Mavs Monday Donuts: Taking Liberties With Luka & A Dallas Decade In Review

The Mavericks are in a 1-3 skid thanks to another shaky performance in crunch time. ... but get another crack at it tonight here at the AAC

DONUT 1: Hornets 123, Mavericks 120

You can read a full account of the game courtesy of Matt Galatzan here, but let me give you the ten cent version really quick:

The short-handed Mavericks got behind by 20 points (sound familiar?), fought back to take a 12-point lead, then gave up a 21-9 run allowing Charlotte to force overtime, where the Mavericks eventually came up short 123-120.

DONUT 2: Appreciating Dirk’s Flu Game

As we start a new decade it looks like everyone is putting on their nostalgia-goggles and revisiting their favorite moments of the last 10 years. For NBA circles that means a carousel of clutch shots, blocks, and overall performances.

I don’t usually bother with stuff like that, because I know that if I’m a Ray Allen fan, my biggest moment is that stomach-punch three against the Spurs. But if I’m a Spurs fan, I’d rather wash my eyes out with gasoline than rewatch that shot, no matter how clutch it was.

Still, after spending the last seven days fighting the flu, I have a new appreciation for Dirk Nowitzki’s “Flu Game” in Game 4 of the 2011 NBA Finals. Let me make this very clear: Last week I was a man-baby who whined for soup, slept all day and called in sick to work. I had to force myself to get up to shower. I had to make myself eat. I had to force myself to drink fluids. My fever had dropped to just under 101 degrees by the time I got to the doctor, and I still wanted to lay on the tile floor and sleep.

So, it’s newly miraculous to me that Dirk fought through the flu to play basketball at the highest level for 39 minutes where he scored 21 points and pulled down 11 rebounds in a big-time Finals victory. So, based entirely on recency bias, that’s my biggest clutch performance of the decade.

DONUT 3: Injury Woes Continue

It all started with a not-as-bad-as-it-seemed ankle roll from Luka Dončić, and it’s rolled downhill from there. Before losing Luka to the Heat, the Mavs were relatively injury-free over the first quarter of the season. That luck hasn’t held up.

The Mavericks have recently been missing Kristaps Porzingis, Tim Hardaway Jr., Delon Wright, and Ryan Broekhoff. For tonight against the visiting Bulls, @coopmavs says that per Mavs game notes, Hardaway is listed as a starter for tonight's game with  And Fish here has the KP update, with hopes for a Wednesday return against Denver.

During this period ... Getting back a superstar power like Luka definitely helps mask some of this team’s weaknesses, but even Luka’s prowess isn’t always going to be enough to overcome the loss of two starters and their sixth-man.

Porzingis, Wright, and Hardaway all do an excellent job of spacing the floor, making hustle plays, and putting in effort on defense. They also happen to eat up a lot of minutes that have been absorbed by guys who aren’t as skilled.

DONUT 4: Speaking of Porzingis

Say what you want about post-ups or shooting woes, it ought to be clearer every day just how important Kristaps is to this Mavericks team. The Hornets built their early lead with a lot of free trips into the Dallas’ interior. They also got out-rebounded 53-41. Porzingis has become a consistent shot agitator, and his size and rebounding (9.4 boards per game) make a huge difference. His offense is a bonus, and even when his shot isn’t falling, the spacing he provides as a threat is huge.

Take a look at the final few minutes of the Oklahoma game, another game Porzingis missed, and you’ll notice Chris Paul getting anything he wanted inside the paint. Even one timely block or one smothered defensive rebound could’ve been the turning point in both of those games.

Don’t underestimate his value to this team.

DONUT 5: So How Worried Should We Be About that Knee?

Kristaps missed practice in late-November with right knee soreness. Now he’s missed the last three games nursing that same knee. Is this overly-precautious behavior by the Mavs, or is this something to worry about?

It’s worth noting that X-rays came back negative and the injury that kept him out for over a season was to his left knee. The Mavericks obviously have long-term aspirations and not short-term panic. Rick has said again and again that this team is trying to do "exceptional'' things, so a few losses in January are an acceptable set-back when weighed against the loss of a key player in April.

Still, every game Porzingis sits out is a game that builds on my anxieties, especially when the results of those absences are losses.

DONUT 6: Luka’s Triple Double Milestone

Luka notched his ninth triple-double of the season in the Mavericks’ 141-121 victory over Golden State, which tied Jason Kidd for most in a single season for a Mavericks player. He got his tenth of the season Saturday night in the overtime loss to the Hornets.

Yes, it happened in a loss, which makes it a little bittersweet, but it’s still worth praise. With 39 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists, Luka passed Kidd for the most Mavs triple-doubles in a single season, and he still has 47 games left on the schedule to add to his new record.

DONUT 7: Luka Isn't Enough

Luka has been fantastic since coming back from his injury. In his six games back his per-game averages are 29.8 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 9 assists. Unfortunately, the Mavericks are only 3-3 since his return, and 1-3 over their last four games.

Luka loves to carry the blame in losses. After the loss to the Hornets, he questioned his decision-making down the stretch, and he’s not entirely wrong. If he made zero mistakes down the stretch, the Mavericks probably win against the Thunder and the Hornets. But the reality is more complicated. Mistake-free basketball is nearly impossible. So, kudos to Luka for accepting responsibility. It’s definitely a better look than watching Kevin Love pout and throw the basketball at his teammates. But, that’s not going to solve everything.

