The Mavericks are broken right now.

But the great thing about life and the NBA is that most things that are broken can be fixed.

It just takes a little sweat equity and determination.

The Mavericks returned to the practice floor on Tuesday. The sun came up after a flush-it-and-forget-it 114-96 loss to Cleveland at American Airlines Center.

It was a bad game. But we’re here for you to clean up the mess with our morning-after takeaways.

NO DEFENSE: There’s just no way to stick up for the Mavericks defensively. They “stunk” in transition – and that’s Jason Kidd’s word, not mine. They are getting carved up in the paint, particularly when it comes to baseline cuts. “It’s something we have to address,” Kidd said. “The paint, defensively, has been a nonfactor. We’re getting back cut. We’re overplaying, trying to deny and putting ourselves in jeopardy not to be able to help when we do that. So that’s something we got to talk about and get better at – keep the ball in front of us, not go for steals and just be solid.” The Cavs shot 56.2 percent. This comes after the Mavericks gave up 57.7 percent shooting to Washington on Saturday. Those are by far the two worst defensive outings of the season, at least in terms of bad field-goal percentage.

NO OFFENSE: Through three quarters, the Mavericks were 9-of-33 from 3-point range. Everybody not named Luka Dončić was 3-for-24. And it’s not just the long-range shooting. They were 6-of-15 from the free-throw line. That’s not just bad. It’s intolerable. And that’s how you fall behind by 31 points. The Mavericks simply are on a widespread shooting slump. They are 22nd in the league in 3-point shooting percentage (33.2) and their overall offensive rating has plummeted to 21st.

NO SPECIAL TEAMS: OK, the NBA doesn’t have special teams. But if they did, the Mavericks would be bad at them right now. Even the things they do right, like leading the league in fewest turnovers, aren’t helping them. They had only 10 against the Cavaliers and forced 20. But the difference in points-off-turnovers was only seven points (24-17).

CLEVELAND’S NEW STRATEGY: Mark Cuban has a rule of thumb that in the NBA – or any business, really – when everybody tries to do the same thing, it has very little chance of working. So for the last decade or so, the NBA has been going smaller. Everybody wants to be faster, with better shooters – usually wing players or point guards. The Cavaliers are doing it differently. They started two 7-footers and 6-11 Jarrett Allen on Monday and the Mavericks simply could not match or handle Cleveland’s size. Allen went off for 28 points and 14 rebounds. And on defense, they are hard to expose. “It’s good knowing that I have more tall guys on my team right behind me, so that I’m able to crowd the ball,” Allen said. “I’m able to take away their strong suit knowing that if they drive, they’re going into Evan (Mobley) or Lauri (Markkanen).” The Mavericks were outrebounded 49-33 and outscored in the paint 60-46. It was the second game in a row they surrendered 60 points in the paint.

LET IT GO: Had the good fortune of bumping into Mavs CEO Cynt Marshall postgame. I mentioned that mama said there’d be nights like this. She quickly said: “It’s over. Let’s look ahead.” That’s good advice right now, although the Mavericks do have to learn from their mistakes, of which there were more than a few. You can bank on the guess that Tuesday’s practice included a long, long look at the film. But we should all remember that the Mavericks remain above .500 at 10-9, despite losing five of their last six. They are fourth in the Western Conference. So things could be a lot worse.

Twitter: @ESefko

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