Dallas Mavericks humbled at home by Phoenix Suns on a night they honored Kobe Bryant
The Dallas Mavericks honored the memory of Kobe Bryant Tuesday night but their performance against the Phoenix Suns was completely forgettable.
The Suns roughed up the Mavericks from the opening minutes, seconds after the two teams paid tribute to the Los Angeles Lakers legend who died along with eight others in a helicopter crash on Sunday. A two-minute long moment of silence included a montage of Bryant clips on the video board and some fans started chanting his name.
The teams took 8-second and 24-second violations to start the game in honor of Bryant’s two jersey numbers, as most other teams have done since the tragedy. But after that, the Suns looked like the only team with its heart into playing basketball. Phoenix won 133-104 after a particularly ugly first quarter by the Mavs, who had six turnovers, including three by Luka Doncic.
Dallas trailed by 13 points after the first quarter but cut the deficit to five by halftime. The Suns, however, pulled away again with a huge third quarter, outscoring the Mavs 48-22 to take a 31-point lead into the final quarter.
“Defensively, we didn’t have the disposition we needed, obviously. And offensively we struggled,” Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said. “All in all, very disappointing, ugly night.”
Willie Cauley-Stein made his Mavericks debut in the first half. He shanked a dunk, his first shot for Dallas, but finished with four points and three rebounds in 12 minutes. The Mavs acquired Cauley-Stein in a trade with the Golden State Warriors on Saturday.
Carlisle wasn’t ready to use the Mavs’ playing the second half of a back-to-back or the emotions from the Bryant tribute as excuses for the bad night.
“These nights do happen in the NBA. I just don’t think you write off something like this quite that easily,” he said. “This team has done so many things to get people excited about it and really worked hard to get into a solid position at this point in time. A performance like this is just tough. Nights like this do happen, but this was extreme.”
This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 9:58 PM.
