Mavericks Win Streak Goes Down In Flames
At this year's All-Star break, everyone felt like the Dallas Mavericks needed to make a move. After starting the season winning 12 of their first 16 games, the Mavs had spent the last two months playing .500 basketball, and something needed to change if they were going to shake the funk and start playing championship-caliber basketball.
Then the deal was made. Dallas unloaded what they needed to bring in Brendan Haywood and Caron Butler. The Mavs lost the first game while their new cast gelled, and then it was off to the races. Thirteen straight wins, and suddenly they're being talked about as a legitimate threat to the Lakers previous stranglehold on the Western Conference.
That all came to a crashing, stumbling halt last night, as the Mavericks were embarrassed to the tune of 128-94 by the New York Knicks (they of the 23 wins). Four Knicks players finished with 20+ points, including rookie guard Bill Walker, who had 23 points in the game after having only 25 points total at the end of February.
What made the loss even more painful was that the Mavericks had beaten the Knicks by fifty points back in January, and the Knicks had traded away three of the 10 players who scored a point in that game. It was the biggest turnaround in NBA history. No team had been beaten by 50 or more points and then turned around and won against the same team by so many in their next match-up.
The Mavericks have the chance to ensure this is just a minor speed bump: they have the next three days off, after which they face an easy schedule: Chicago (losers of seven straight), Boston (game two of a three game Celtic road trip), New Orleans (2-8 in their last 10), and the Clippers (also seven straight losses).
For the Mavericks' sake, they'd better hope that it's not any indication of their future performance, or Dallas fans can kiss that contender conversation goodbye.
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