Despite Luka Doncic having a terrific first half of the season, the Dallas Mavericks were still not viewed as a contender for the championship.
That led to Luka pushing for the team to acquire Kyrie Irving and things have somehow gotten much worse after his arrival. Following yet another loss, Doncic admitted things haven’t gone the way he anticipated.
“Way different,” Doncic said. “I thought we would be up there. But we obviously aren’t, so it’s way different than I thought.”
(starts at 10:42 mark):
The 129-122 loss to the Miami Heat here was their sixth in the last seven games and they have now fallen to 37-41. The same issues continue to plague the Mavs following the Kyrie trade, they can’t play defense. Doncic had 42 points in this one while Tim Hardaway Jr. had 31 and Irving had 23, but it still wasn’t enough.
They allowed the Heat to shoot 52.3% from the field and that is a recipe for disaster and a disaster is what the Mavs are at the moment. This was the first game of a back-to-back as well, so they now head off to Atlanta to take on the Hawks and that game is a must-win.
Matt Barnes Blames Kyrie Irving For The Mavericks’ Struggles
There were concerns that Kyrie might cause some issues in the locker room or find himself involved in some controversy, but nothing of that sort has happened yet. His teammates seem to like him and he has been playing pretty well too, averaging 25.9 PPG, 6.0 APG, 5.1 RPG, and 1.2 SPG.
The wins aren’t coming, however, and someone has to be blamed for that, with Matt Barnes pointing the finger at Irving. Barnes feels that wherever Kyrie goes, there is an issue. He did add that it could just be a coincidence but thinks there just seems to be some kind of problem at every pit spot that Irving has had.
We sincerely appreciate and respect you as a reader of our site. It would help us a lot if you follow us on Google News because of the latest update.
Thanks for following us. We really appreciate your support.
