De'Aaron Fox on Sacramento Kings' Strategy for Dallas Mavs' Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving: 'Make Them Work Both Ends'

The Dallas Mavericks have one of the worst defenses in the NBA through 14 games, and if that's going to change, it might have to start with the star duo of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving on that end of the floor.

Through 14 games, the Dallas Mavericks are sitting at 9-5 and fifth in the Western Conference, which is good, considering how last season went, but still not ideal, given that they were 8-2 just four games ago and vying for first place in the West.

The biggest part of the Mavs' recent 1-3 skid has been their bottom-five defense, as opponents are scoring at will on a nightly basis. Dallas has scored an average of 119.5 in that four-game span, but it has given up an average of 127.3 points.

The latest disappointing loss came against the Sacramento Kings on a second night of a back-to-back on Sunday night. The Mavs kept things competitive until the end of the third quarter when things started to slip away from them en route to a 129-113 defeat.

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"We talked about it before: understanding who was going to crash, and we didn't do a good job of boxing out tonight," Mavs head coach Jason Kidd said. "We played up to when the score was 73-73, and we kind of just got disconnected from there."

The Mavs know that their defense must be much better than it has been so far this season if they want to be real contenders instead of pretenders, but if that's going to happen with the current personnel, it might have to start with the star backcourt duo of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. After the game, Kings star point guard De'Aaron Fox detailed his team's gameplan for Doncic and Irving, likely revealing what most teams want to do against Dallas on a game-to-game basis.

The Sacramento Kings defense swarms to Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving / Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

“They are some great players. It’s extremely difficult to guard one-on-one. You try to stay on them as much as possible and try and get the ball out of their hands because those are guys who can go for a 50-point game," Fox said.

"You just try to make it as difficult for them as possible and also try to make them work on the other end. Because if they're not working on the defensive end, and they're also coming down on the offensive end and doing whatever they want to do, it’s going to be an extremely long night. The way that we play, you know, moving the ball and a lot of body movement, just having those guys have to run through screens or have to guard a cutter, I feel like kind of weighs on you as a player with the offensive load they have on the other end. You just try to make them work on both ends and hope for the best really.”

Mavs' Defense Picked Apart By Kings' De'Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis in Loss

Doncic and Irving won't ever be All-NBA defenders, but as the leaders of the Mavs, they must take things up a notch while also motivating their teammates to do so as well. If the effort level on the roster doesn't change, then actual roster changes might have to be made before this season's trade deadline.

After having a hectic schedule recently, Dallas now has multiple days of rest in between each of their next four games, starting on Wednesday when they take on LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers at Crypto.com Arena. We'll see if that can make a difference when it comes to the Mavs' defensive effort.