DALLAS – The regular season opener for the Dallas Mavericks is forever ingrained in the history books, and they definitely learned a thing or two during Wednesday’s 121-100 loss to the Phoenix Suns.
And most of the lessons learned came at the defensive end of the floor, where the Mavs were less than stellar when they allowed 37 points in the first quarter and an additional 38 points in the fourth quarter. It became a major point of emphasis for the Mavs, who allowed too many wide open shots down in the Valley of the Suns.
“We’ve got to communicate better and help each other out,” point guard Dennis Smith Jr. said. “We can’t just give up straight-line drives (to the basket).
“That was hurting us a lot — just one guy beating us to the paint and causing rotations where sometimes nobody even rotated. So we just got to man-up and guard one-on-one a little better.”
Smith gave his definition of a stout defense, which, for the Mavs, was too sporadic against the Suns.
“Defense is just effort,” Smith said. “Somebody beating you one-on-one is just unacceptable, so we’ve all got to do better.”
The Mavs’ lack of an effective transition defense, guard Wesley Matthews pointed out, resulted from not doing their work early in the process.
“Our transition defense, it stems from what we’re doing on the offensive end,” Matthews said. “If we had breakdowns on the offensive end — turnovers, missed shots — we hang our heads.
“That gives them opportunities to take advantage of us, and they did.”
Too many times the Suns found themselves hoisting up 3-point shots and there was no Mavs defender in their vicinity. The Mavs know that has to change when they play their home opener Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at American Airlines Center against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
“We’re not doing a good job of rotating and communicating,” Smith said. “We’ve got to help each other out a little more on the defensive end all around.
“We looked like we were still in preseason mode. We’ll get some practice days in and we look to turn it around versus Minnesota.”
The Suns converted 54.3 percent of their field goals and were also deadly from 3-point range where they made 19-of-34 shots for 55.9 percent. It was the kind of game that got the Mavs’ undivided attention.
“I like that they hit us in the face the first game,” said guard J. J. Barea, who contributed nine points and a game-high 10 assists in just 21 minutes off the bench. “I think that everybody understands how we’ve got to be better (and) we’ve got to play harder.
“It was tough, but it’s good it happened early. We’ve got a couple of days to fix it and we’ll see how we do on Saturday.”
While the defensive issues were crippling the Mavs, rookie Luka Doncic responded in his first NBA game with 10 points, eight rebounds and four assists. He also committed four turnovers and was 5-of-16 from the floor while missing all five of his 3-point attempts.
“We have 81 games to go, so I’m not worried,” Doncic said. “I think we played a bad game.
“It wasn’t close, so we have to work on our defense, which is the key.”
Barea anticipates Doncic will bounce back and respond with a much better performance against the Timberwolves.
“It was good for him to experience something like this,” Barea said. “Now he knows the real NBA, but I think he’s going to handle it really good.
“He’s going to learn from it and get better. But I think it was a great experience for him – his first game on the road – so we’ll see how he does Saturday.”
Smith, who was just 6-of-19 from the field and tallied 13 points Wednesday, also expects to be more productive against the Timberwolves.
“We were struggling offensively (and) we were getting some good looks,” Smith said. “We just weren’t capitalizing, especially myself.
“I had a couple of easy ones that I usually make –a couple of floaters, some layups. It was just one of those nights. It’s bound to happen. It’s not going to stop anything I do. I’m going to attack the rack still, I’m going to still put my work in and I’m going to bounce back the next game.”
Outscoring the Suns, 49-46, in the second and third quarters were confidence-boosters for the Mavs. But overall, they know they can play better.
“We did some good things out there, but we’ve got to definitely play a little better, especially in the first quarter,” Barea said. “Everybody kind of woke up and said, ‘We’ve got to start doing things a little bit better, a little more harder (and with) more energy.”
And with a little more zest.
“We didn’t show up,” Matthews said. “We’ve got to put this one pass us early, learn about it and not let Phoenix beat us twice.
“We’ve got another game on Saturday (against) a tough team. They’re coming in to try and get a win, too, and we’ve got to protect home court.”
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