Mavericks can’t sustain momentum, crumble at Miami
The Dallas Mavericks didn’t usher in the new year anywhere near as well as they ushered out the old one.
The Mavs ended 2015 on a four-game winning streak and with a confident strut in their step. But 2016 started with an unfortunate thud Friday night as the Miami Heat clobbered the Mavs 106-82 before a sellout crowd of 19,748 at American Airlines Arena.
The Mavs were pounded on the glass, appeared hesitant at times and allowed the Heat to shoot 56.1 percent from the field. It was the Mavs’ second-worst loss of the season behind a 107-81 drubbing Dec. 16 at Indiana.
We couldn’t hit a bull in the [rear end] with a bass fiddle on offense.
Mavs coach Rick Carlisle
“It wasn’t that I didn’t think we were trying,” coach Rick Carlisle said of Friday’s no-show. “I thought we were playing hard in the beginning.
“We couldn’t hit a bull in the [rear end] with a bass fiddle on offense, and we had some shots — they weren’t going down.”
The Mavs (19-14) shot a frosty 36.4 percent from the field and missed 24 of 31 attempts from 3-point territory. With their offense in shambles and their defense in ashes, the Mavs were torched by 25 points and 19 rebounds from Hassan Whiteside.
“He was a huge factor in the game,” Carlisle said of Whiteside. “But the bottom line with this tonight is that they played an angrier game, and the combination of that and our shot-making was just not there all night. We just lost a little bit of our edge.”
Dallas never led in the game, never posed any serious threats and never made the Heat sweat.
The Mavs started 4 of 22 from the field and were trailing 20-8 with 2:07 to go in the first quarter. They also trailed 58-45 at intermission as Whiteside had already manufactured 18 points and 13 rebounds.
Dallas got 14 points and 13 rebounds from Zaza Pachulia, who registered his 18th double-double of the season. But the Mavs never got closer than 11 points in the second half and made the Heat (19-13) look like they’re ready to challenge Cleveland for supremacy in the Eastern Conference.
We couldn’t make a shot — I think that was pretty obvious.
Mavs forward Dirk Nowitzki
“We couldn’t make a shot — I think that was pretty obvious,” said forward Dirk Nowitzki, who finished 4-of-14 shooting with 11 points. “But we were sort of in the game there in the first quarter.
“But if you can’t score, you’ve got to at least go back and set your defense somehow, and I thought we did a decent job there in the first quarter. But in the second quarter, we collapsed a little bit defensively and gave like eight lobs up to Whiteside ... Just not a good night overall on both ends of the floor.”
The Mavs welcomed the return of Deron Williams, who collected nine points and five assists in 20 minutes off the bench after missing the previous four games with a strained left hamstring. But unfortunately Dallas lost Devin Harris to back spasms, and Carlisle said: “I assume he’ll be out a while.”
Williams said his hamstring felt fine during and after the game. But he was disappointed that after hammering the world champion Golden State Warriors by 23 points Wednesday night, the Mavs couldn’t piggy-back off that momentum against Miami.
“We’ve had the tendency this year where after these big wins that we’ve kind of went out and laid an egg, and this is kind of another one of those games,” Williams said. “It was just not a good game for us.”
The Mavs don’t have a lot of time to dwell on their lethargic performance as they host New Orleans on Saturday night.
“We’re disappointed,” Carlisle said. “We’ve got to get the wheels on the wagon because there’s not much time to rest with another one tomorrow.
“But I thought Miami just played a very even and consistently hard game and we just couldn’t get any consistent traction, so we paid a price.”
This story was originally published January 1, 2016 at 11:16 PM with the headline "Mavericks can’t sustain momentum, crumble at Miami."