DALLAS — Despite losing four of their past five games and putting themselves in serious danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2000, Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle is adamant that his team still has a lot to play for this season.
And he wasn’t talking about those ping-pong balls used in the NBA Draft Lottery.“We’re professionals,” Carlisle said after Monday’s practice. “We’re getting paid to win games, so the motivation is to compete and win games, and we’re not out of the playoff race, either.“There’s time. I understand if you look at the standings right now it doesn’t look good. But a lot can happen in a month and a half, but we’ve got to make a stand.”A quick glance of the NBA standings shows the Mavs (26-33) six games behind the Houston Rockets (33-28) for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. The Los Angeles Lakers (30-30) and Portland Trail Blazers (27-31) are also between the Mavericks and the Rockets.However, from Jan. 10-16 the Mavericks made up four games on the Rockets. During that span, the Mavericks defeated Sacramento, Memphis, Minnesota and Houston, while the Rockets lost to Boston, Philadelphia, the Los Angeles Clippers and the Mavericks.But after the Rockets blasted the Mavericks this past Sunday, 136-103, have the Mavericks internally shut down?“If you want to write us off and all that kind of stuff, go ahead,” Carlisle said. “But I’ll just tell you this — this is a great situation in Dallas.”The Mavericks will get a chance to exact revenge on Houston when they host the Rockets at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.“I don’t think you’ve lost the taste out of your mouth with a loss like that,” center Elton Brand said. “You want to kind of let it linger and use that as motivation to try to play well when you see them again, especially when it’s a back-to-back like that.”Repairing the MavericksThe job of Rick Carlisle is to try and fix what happened Sunday night against Houston in time for Wednesday’s game against those same Rockets.Failures were plentiful for the Mavericks against the Rockets, who seemingly toyed with the Mavericks in the third quarter.“We’ve got to do better with our transition defense, with our defense off the dribble, we’ve got to rebound better and we’ve got to quit fouling them,” Carlisle said. “It’s a tall order because it’s a very skilled team.“They run their system extremely well, but we can do better.”The Rockets busted the game wide open when they outscored the Mavericks in the third period, 44-17.“They kicked our [butts], it’s as simple as that,” Carlisle said. “They were the initiators and we were the reactors, and when you play like that in this league the reactors get their [butts] kicked.”Up and downThe Mavericks were all over the map on their recent three-game road trip.Dallas started the trip Wednesday by blowing a 25-point lead and losing in Memphis, 90-84. Undaunted, the Mavericks won in Brooklyn on Friday, 98-90.Then came the drubbing in Houston.The three outcomes left bystanders wondering, who are the Mavericks?“One of the things about being a head coach is that you’ve got to see the big picture, and within all that stuff I see positives,” Rick Carlisle said. “The one thing that we always come back to is our nemesis has been our inability to sustain.“When we’re able to carve out leads — it’s so hard to do in this league — we’ve got to bear down even more. We’re going to continue to strive to do that, but it’s been our nemesis this year.”Playing timeWhen it comes to handing out playing time to his players, Rick Carlisle said that’s out of his jurisdiction.“I don’t determine playing time — players do,” Carlisle said. “It’s been that way for almost four and three-quarters years here.“The guys that get it done play the minutes.”Dwain Price, 817-390-7760 Twitter: @dwainprice
