DALLAS — Unlike their last home stinker, four nights earlier against Cleveland, the Mavericks did not get booed Friday night in American Airlines Center.
Fans exhorted the Mavericks to break out of their game-long funk against one of the NBA’s worst teams, New Orleans, a team Dallas smothered by 32 points just 48 hours earlier, but to no avail: Pelicans 107, Mavericks 91.
It was Dallas’ third straight home defeat and inarguably its worst loss of the season. At least prior to Friday the Mavericks generally had beaten bad teams, carrying in a 9-1 record against opponents that currently are below .500, so this was an outlier in that sense.
Two nights after scorching the Pelicans for a season-high 139 points, ignited by a franchise-record 68.7% shooting, the Mavericks fizzled, somehow getting blown out by a 6-18 Pelicans team that missed 18 of its first 20 shots.
How shocking was this result? It represented a 48-point turnaround from two nights earlier in New Orleans. Dallas shot 40.5%, a full 28% lower than Wednesday night. This despite coach Jason Kidd warning before the game, “We can’t look at anybody’s record. We’re not that good to look at records.”
Granted the Mavericks played Friday night without Kristaps Porzingis, who missed the game with a left knee contusion, the result, Kidd said, of bumping knees with someone during Wednesday’s game, but Dallas by now should be used to playing without Porzingis.
“Every time we seem to get someone back,” Kidd said, alluding to Frank Ntilikina’s return from a calf strain to active status, “we lose someone.”
Luka Doncic scored 21 points and pulled down 10 rebounds, but he shot 7 of 20 from the field, including 0 of 6 on 3-point attempts, and committed seven turnovers.
Prior to Friday the Mavericks were 6-0 against Southwest Division teams. Now they have little time to sort through the debris of this disaster before hosting on Saturday a better foe — 12-10 Memphis, which has won three straight and are coming off a 152-point explosion and NBA-record 73-point win over Oklahoma City.
Dallas overcame a sluggish start by both teams and led 48-44 at halftime, but got outscored 19-6 to start the third quarter and 35-20 overall in the period.
The Mavericks mustered only 19 first-quarter points while committing eight turnovers.
Six of those turnovers were committed by Doncic.
Fortunately for the Mavericks, a combination of their defense and Pelican ineptitude kept the game close, if not entertaining.
New Orleans made two of its first 20 field-goal attempts and didn’t crack 20 points until three minutes into the second quarter.
It was another case of Dallas being either really good or terrible.
Entering Friday, the Mavericks have averaged 112.5 points on 48.2% shooting in their 11 wins; and 98.0 points on 40.9% shooting in their nine losses.
Before sitting out Friday, Porzingis had played 12 consecutive games, which represented something of a breakthrough.
That is his second-longest games played streak in three seasons as a Maverick. The longest is the 23 straight he played during his first season, 2019-20, from Nov. 11 to Dec. 29 — immediately after which he missed 10 straight games due to right knee soreness.
For Mavericks fans, following the Porzingis era has been like watching an action-adventure movie with constant commercial interruptions. One minute the hero appears to be on the verge of saving the day; the next you’re watching a Charmin ad.
