eight games remaining, Dallas (36-38) has lost six of its last eight games, is 11th in the West and in danger of careening out of the playoff race as it embarks on a five-game road trip beginning Sunday against (gulp) Charlotte.
How is it possible that a reigning Western Conference finalist, a team that just 24 hours earlier had, in Kidd’s words, championship aspirations, could come out and lay an egg like this?
Luka Doncic scored 34 points, pulled down 10 rebounds and added eight assists, but his body language throughout Friday’s game was one of annoyance — toward the referees, the deficit, everything.
Asked whether this is as frustrated as he’s been in five seasons as a Maverick, Doncic nodded.
“Yeah, it’s really frustrating,” he said. “I think you can see it with me on the court. Sometimes I don’t feel [like] it’s me. I’m just being out there. I used to have fun, smiling on the court. But it’s just been so frustrating.”
Doncic continued, without prompting.
“For a lot of reasons, not just basketball.”
Doncic politely declined to elaborate: “You know I don’t talk about my private life. There’s just a lot going on.” Clearly, though, his loss of joy is symptomatic of what is happening with the Mavericks, the obvious and perhaps the unseen.
“We’ve got to show we care,” Doncic said. “It starts with me first. I’ve got to lead this team. Being better, play harder, it’s on me.”
Irving (18 points, nine rebounds, seven assists) had missed four of the last six games and Doncic had missed six of the last seven.
This was their first game together since March 8. Kidd said he was hopeful that Friday would be the start of the duo regaining continuity. Instead, Dallas fell to 3-7 in games Doncic and Irving have played together.
“Offense is not our issue,” Irving said of the Mavericks in general. “We’ve got to get better as a defensive team. ... And we can’t have starts like this. So this is on me.”
Injury-ravaged Charlotte was coming off a 19-point Thursday loss at New Orleans in which it finished the game with seven healthy players. Although the Hornets got some reinforcement and suited up 11 players, Friday had the makings of a walkover for Dallas.
Except these are the Mavericks. They have made nothing easy on themselves this season.
Trailing 69-55 at halftime, the Mavericks left the court to a smattering of boos.
But when the deficit swelled to 85-67 with 5:32 left in the third quarter, forcing an exasperated Kidd to call timeout, boos filled the arena.
That seemed to trigger something — embarrassment? — in the home team. Trailing 90-69 with 4:26 left in the third quarter, Dallas scored 10 straight points and continued charging, pulling to within 97-96 with 8:28 left in the game.
The Hornets, though, scored the next 10 points and Dallas never was able to muster its second lead of the night. The other one was when it scored the game’s first basket.
And what about those third-quarter boos?
“We probably should have been booed in the first quarter,” Kidd said. “Just the effort and the play. They have a right. They paid to see a better show. It wasn’t there into the second half. We’ve got to come out better than that, especially this time of year.”
What did Irving think of the boos?
“So? So what?” he said with a shrug. “That’s just the way I feel about it. I’ve been in New York City, so I know what that feels like.
“You obviously want to play well, but it’s only five people on the court who can play for the Dallas Mavericks. If the fans want to change places, then, hey, be my guest. You’ve got years of work ahead of you to be great enough to be at this level.”
