Turnovers catch up to Mavs in loss at Phoenix
Carelessness with the ball and poor defense Tuesday night cost the Dallas Mavericks any chance they had at dethroning the Phoenix Suns.
Phoenix turned 20 Dallas turnovers into 28 points en route to subduing the Mavs 124-115 before a sellout crowd of 18,055 at US Airways Center.
This is just the second time all season the Mavs have lost more than one game in a row as their record fell to 20-10. Back on Nov. 22 and Nov. 24, the Mavs were upended in consecutive games by Houston (95-92) and Indiana (111-100).
Prior to hopping on a plane for Tuesday’s game, the Mavs lost at home Monday night to the Atlanta Hawks (105-102). And they didn’t fare much better against the streaky Suns, who converted 13 of 33 shots from behind the 3-point arc and always seemed to pull a 3-pointer out of the bag whenever the Mavs thought about inching closer.
“Just too many [turnovers] early in the game,” coach Rick Carlisle said. ‘We got off to a pretty good start in a quarter-and-a-half, and the turnovers caught up with us.
“And we’re just struggling to defend. We’ve just got to do a better job of it.”
After the Mavs got down by 16 in the third quarter, Charlie Villanueva came off the bench to provide a spark. Villanueva went on a personal 8-0 run — which included back-to-back 3-pointers — as Dallas climbed within 76-66.
But the Suns were off and running again and built an 87-68 lead when ex-Mavs guard Gerald Green drilled a 3-pointer and Miles Plumlee added a pair of free throws with 1:31 to go in the third quarter.
The Mavs battled to within nine with approximately two minutes left. But by then the Suns had put so much separation between themselves and Dallas that this one wasn’t going to end well.
In falling to 5-2 on the second night of a back-to-back, the Mavs are now 0-2 in the Rajon Rondo Era.
Rondo, though, did his part Tuesday, finishing with 13 points, six rebounds and eight assists before fouling out late.
It wasn’t a good sign at halftime for the Mavs when seldom-used center Greg Smith had more points (six) than the team’s top three scorers — Monta Ellis (two), Dirk Nowitzki (four) and Chandler Parsons (five).
The Mavs also shot just 36.7 percent in the first half and complicated that by turning the ball over 13 times, which Phoenix turned into 16 points.
All things considered, Dallas actually was negotiating this second leg of a back-to-back pretty smoothly at the beginning. Behind Tyson Chandler and Rondo, the Mavs raced out to a 39-30 lead with 6:05 remaining in the first half.
But over the next few minutes, the Mavs experienced one calamity after another as they turned the ball over six times in seven possessions and the Suns bolted ahead 44-41.
Phoenix took a 53-45 lead into the dressing room after finishing the first half on a blistering 23-6 run. The Suns then came out smoking in the third quarter and kept throwing one haymaker after another.
With their top scorers struggling, so did the Mavs. But Nowitzki finally heated up and finished with 22 points. He is just six points away from passing Elvin Hayes and becoming the No. 8 all-time leading scorer in NBA history.
Despite the back-to-back losses, Carlisle said: “We’re a lot closer than it feels. We’ve just got to stick with it. Tonight the turnovers did us in.”
Dwain Price, 817-390-7760
This story was originally published December 23, 2014 at 11:35 PM with the headline "Turnovers catch up to Mavs in loss at Phoenix."