SALT LAKE CITY – Close games simply are poison for the Mavericks right now.
For the fourth game in a row and third consecutive time on this trip, the verdict came down to the final seconds and once again, the Mavericks came up short.
Utah’s Jordan Clarkson found John Collins with a bullet pass in the paint and the resulting dunk provided the Jazz the lead with 6.1 seconds left and they held on for a 115-113 victory Thursday night at the Delta Center.
The Mavericks had trailed by 14 points entering the fourth quarter and made a valiant comeback, taking a 110-108 lead with 1:33 to play. But the Jazz scored five points before Klay Thompson buried a three-pointer to tie the game at 113 with 26.2 seconds left.
Then came Clarkson’s clutch pass to Collins, who led Utah with 28 points. Naji Marshall’s corner three at the buzzer was off the mark and the Mavericks fell to 5-7 after this 0-3 trip. It was their fourth loss in a row overall.
“That was a misunderstanding,” Luka Dončić said of the Jazz’s game-winning play. “We misunderstood the bench.”
The result was a free dunk for Collins.
“Communication,” coach Jason Kidd said. “There was a lapse there and that happens. They took full advantage. We got to be better.”
Utah won for just the third time against eight losses.
A little more attention in the third quarter might have saved the Mavericks from the heartbreak at the end. They had a three-point lead at halftime, but were outscored 38-21 in the third quarter.
They were down 81-73 before Dončić, who led the Mavericks with 37 points, scored five quick points in the middle of the third quarter.
But it was a battle no matter what the Mavericks did. When Drew Eubanks blocked a Thompson run at the rim, getting the crowd involved. Eubanks then dunked on the other end and before the Mavericks knew it they were down by 90-78.
It was 99-85 going into the fourth quarter before the Mavericks heated up to give themselves a chance.
Which is nothing new. The road has not been kind to the Mavericks on this trip. Last-gasp losses at Denver and Golden State were frustrating, to say the least. And now, the setback in Utah makes the upcoming game at home on Saturday against San Antonio vital. The Mavericks play at Oklahoma City on Sunday for the second half of back-to-back games.
With the loss at Utah, the Mavericks fell to 1-6 in clutch games, defined as games that are within five points at some juncture in the final five minutes.
“It’s adversity, man,” said Marshall, who had 19 points off the bench. “That brings out the best in people. We’re going to run through a wall facing this adversity and get better. Later on in the season as we made the right changes, we’ll look back on this and see how far we came.”
That would be the game plan, for sure.
“There’s a lot of hope,” Dončić said. “We just got to be better. We’re getting beat, especially on the offensive glass. We can’t get a rebound. I think that’s mostly the main reason why we’re losing.”
The Mavericks played without Kyrie Irving, but when you are playing the team that entered the game at the bottom of the Western Conference standings, everybody else has to step up.
“I think everybody played hard,” Dončić said. “Obviously we’re going to miss him (Irving).”
Kidd said that going through this growth process now is basically a necessary evil. Would the Mavericks prefer positive results on the bottom line? Of course.
And learning from narrow losses against top-flight teams can be a useful learning tool. But Utah is not a top-flight team at the moment.
“Poise, calmness is a big thing and we’re not there yet,” Kidd said before the Utah game. “Hopefully we have that opportunity tonight that our poise and calmness will be there.
“With a new group, that could be an issue early on, but there’s no better way to go through it than being able to play close games and learn from your mistakes and also learn from being able to win games. It’s the small details. If we can clean up some of these little details on these plays, that puts us in a better seat.”
So the Mavericks found themselves in another tight situation.
That’s because they could not shake the Jazz in the first half, when the Mavericks’ lead was a scant three points at halftime, 64-61.
The Jazz, who played without two of their best big men, Walker Kessler and Taylor Hendricks, got a lot of mileage out of Collins, a longtime thorn in the Mavericks’ side when he was with Atlanta
Collins finished making 10-of-20 shots and chipped in a game-best nine rebounds.
Both teams shot 50.6 percent from the field, but a big difference came from beyond the three-point arc. The Mavericks were just 12-of-39 (30.8 percent).
The Jazz hit 13-of-34 for 38.2 percent.
X: @ESefko
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