What a good basketball team has, and it’s what the Mavericks have when all their pieces are firing, is a player here-and-there who clean up the mistakes around him. Luka may make a mess of a possession or two, but he also plays janitor on plenty of other possessions.

Dorian Finney-Smith is a master at cleaning up messes. It’s why he’s developed a reputation for big offensive rebounds and punctuating put-back dunks. But, so has Kristaps. When Luka takes one of his offline step-back threes, Porzingis is there to clean up the miss more often than you might realize. Sometimes that’s just a clean rebound and an extra offensive set, sometimes that’s a put-back dunk, and sometimes it’s just a tip that gets the ball to a teammate. Tim Hardaway Jr. and Delon Wright are also kings of the hustle play, even if it’s not always on the stat sheet. You get enough guys who hustle and one-possession loss becomes a double-digit win.

You take that away and you’ve got a superstar who can’t quite close every game alone.

DONUT 8: Sliding Doors

There’s this old Gwyneth Paltrow movie called "Sliding Doors,'' and it explores two parallel realities ... One in which she catches a train, and one in which she misses that train. I’ve started to wonder whether the Mavericks game vs. the Raptors was that train.

After the Mavericks blew a huge lead to the Toronto Raptors, I talked about the erosion of trust that comes with that. I wrote that falling apart invited questions like: Is this a one-time bump in the road, or is this an indication of who this team really is? It’s tough to know whether the team’s identity took a hit that day, and that’s what’s led to their recent struggles (they’re 3-4 over the last seven games). It’s likely that this stretch is just a perfect confluence of timing and injuries to top players.

But, part of me definitely wonders: if the Mavericks finish that blowout against Toronto, does the foundation for the next half-dozen games feel sturdier? Does a win fuel confidence that helps them weather the turbulence of the Thunder’s late run? Does it keep them from falling short against a Charlotte team that had lost six-of-seven games? 

The long view could be even more complicated? Does a Mavericks’ front office that was content to stand pat start to recognize flaws in their depth and their personnel thanks to this stretch? Does this help Donnie and Rick uncover weak links and jostle them to explore appropriate trades? Would a win have masked those flaws until it was too late to do anything about them?

Expectations change the tone and temperature of the way we talk about a team. Just look at the fairly successful Clippers. They were anointed with greatness before they’d achieved anything, much in the way Lob-City was anointed before. Now, the team has struggled amidst the addition of two new starters and load management, so despite being a top-four team in a very tough Western Conference, the locker-room is already fracturing.

The Mavericks made a leap sooner than anyone expected, so this recent stretch of tough basketball hurts more than it might have six weeks ago. That’s good. But, it’s also worth remembering that there’s a long way to go this season, and in the very young careers of this team’s core. Whichever revelations we take from this stretch, I just hope they lead to something positive come postseason.

DONUT 9: Taking Liberties

As Mike Fisher reported earlier this week, Rick Carlisle isn’t mincing words when he talks about the contact Luka Dončić has absorbed this season.

“They’re beating the shit out of him,'' Carlisle said, “He’s handling it well, but teams are taking liberties with him.”

He also said that the Mavericks are in frequent contact with the league about getting the issue fixed, but the 31-to-13 free throw disparity between the Hornets and the Mavericks suggests that the memo has been lost under a stack of league apologies.

In the most recent “Last Two Minute Report” for the Mavericks/Hornets, there were only two missed calls in the final 2-minutes and OT. The first was an incorrect call on Dwight Powell with 89 seconds to go that turned a defensive stop into Hornets free-throws (the Mavs led 103-97 at the time). The second was an incorrect non-call that would’ve sent Luka to the free-throw line for two shots with the score sitting at 110-109 in overtime.

DONUT 10: Clutch-Time Concerns

The Dallas Mavericks are historically efficient on offense. You’ve heard this a dozen times or more this year, but I’m repeating it for emphasis. So, if that’s true, why are they in sixth-place in the West right now? Why have they lost four of seven games? Why have they failed to win in overtime?

Well, that comes down to a really bad performance in the clutch this year. If you’re unclear about what that means, it means that a score is within five points or less in the final five minutes of a game. The Mavericks have participated in 19 “clutch” games this season, and they’re 8-11 in those contests. In those 19 games, their clutch-time offensive rating is 92.3 (a far cry from their NBA best 115.3 offensive rating overall).

If the Mavericks could find a way to improve their play in the clutch, they might go from being a good team to an absolutely elite team. However, as long as they keep losing close games, they’re going to look wobbly as a true contender.

DONUT 11: What’s Next

The Mavericks and the Bulls both head into tonight’s game in Dallas with three losses in their last four games. On paper, even short-handed, the Mavericks ought to be the better team, but that was true of the Hornets as well. It’s getting harder to predict which version of the Mavericks is going to show up. Sometimes it’s hard to know which team you’ll get each quarter, let alone each game.

The Bulls are a miserable 13-23 this season, but they’re still only a few games out of the Eastern Conference 8th seed, so they may still be playing with hopes for the postseason (sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s terrible and who’s tanking).

Again, Tim Hardaway Jr. has been upgraded to “questionable” for tonight’s game, and his presence would definitely boost the Mavs’ win probability.

DONUT 12: The Final Word

"Everyone wishes they had a 20-year-old who plays like him, and he hasn't even scratched the surface. It's fun to watch genius." - NBA Logo Jerry West to the Dallas Morning News when asked about Luka Dončić.