No matter what the Dallas Mavericks do, they simply can't catch a break in any capacity. On Friday night in Dallas' blowout loss to the Houston Rockets, Mavericks guard Dante Exum broke his left hand and will likely miss the rest of the season. Contrary to their February 8 matchup versus the Rockets where Anthony Davis played his first and only game in a Mavericks uniform so far, the Mavericks' lack of size was readily apparent in this game versus Houston, as the Rockets nearly doubled Dallas in the rebounding department by a 67-34 margin.
At 33-35 Dallas still maintains a 1.5 game lead over the Phoenix Suns for sole possession of the 10th seed in the West with 14 games remaining in the regular season, and while the Suns have the toughest remaining strength of schedule in the entire league by a landslide, the Mavericks are in jeopardy of losing out on a decent chance at making the playoffs if they continue to drop games.
Brandon Williams continued his brilliance as a shot creator off the bench for Dallas on Friday night, as the 25-year-old is continuing to prove that he's deserving of an active roster spot with Dallas beyond this season, especially in the wake of Exum's continual injury woes. Another guard that will need to step up for Dallas from a shot creation perspective for the rest of this season and next is none other than Max Christie, as Christie hasn't performed to the same standard recently from a shotmaking perspective that he did right after the Luka Doncic trade.
Christie shuts down tanking speculation, stressses Mavs' playoff push
While Christie's play on the court recently hasn't been emblematic of the budding three-level scoring threat that Mavericks fans saw developing right before their eyes post-Doncic, this is not because of a lack of confidence from Christie, as he's been extremely confident ever since this trade and that confidence is carrying over to how he views Dallas' current situation.
"Absolutely, we're not here to try to tank and lose games," Christie said in an exclusive interview with ClutchPoints. "We're still in the playoff picture, so we got guys here, when we get healthy we're gonna be a good team regardless of, you know, the standings and whatnot. We have a chance to make a run... We have a chance to play to our potential. So for sure we're trying to win as many games as possible and we're not trying to just give up on the season."
Christie openly dispelled the notion that the Mavericks are going to try and tank, as this Mavericks team has simply encountered so much adversity together recently and they'd be doing themselves a disservice to give up on this season while they are still poised to make the playoffs based on current seeding. Christie is clearly optimistic the Mavericks can get more healthy than they currently are, and even though Dallas could run into a scenario where they literally have to forfeit games because of having so many players out due to injury, Christie is making it clear here that Dallas won't intentionally lose games just to garner better draft lottery odds.
There are some extremely talented prospects in this year's upcoming draft, and it wouldn't be surprising to see Dallas stumble into a decent pick if they stay in the 10th seed or fall to the 11th seed in the West given their current trajectory for the rest of the season, and Dallas would be hard pressed to lose enough games to get even close to top-five lottery odds anyway.
With the uncertainty of when Dallas' bigs will return along with just how incomplete this roster will be heading into the playoffs, it's understandable that many fans may want the Mavericks to tank. But with veteran players such as Klay Thompson still pouring their all into every game despite the current circumstances, the Mavericks can't take whatever loyalty they have from any player on the top half of their roster for granted after trading Doncic, as it's not something the franchise has earned to be reciprocated anymore and tanking would be a slap in the face to guys like Thompson.
