MEMPHIS – The one thing Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd wanted not to happen Sunday against the Memphis Grizzlies,
actually happened.
Before losing to the Grizzlies at FedEx Forum, 132-97, Kidd went on and on about his desire to make sure the Mavs got out of this game without any injuries. Well, the injury bug unfortunately reared its ugly head again as point guard Brandon Williams left the game for good in the first half with a left oblique strain.
Williams, who just signed a two-year contract with the Mavs on Thursday, said he wasn’t sure how the injury happened.
“We’ll take pictures of that tomorrow and have a better answer for you tomorrow,” Kidd said, referring to Williams’ injury. “We need his speed and his ability to get to the rim and score. And being able to shoot the three and play-make.”
With the loss, the Mavericks finished the regular season with a 39-43 record and the No. 10 seed in the Western Conference. That means they will play on the road against the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday at 9 p.m. in the play-in tournament.
The winner of that game will play the loser of Tuesday’s game in San Francisco between the Golden State Warriors and Grizzlies on Friday. The season will be over for the loser of the Mavs-Kings game.
Daniel Gafford (20 points, seven rebounds, two blocks), Jaden Hardy (17 points), Max Christe (14 points, five boards), Naji Marshall (11 points) and Kai Jones (11 
points, eight rebounds) led the way for the Mavs against the Grizz.
Lamar Stevens (31 points, six rebounds), Marvin Bagley III (25 points, 11 boards), Cam Spencer (23 points, seven assists, three steals) and Jay Huff (22 points, six rebounds, two steals) paced the Grizzlies, who padded their record to 48-34. Memphis enters the play-in tournament as the No. 8 seed.
The Mavs didn’t dress starters Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, P.J. Washington and Dereck Lively II. Also, Kyrie Irving (left torn ACL) and Olivier-Maxence Prosper fractured right wrist) did not dress for the Mavs.
“Just understanding the minutes that those guys played (Friday) night against Toronto,” Kidd said before the game. “We’ve been through a lot of injuries.”
On the flip side, starters Ja Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr., Zach Edey, and Desmond Bane didn’t dress for the Grizzlies, along with reserves Brandon Clark, Luke Kennard, Scotty Pippen, Santi Aldama and Jaylen Wells.
After playing Thursday at home against Minnesota and Friday in Denver, Grizzlies interim coach Tuomas Iiisalo didn’t want to expose his starters to Sunday’s game, knowing that if they had played against the Mavs, the game against the Warriors would have been their fourth game in six days.
“The back-to-back with little to no sleep took a large toll on the players, especially the guys who have been playing a lot, and we just wanted to be extremely smart in this situation,” Iisalo said. “There’s a lot of nagging injuries that are on our team and we will make the best decision for the team.”
The Grizzles took a 38-28 lead after the first quarter and led, 67-54, at the half, and went into the fourth quarter comfortably ahead, 104-75.
“We definitely don’t want to lose by, 35, but I think we had the bigger picture in mind for the most part, which is the game on Wednesday,” Christie said. “So, we’re kind of just preparing for that.”
Memphis outscored the Mavs in fast break points, 36-14, and also turned 18 Dallas turnovers into 24 points.
Asked how difficult it is to play a game with so many of his starters and rotation players not in uniform, Kidd said: “I don’t know if it’s hard. It’s just your responsibility to come out and do your job.
“Our energy and effort were there to start and then it just kind of went away, and then we never could get it back. We got to go to Sac with the group that you’re going to war with – we’ll be fine. This is a game (against Memphis) that others had an opportunity to play, and some did and some didn’t.”
Gafford sure performed well as he was 8-of-10 from the field and grabbed five of the Mavs’ 10 offensive rebounds.
“For me, I don’t think it’s hard at all,” he said. “You just got to come out — it’s a next man up mentality.
“You got to come out and just give 110 percent no matter who we got on the floor. We just got to go out and play the same game we’ve always been playing.”
As far as that unfortunate injury to Williams is concerned, Gafford said: “I saw that he was going to the back, but I didn’t think that he was going to be out for the rest of the game. It was tough. Hopefully, he has a speedy recovery for this play-in game that we have.
“You just hate to see him go down like that. He said he didn’t know what happened. It just happened out of nowhere.”
And now the Mavs wait to see what happens to Williams as far as his chances of participating in Wednesday’s play-in game.
X: @DwainPrice
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