This is not exactly the situation the Dallas Mavericks wanted to find themselves in when facing the defending NBA
champion Golden State Warriors for the first time this season.
Thanks to Sunday’s 124-115 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, the Mavs have now dropped four straight games for the first time since they lost six in a row from Jan. 23-Feb. 1, 2021 during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Mavs will try to climb out of this hole when they square off against a Warriors squad that has now won five of their previous six games after starting the season with a 6-9 record.
The game tips off at 6:30 p.m. and will be televised nationally on TNT.
The Mavs (9-10) entertain the Warriors (11-10) after playing their toughest road trip of the season. The Mavs lost in Boston (125-112) last Wednesday against a Celtics’ team that has the NBA’s best record, then flew across the border and lost to the Toronto Raptors (105-100) on Saturday.
Then came the second leg of a brutal back-to-back with the Bucks, who own the league’s second-best record.
Christian Wood, the top reserve for the Mavs, started the second half against Milwaukee and quickly scored nine of his 21 points less than four minutes into the third quarter. Kidd said he started Wood in the second half “just to give a different look.
“It was a shootout, so I decided that we needed some scoring out there and to go with Wood to score, and we did. We just didn’t get enough stops there in that third (quarter).”
The Mavs gave up 73 points in the first half against the Bucks – two games after giving up 70 points in the first half to the Celtics.
“I think our offense was pretty good,” point guard Luka Doncic said after the setback to the Bucks. “I think our defense was not that good, but the energy was there.”
So what’s the mood in the locker room after four straight losses?
“We just got to keep going,” Doncic said. “There’s 82 games and we just got to keep going.”
The Mavs will keep going in their first matchup against Golden State since the Warriors defeated them in five games in last season’s Western Conference Finals. The Warriors come to town after winning in Minnesota on Sunday, 137-114, behind 25 points and 11 rebounds from Stephen Curry and 24 points off the bench from Jordan Poole.
The 137 points are the most the Warriors have scored in a game this season, and they also shot a season-high 57.5 percent from the field. In addition, the Warriors handed out 36 assists, which was the seventh time in their past eight games that they’ve recorded at least 30 assists.
Doncic leads the NBA in scoring at 33.1 ppg, and is fourth in assists (8.4 apg), sixth in steals (1.7 spg), and also averages 8.7 rebounds.
Meanwhile, Curry is second in the league in scoring at 31.4 ppg, and also averages 6.8 rpg and 7.1 apg.
*This is the first time the Mavs — they’ve lost five of their last six games — have been under .500 since they were 2-3 following a 117-111 loss in overtime at home to the Oklahoma City Thunder back on Oct. 29. The Mavs led that game by 16 points with 4:14 remaining in regulation play.
*The Warriors are just 2-9 on the road this season. Besides winning in Minnesota on Sunday, they lost their first eight road games before winning in Houston, 127-120, on Nov. 20.
*Counting the 22 points he scored Sunday in Milwaukee, Spencer Dinwiddie has tallied 20 or more points in eight games this season. The Mavs are 3-5 in those games. Dinwiddie is averaging 17.1 points and shooting 47.8 percent from the floor and 41.2 percent from downtown.
*Golden State has three of the NBA’s best three-point shooters. Stephen Curry and Andrew Wiggins are each shooting 44.1 percent from three-point range, and Klay Thompson has made 40 percent of his three-point shots. Curry has converted 5.2 threes per game, which is tops in the NBA. Thompson is tied for second in the league in made three-pointers per game with 3.9.
*Christian Wood has scored 20 or more points in eight games and the Mavs are 3-5 in those games. Wood averages 17.1 ppg and 7.6 rpg, and 
is shooting 56.6 percent from the field and 43.9 percent from beyond the three-point line.
*The Warriors are third in the league in field goal percentage (43.1 percent) and tied for fourth in three-point shooting (38.2 percent).
*This is the only game on this brief homestand before the Mavs jet out on a two-game road trip to play the Pistons in Detroit on Thursday and the Knicks in New York on Saturday.
GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS (11-10) at DALLAS MAVERICKS (9-10)
When: 6:30 p.m., Tuesday
Where: American Airlines Center, Dallas
TV: TNT
Radio: 97.1 FM The Freak; 99.1 FM Zona MX (Spanish)
Twitter: @DwainPrice
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