Before Friday’s game, coach Jason Kidd was asked who he planned on stepping in for Luka Dončić, who missed his first game of the season for the best of reasons, the birth of his daughter.
Kidd made it clear that nobody was going to replace Luka. It was going to take a committee.
Led by a spark off the bench from Seth Curry, that committee tried. But on a night when energy was in short supply, there was no picking up the slack created by Luka’s absence.
The lowly Grizzlies have been sitting at or near the bottom of the Western Conference standings all season, but they stormed into American Airlines Center and knocked off the Mavericks 108-94 on the first night of back-to-back home games.
The Mavericks, who fell to 11-7, were without Dončić who was out to celebrate with his fiancée, Anamaria, on the birth of their first child, Gabriela. They also were missing Tim Hardaway Jr. (back spasms) and Dante Exum (personal reasons).
That’s three members of the regular rotation, including the superstar and sixth man.
“I just got to figure out what it looks like for us,” coach Jason Kidd said. “Fifty-five points out of the lineup can put you in harm’s way. Next-man-up didn’t quite work tonight. But we’re going to learn from that. That was a young group out there.
“No excuse, We just felt like we couldn’t grab the rebound, couldn’t come up with loose balls, our energy was flat.”
For the rest of the Mavericks, it was just one of those nights. And a reminder of just how important Luka is, not that they really needed to be reminded. It was the first game he’s missed this season and it wasn’t just his 31.1 points, 8 rebounds and 7.9 assists they were missing.
Things just flow better when he’s on the floor.
They didn’t flow at all for Kyrie Irving, who was 3-of-15 from the field and had only 10 points. He also played 36 minutes, which could have an impact on his availability Saturday when Oklahoma City visits AAC.
“I won’t know until tomorrow,” Kidd said. “I’ll prepare as if he’s playing, but there’s a chance that he might not. So we’ll see.”
Irving said he was fighting a foot issue early in the game.
“I had a bit of a tweak to my foot at the end of the first quarter,” he said. “It was hard to settle back in when you have a tweak like that, especially in your feet.
“I’m looking like I’m going to play tomorrow. But we’ll see how it feels. We’ve played a decent amount of basketball the last couple weeks. Some of it could be fatigue, over-stimulation. Just do your best to get your recovery in and come in prepared. I felt it during pregame.”
Not that it excused the showing. The Mavericks haven’t been outworked very often this season, but that was the case on Friday.
“We both had guys out, so who’s going to play harder?” Grant Williams said. “And that’s the team that wins games like these. They played harder than us. They played tougher than us. That’s a challenge we have to accept.
“When we have Luka and Kai playing their best, it makes our jobs easy. So what does it look like if one of those guys gets in foul trouble? What does it look like if one guy misses a game. And how do we make each other better?”
All valid questions. And Irving said that starts with him.
“We knew we had the talent tonight to be able to perform well and beat this team,” Irving said. “But we just didn’t do that. And it starts with me as one of the leaders on the team and not playing my best and not bringing the energy that the game needs. There’s a level of frustration, but we have another one in less than 24 hours. Just take your licks, man.”
Collectively, the Mavericks made the 5-13 Grizzlies look far better than their record. But the visitors deserve some credit for making life tough on Irving.
“He might have gotten a little frustrated with being face-guarded,” Kidd said. “And we got to do a better job of getting him the ball and knowing how to play when something like that is happening. I’ll take the blame for that.”
Williams said Irving didn’t get enough help from his teammates.
“We made Kyrie have to work way harder than he should have tonight,” he said. “We didn’t put him in good opportunities to score.”
Added Irving: “Every time I touched the paint tonight, they were all selling out to my drive and you could tell that they were making it an emphasis to deny me the basketball and stay physical. It’s been a while since I had one of these games. I’m appreciative of the challenge. It’s healthy.”
It wasn’t just Irving that struggled. All the Mavericks looked out of whack against the Grizz. They were fighting from behind virtually all night and when Desmond Bane (30 points) hit a three-pointer with five minutes to go, the Mavericks were down by 20 points with under 5 minutes left.
With a game against the Thunder looming 24 hours later, Kidd leaned on deep reserves the rest of the way.
The best fire that they showed was in the third quarter, when Curry did a little bit of everything and the Mavericks got within seven points on a couple of occasions. But they would never get any closer.
“He was a pro,” Kidd said of Curry. “He gave us a spark. There were some guys that struggled tonight, clearly, but he was one of the positives. Hopefully he can go tomorrow and give us some minutes.
“He was good for us off the bench and we got to find a way to get him some minutes.”
X: @ESefko
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