This past Wednesday the Dallas Mavericks continued their woes on the road losing by 34 at Milwaukee. This loss was much different though and hurt more afterwards because as this article puts it from the Dallas Morning News they were guilty of the most demeaning crime in sports- not playing hard:
"Hard play is the biggest key to winning in this league, other than having enough talent," Carlisle said. "I love the talent on our team, but we don't have the kind of talent to win on talent alone. That's a fact. And most teams in the league are in the same position. We got to fight every night for wins. It's just never easy."
When the Mavericks go nonchalant, like they did at Milwaukee, they get wiped out.
"We let up a little after that first quarter and thought everything's going to be easy," Dirk Nowitzki said. "Teams are too good in this league. We let them get their rhythm. All of a sudden, everybody started shooting the ball well for them. It was bad. It seemed like we never did get two stops in a row.
"Nothing in this league is going to come easy. You give up 80 percent shooting in two quarters, it's just embarrassing."
At least the Mavericks aren't in denial about that. Their next step is to come to grips with the fact that they haven't left everything on the floor in certain games. Good teams cut down on the number of times they don't show up. Great teams almost never fall into the no-show category.
"It's always going to be a major part of regular-season basketball," Carlisle said. "In the playoffs, everybody plays hard. And there's no coach that isn't preaching it and talking about the importance of it."
