{"id":627760,"date":"2026-02-27T07:35:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T07:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/627760\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T07:35:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T07:35:18","slug":"after-long-stretch-away-mavs-struggle-to-find-footing-at-home-in-loss-to-nba-worst-kings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/627760\/","title":{"rendered":"After long stretch away, Mavs struggle to find footing at home in loss to NBA-worst Kings"},"content":{"rendered":"

It had been so long, 21 days, since the Mavericks<\/a> last played in Dallas, that during lineup intros Feb. 5 trade acquisitions Khris Middleton and Marvin Bagley III<\/a> got \u201cWelcome to Dallas!\u201d salutations from P.A. announcer Sean Heath.<\/p>\n

Then, despite facing the NBA-worst Sacramento Kings, the Mavericks fell behind 56-38. Welcome home, Mavericks.<\/p>\n

Multiple furious rallies later, Dallas succumbed, 130-121, Thursday night in American Airlines Center to a Sacramento team that had lost 17 of its previous 18 games.<\/p>\n

Naji Marshall\u2019s career-first 30-point double-double \u2013 36 points, 10 rebounds and six assists \u2013 wasn\u2019t enough to complete the comeback, nor was 55% Dallas shooting.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWasn\u2019t that difficult,\u201d Marshall said of overcoming the slow start. \u201cJust locked in and played basketball the way we know how.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos: Naji Marshall steps up, but Mavericks run out of answers vs. Kings<\/p>\n

\"DallasView Gallery<\/p>\n

Trailing 110-93 with 6:51 left in the game, the Mavericks went on a 12-0 in 1:59 to pull within five points. Dallas got as close as 123-121 on a Brandon Williams 3-point play with 1:56 left, but went scoreless the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurnovers. Missed shots. We didn\u2019t take care of the ball and they capitalized on that,\u201d is how Mavericks coach Jason Kidd<\/a> characterized the closing stretch.<\/p>\n

The Kings got 29 points and 12 rebounds from Precious Achiuwa and 22 points from Maxime Raynaud.<\/p>\n

After Dallas closed within two points, Achiuwa\u2019s 5-footer with 1:29 left and Daeqwon Plowden\u2019s 3-pointer from the left corner with 52 seconds left extinguished the last comeback.<\/p>\n

The Mavericks played without Cooper Flagg, P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford<\/a>, but the already injury ravaged Kings added Keegan Murray (ankle sprain) to their sidelined list before tipoff.<\/p>\n

The Mavericks were coming off a brutal six-game, 11-day road trip that concluded with them being frozen out of being able to fly to Brooklyn until hours before a 123-114 victory.<\/a><\/p>\n

That win was preceded by a four-point victory at Indiana,<\/a> so the Mavericks were \u201criding\u201d their first win streak in 35 days entering Thursday.<\/p>\n

Granted, Indiana and Brooklyn have the NBA\u2019s second- and third-worst records (a combined 30-88) but road-weary Dallas certainly owed no apologies for that.<\/p>\n

And with Sacramento lugging into Dallas an NBA-worst 13-47 record and fresh off a 31-point Wednesday loss at Houston, the Mavericks seemingly had a great opportunity to extend their win streak.<\/p>\n

Then Sacramento reeled off 42 first-quarter points and the Mavericks spent the rest of the night playing catch-up. Their only lead of the night, 5-4, occurred in the first two minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWay too many points in the first,\u201d Kidd said. \u201cBut I thought after the first we settled in defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Dallas, this return to AAC won\u2019t last long. The Mavericks face Memphis on Friday and Oklahoma City on Sunday \u2013 in all, three games in four days \u2013 before departing to play six straight road games and eight of their next nine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the schedule,\u201d Kidd said. \u201cWe had a homestand (five games) to start the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it catches up to you . . . So it is what it is. We\u2019ve got to play, understanding it\u2019s next man up. That\u2019s the mentality. We\u2019ve been there before.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mavericks rang in the Lunar New Year with a nightlong celebration \u2013 granted, nine days into the 15-day Lunar New Year itself \u2013 but, hey, they hadn\u2019t been home in three weeks.<\/p>\n

In a few days, they\u2019ll be back on the road \u2013 for another long stretch.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter how many days or no matter how many games, or where we\u2019re at for how long, you\u2019ve got a job to do each and every game,\u201d Marshall said.<\/p>\n

Find more Mavericks coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It had been so long, 21 days, since the Mavericks last played in Dallas, that during lineup intros…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3792],"tags":[6071,1297,7,149,3716,4056,166,6,986,477,4055,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-627760","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento-kings","8":"tag-american-airlines-center","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-dallas-mavericks","12":"tag-jason-kidd","13":"tag-kings","14":"tag-mavericks","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-sacramento","17":"tag-sacramento-kings","18":"tag-sacramentokings","19":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116141453907497726","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627760","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=627760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}