The Dallas Mavericks lost to the Charlotte Hornets in a 21 point blowout. The Mavericks have now lost 2 games in a row after their loss to the Philadelphia 76ers yesterday. The Mavericks were one of the hottest teams in the league up to this point. They were led by Luka Doncic and head coach Jason Kidd and rose all the way to the 4 seed in the Western Conference.
But now the Dallas Mavericks seem to0 be struggling a little bit. While Luka Doncic has entered the MVP conversation, he might leave the conversation as quickly as he entered it if his team keeps on losing games. The Mavericks have now fallen to the 5 seed in the West and the gap is widening between them and the Utah Jazz. The reason the 4 seed is important is for the Mavericks to have home-court advantage in at least one round of the Playoffs.
Luka had an MVP performance in the game despite losing. He had 37 points in the game and led all scorers. No other player from the Mavericks scored more than 12 points. The Hornets played great defence and had double the steals and blocks that the Mavericks had in the game.
The entire Hornets team contributed to the win against a very good Mavericks team. They had 7 players with double-digit scoring and were led by Miles Bridges’ 23 points and 8 rebound performances. LaMelo Ball also had 17 points and 7 assists in the game. The Hornets are currently the 9 seed in the Eastern Conference and will be in the Play-In game this season.
While the losses look bad for the Mavericks, their young superstar Luka Doncic is not worried one bit. The young star spoke about the silver-lining in the situation in his post-game press conference. Luka told Callie Caplan of the Dallas Morning News, “I felt like they couldn’t miss a shot today, but we were 3-2 in this road trip, which was not bad at all. It might seem bad because we lost the last two, but it’s not bad at all.”. Indeed, a loss or 2 doesn’t matter but when it comes to the postseason, home-court advantage plays a huge role.
