LAS VEGAS – This wasn’t exactly the type of first impression the Dallas Mavericks wanted to show in their debut at the MGM Resorts Summer League.
The Mavs fell behind by 17 points after the first quarter on Monday afternoon, and that set the table for their brutal 95-73 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers at the Thomas & Mack Center. Indeed, it was a rough outing for the Mavs, who will play the Utah Jazz on Wednesday at 8 p.m. CDT at the Cox Pavilion.
In analyzing what happened against the Sixers, Mavs summer league coach Greg St. Jean said: “We didn’t do a great job with our sense of urgency defensively. We let them play a little bit too comfortably, and allowed guys on and off the ball to have rhythm and gain rhythm.
“At one point I know they made four threes in a span of three minutes and it opened the game up. And we struggled to recover from there.”
The Mavs were their own worst enemy as they turned the ball over 23 times — that led to 38 points for the Sixers. Also, the Mavs missed 17 of their 22 attempts from 3-point range and trailed by as much as 38 points in the second half.
“It’s something that I’m not happy about,” guard Tyrell Terry said of his five turnovers. “But it was a sloppy one for me and my teammates as far as turnovers. We had way too many.
“On the other hand, it’s our first time playing together. It’s a lot of our first five-on-five live game in a long time, so the best thing we can do is just learn from it and move on to the next game.”
Terry led all scorers with 22 points, and was 8-of-16 from the field and 3-of-6 from downtown. The 2020 second-round draft pick also contributed three assists and three steals.
“I thought Ty, in the fourth quarter, was a little bit more aggressive,” St. Jean said. “With Ty we’re obviously going to continue to try to diversify his looks and not have him primarily as a ball handler or primarily as an off-the-ball shooter. So that’s something that we’re just looking to do and experiment with.
“We’re putting him in difficult situations. I know he’s frustrated right now with the number of turnovers, and he’s a competitive player. So we’re going to continue to challenge him and put him in those tough situations, but it gives us a good chance to evaluate him.”
In addition to Terry, forwards Eugene Omoruyi and LJ Figueroa also were bright shots for the Mavs. Omoruyi finished with 16 points and six rebounds and was 6-of-11 from the field, and Figueroa collected 12 points and nine boards and was 5-of-9 from the floor.
“Eugene plays hard — he’s a competitive player,” St. Jean said. “I think right now the speed of the game was probably an eye-opener for a lot of our guys.
“One thing I’ll try to tell (Omoruyi) to do is just slow down a little bit with his reads offensively and defensively. But nobody’s questioning his motor and his competitive edge. We’ll continue to work with him as we go, and he’s going to have a good week for us.”
The Mavs trailed 31-14 after the first quarter, 57-31 at halftime and 71-48 after three quarters. They never did get a real grip on this game.
“I just feel like we still have to know each other,” Omoruyi said. “It takes some time, and next game we’ll definitely be ready to go.”
As far as his own game is concerned, Omoruyi said of Monday’s performance: “It started off rough, but I just love to play basketball. I love to come out here and compete with my team at the highest level.”
St. Jean believes the Mavs will make the necessary improvements at the 3-point line so they’ll be able to compete as the highest level against the Jazz.
“Shot quality is going to be critical, obviously,” he said. “At the end of the day we’ve got to continue to get team-generated threes through actions, ball movement, people movement, paint penetration. As we continue to get high quality shots, I’m more worried about those than I am about the makes.”
St. Jean also is more worried about the Mavs’ defense, as the Sixers shot 45.8 percent from the field, including 38.5 percent from 3-point territory. Philly also blocked 11 shots.
“I think communication is going to be critical for us,” St. Jean said. “Defensively, I’m not going to use “unexceptable,’ but that’s something that we’re going to hold ourselves to a higher standard than that defensively. I think our guys know that.
“They’ll be more upset with themselves in the locker room. They’re going to want to come out and defend better, and we’ll do that. And our communication has got to improve and I think our physicality as well.”
Whatever improvements the Mavs make going forward, it’ll be done without Josh Green, who just finished winning a bronze medal with Australia at the Olympics this past weekend. Green is headed into his second year with the Mavs, and normally would be one of the team’s prime-time summer league players.
But. . .
“Josh will be joining us out here in summer league,” St. Jean said. “As far as him playing, right now he is not going to play. That’s the plan.
“But he will be joining us out here, hanging around the team, sitting on the bench, being a participant in practice and just getting repetitions with us in our system.”
Perhaps Green could have helped slow down the Sixers’ Tyrese Maxey and Isaiah Joe. Maxey fired in 14 of his 21 points in the first quarter, and Joe tallied 13 of his 15 points in the opening period.
“I know we tried to turn up the pressure a little bit on Tyrese Maxey in the second half,” St. Jean said. “It’s just a good learning experience for us. That’s a talented (Sixers) team, so we’ll build from there.”
Terry envisions the Mavs putting on a much better performance against the Jazz than they did against the Sixers.
“I think we’ve got to come out with a hot start,” Terry said. “I don’t think we brought as much energy as the other team, obviously, which made the game lopsided early. The next game we’ve got to come out ready and on fire quickly.”
Said St. Jean: “We’ve had a positive week the entire time. We haven’t had two bad days in a row. I challenged them and said, ‘Hey, let’s hold ourselves to the standard that we set,’ and we’ll watch the film and get better from there.”
Twitter: @DwainPrice
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