Mavericks go under

Another bad loss for a team beating its collective head against its collective palm.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Two Women on the Shore, Edvard Munch, 1898

In Thursday’s only game, the 5-18 Detroit Pistons (now 6-18) knocked off the Dallas Mavericks to put the latter team under .500 a quarter of the way through the season. As I wrote earlier this week, the problem with the Mavericks sitting below .500 is that Luka Doncic has been no worse than the third best player in the league this season and that the Mavericks’ biggest issues were wholly predictable based on their offseason.

On the offensive end, Luka (35-5-10) and Christian Wood (25 on 13 FGAs) had strong efforts. Defense was a consistent problem. Wood took on much more playing time than usual, but much of it came apart from Luka, perhaps out of necessity to stagger two of the Mavericks’ three credible creators on the roster. Only in the desperate final minutes of regulation did the Mavericks appear to be the better team. The Pistons disabused them of that notion in overtime.

Speaking of which, here’s an important exchange.