There’s no place like home, but this wasn’t the home the Mavericks are used to.
They were at American Airlines Center for their home opener and for the most part, the arena was empty.
They say a cavernous, vacant gym can mess with a player’s depth perception when it comes to shooting. Maybe that had something to do with it. Or maybe the Mavericks are just starting this season in a long-distance shooting slump.
Whatever the reason, the Mavericks are misfiring from 3-point range so far, which is a big contributor to their disappointing 1-3 record after Wednesday’s lopsided loss to the Charlotte Hornets.
They were hovering around 25 percent for most of Wednesday’s game until a late warming trend pushed their 3-point shooting to 28.6 percent (12-for-42). That lowered their season shooting from beyond the arc to 48-for-152 (31.6 perent) in four games, an admittedly small sample, but still not what you’d like to see.
Nobody is struggling more from long range than Luka Dončić, who dropped to 2-for-21 for the season by missing all five of his 3-pointers on Wednesday.
But he certainly had plenty of company.
“Look, it’s clear Luka doesn’t have his rhythm yet, and everybody’s working through something at this point in time,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “The thing that we (have to) work through is the fact that you got to step on the floor playing with full force all the time or you’re going to get your ass beat.
“It was a bad night for everybody. Charlotte certainly had something to do with it. But we also had something to do with it, too. Luka’s going to be fine.”
If there is any doubt about that, Luka quelled it. He was on the AAC court putting up 3-point shots for more than 30 minutes after the game.
While Dončić is struggling from long range through the first four games, not all of the Mavericks are having trouble.
Maxi Kleber was 4-of-5 from 3-point range and Tim Hardaway Jr. was 3-of-6. That means everybody else was 5-for-31.
“I think it will take time,” Hardaway said. “It’s nobody’s fault. But everybody’s putting their jerseys on just like us and going out there playing, and we really have no excuse. Shots weren’t falling, but we can’t let that control how we play on defense.”
Luka cut to the core.
“There’s a lot of people trying to get into their rhythm,” he said. “Normally, it would still be preseason, right?”
That said, the Mavericks still are feeling their way along and trying to figure out just how their weapons will look in the long run.
“We like the three,” Carlisle said. “We’re more in love with paint attacks and rim attacks. But the more good threes we can generate, the more I feel we can be a very good 3-point shooting team.
“But we’re not going to be a team that’s completely dependent on the three. We’ve got to really have that downhill mentality as much as we can.”
Hit first attitude: Carlisle has spent a lot of the first 10 days of the regular season talking about the hard-edged attitude that is needed in every game.
Clearly, it was lacking, particularly in the second half, against the Hornets. It looked a lot closer to the first two games – losses at Phoenix and the Los Angeles Lakers – than it did to the 51-point win over the Clippers on Sunday.
“There have been some solid things, but we have to get to the point as a team where we’re competing at a consistently high level,” Carlisle said. “You’re not always going to make every shot. But people need to feel us defensively and when the ball’s in the air, we got to pursue it like it really means something and those things weren’t happening in the first two games.”
The hope was that the Mavericks would get some carryover from the massive win at the Clippers. Clearly, it didn’t happen in the home opener.
Wacky outcomes: The first week of the NBA season has been littered with blowouts.
The shortened preseason could have had something to do with it,
“I think the training camp definitely plays a part,” Hardaway said. “We only had three (preseason) games and normally you have five. I think it’s going to take awhile. You see a lot of blowouts, a lot of games in double digits. And you just got to continue to play. It’s happening all over the league. Whichever team figures it out the quickest will definitely make their way out of the pack.”
Said Carlisle: “This is very different and a much less-controlled situation than the Orlando restart was, just in terms of the travel and more vast arenas, lack of fans in most cases. I don’t have a great answer. I just know that in the NBA, if you don’t show up and play as hard as you can play, you’re going to get beat. That’s what happened to us in the first two games.”
Praise for LaMelo: The Mavericks got to see rookie LaMelo Ball’s best game of the young season as he had 22 points, eight rebounds and five assists in 29 minutes.
“He’s great and he had a great game today, too,” Dončić said. “He’s going to be great in this league. My advice: just enjoy the game. Not everybody can play in the NBA. Just enjoy the game. Sometimes it’s going to be tough, like today for us. But just have fun.”
Ball was the No. 3 overall pick in the draft.
Twitter: @ESefko
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