DALLAS — The Dallas Mavericks lost a close game to the shorthanded New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday night, moving to 3-6 when both Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving are active, though Doncic left the loss to New Orleans with a left leg injury.
On a postgame edition of the Locked On NBA podcast, hosts Nick Angstadt and Pat Morenzoni discussed what is ailing Dallas, starting with head coach Jason Kidd.
“To me when I see this Mavericks team, it always comes down to system,” Morenzoni said. “There is a lot of one-on-one offense … it’s not a system that’s conducive to winning. It’s like a 2005 style of offense, and it just doesn’t work in today’s NBA.”
The Mavs are scoring 121.3 points per game as a team in March, but have not been able to string together wins and move up the Western Conference standings.
“They can literally beat anyone in the NBA on a given night because they can just make 25 threes a game on any given night … and hopefully they defend well enough to win a game,” Angstadt said.
In addition to a simplistic offensive scheme, which produces hot scoring nights but does not involve the entire team, Kidd’s signature defensive excellence has not been been there for the Mavs consistently this season.
With a close to .500 record and the team’s championship upside fading while they struggle to integrate Irving and build a two-way team, Morenzoni said the rest of the season should be about figuring out the offense and building chemistry between the two stars.
“Right now the one thing we can probably say won’t change is Luka is not a great off-ball player … but Kyrie Irving is, so you need to figure out how their dynamic is going to be able to work together,” Morenzoni said. “Once you figure that out, then you can figure out how to piece guys around them.”
Dallas plays a home-and-home with Memphis in its next two games.