Game 34: Dallas Mavericks (19-15) vs. Utah Jazz (15-19) 90-127 loss

[SleepingHero]

Josh Green has been SOOOOOOOOOOOO bad.

[Chicagojk]

Jeez Josh. Talking about falling back to earth

[KillerLeft]

Josh Green has been SOOOOOOOOOOOO bad.

Understatement.

[Chicagojk]

Incredible they still play like this, when the standings between 4th and 7th are within 0.5 games. 

How many awful losses will it take before the Mavs realize they can't just mess around. NO discipline.

Yeah, I think teams need to go on a 7-8 win streak during one point of the season to keep up.  I just don’t know if this team has it it them.  The upcoming home streak will be big

[omahen]

Horrible game. No defense and you said it all about offense. Luka wasn't him tonight.

[SleepingHero]

When Followill and Harris are laughing at this pathetic performance (and the desperate Clarkson stat padding), you know this is the dreck of Mavs basketball.

[KillerLeft]

O-Max is such a find. He doesn’t even know how to play the NBA game yet and he is noticeably affecting every single shot when he’s out there on defense.

If they trade him, I’m going scorched earth.

[SwisherPrice]

Green is terrible...just another 3 and D role player who can't do anything when his 3-pt shot isn't falling. He's just too limited offensively with small hands (one of the smallest in his draft class). I think that's why he can't do much on offense and always gets stripped or blocked.

Games like vs. the Warriors are just the fluky shooting performances that every player occasionally has but he is not a good shooter and can't do much else. They have to cut ties with him if they can package him for any decent role player/forward. And by decent, my standards are so low that I'd even be fine with a Jared Vanderbilt-type player.

[Chicagojk]

Wow.. first triple double by a Jazz player in 16 years. Incredible

[SleepingHero]

Insanely sad how the Jazz fans are freaking out about a garbage time triple double for Clarkson, when Luka has had 6 this year alone.

I hope this is fuel for the Mavs the next time they meet. This is so incredibly frustrating.

[HoosierDaddyKidd]

Agreed on all of the above, and I’d add that Lively has been bad tonight, too.

Lively has been bad for a couple of games now. Maybe he's starting to hit the wall.

[SleepingHero]

Lively has been bad for a couple of games now. Maybe he's starting to hit the wall.

Rookie wall is a real thing. Especially around January.

[KillerLeft]

Lively has been bad for a couple of games now. Maybe he's starting to hit the wall.

Maybe. He has played big minutes in a lot of games at this point.

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I bet that RPG guy loved this game!

[bodhisattva]

Incredible they still play like this, when the standings between 4th and 7th are within 0.5 games. 

How many awful losses will it take before the Mavs realize they can't just mess around. NO discipline.

They are not messing around. They are a shitty team, no matter how much you guys hype up the likes of Hardy,Lively, DJJ, Green etc. This team has 5, maybe 6 NBA players on its roster at the moment.
It takes a perfect game to beat any of the contenders, and they cannot afford to be below average against bad teams, or its a loss.
They are a playoff team. Somewhere between 6 and 11 when its all sad and done. No matter how much hype you put in, they are long way away from contending. One perfect game every 10 games wont change that.

[Chicagojk]

Well something was off. You don’t lose that bad because you were a step slow and couldn’t shoot well. I think you have a few times a year where your coach can really come down hard on the team. I hope he uses one of those tonight. Efforts like that cannot be accepted.

If the other team plays better and a little harder, fine. But not like this.

[SwisherPrice]

Kessler/Collins/Lauri/Olynyk + Fontecchio (long SF) just cause too many problems that we don't have an answer for. Same as when it's Jokic/Gordon/MPJ on Denver or Gobert/KAT/McDaniels/Reid on Minnesota and those are probably the 2 teams we will have to go through

[BigDirk41]

Mavs will be a 500 team shortly. They aren't very good unless Luka goes nuclear every game. They have some nice pieces, but they are pretenders at this point.

[SwisherPrice]

You sure? The Mavs beat this team by 50 last time.

Im pretty sure they just laid an egg tonight. Not everything has to do with roster building issues.

Jazz didn't have Lauri, Clarkson, Olynyk in that game...they made a big difference tonight

[KillerLeft]

Jazz didn't have Lauri, Clarkson, Olynyk in that game...they made a big difference tonight

Maybe, but I think your tendency to come into the game thread every time they’re losing to complain that they are too small is a bit lacking in nuance.

I do not think that Jazz are anywhere close to as good of a team is The Mavericks, and I would take the Mavericks in a seven game series, easily.

[SleepingHero]

Grant Afseth (@GrantAfseth)
Asked Jason Kidd about the Mavs' handling of weak-side responsibilities and accounting for the Jazz's body movement in actions: "The communication with our group was not existent tonight, and as a coach, I take the blame in that. We have to be better. "

KIDD TOOK RESPONSIBILITY????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAS HELL FROZEN OVER???
I DROPPED MY PHONE IN SHEER DISBELIEF