The Dallas Mavericks limp into the closing stretch of a six-game road swing, sliding on a 10-game losing streak, as they head to Indianapolis for their fifth game of the odyssey against the Indiana Pacers.<\/p>\n
Dallas fell to 0-4 on the road trip and remained winless since Jan. 22 with a 122-111 loss at Minnesota on Friday. The Mavericks, injury-plagued for much of the campaign, faced the Timberwolves without rookie sensation Cooper Flagg.<\/p>\n
The No. 1 overall pick of last summer\u2019s draft, Flagg was on a tear, scoring 27-plus points in five of six games ahead of the All-Star break \u2014 including a career-high 49 on Jan. 29 vs. Charlotte \u2014 before sustaining a foot injury Feb. 10. He also missed Thursday\u2019s 124-104 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, though Dallas head coach Jason Kidd told reporters that Flagg is \u201cday-to-day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flagg\u2019s uncertainty comes days after the organization announced nine-time All-Star Kyrie Irving will not play this season. Irving had not appeared in the current campaign due to a knee injury but was not officially declared out for the season until Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis decision wasn\u2019t easy, but it\u2019s the right one,\u201d Irving said via a statement released by the Mavericks. \u201cI am looking forward to coming back stronger next season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dallas appears all but eliminated from a postseason berth, sitting seven games behind Portland for 10th place and the final play-in spot in the Western Conference entering Saturday. The Mavericks have also undergone roster fluctuation amid their struggles, trading oft-injured former All-NBA big man Anthony Davis to Washington earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Khris Middleton, who joined the Mavericks in the deal for Davis, scored a team-high 18 points on Friday.<\/p>\n
With the Mavericks well behind the playoff pace in the West, Indiana\u2019s similar difficulties in the East likely ensure the last two NBA Finals runners-up will miss the postseason. The Pacers, last season\u2019s Eastern Conference champion, dropped to last place with a 131-118 loss to back-to-back losses at Washington on Thursday and Friday.<\/p>\n
The consecutive setbacks bookended a six-game road trip for Indiana with defeats, sandwiching victories over the Brooklyn Nets and New York Knicks ahead of All-Star weekend.<\/p>\n
The Pacers have dealt with a mountain of injuries this season, including the absences of Andrew Nembhard (back), Aaron Nesmith (ankle), and Pascal Siakam (personal) at Washington.<\/p>\n
Indiana also dealt Bennedict Mathurin \u2014 who at the time of his trade to the Los Angeles Clippers was averaging career bests of 17.8 points and 5.4 rebounds per game \u2014 for veteran center Ivica Zubac.<\/p>\n
Zubac is dealing with an ankle injury and has no clear debut date set with the Pacers.<\/p>\n
Indiana\u2019s roster instability has forced other players into prominent spots, including Kam Jones, who dished 11 assists in Friday\u2019s loss. Indiana also got 21 points off the bench from Quenton Jackson against the Wizards.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s doing some good things,\u201d Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said of Jones. \u201cYou can see why our scouts and our front office are excited about him. He\u2019s got moxie, he\u2019s got (a) feel for the game. \u2026 This is a great stretch for him, a great opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Mavericks limp into the closing stretch of a six-game road swing, sliding on a 10-game losing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,686,149,4057,166,6],"class_list":["post-616854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-mavericks","tag-basketball","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dallasmavericks","tag-mavericks","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116111844587202951","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}