It sure looked like the stars were aligning for a Dallas Mavericks victory on Tuesday night against the Memphis Grizzlies. For starters, the Grizzlies recently lost Ja Morant to a season-ending shoulder injury, robbing the team of its best player. Secondly, Jaren Jackson Jr. needed to miss their Tuesday night contest due to a knee contusion, depleting the shorthanded Grizzlies even further.

Alas, there is no such thing as an easy game in the NBA. Luka Doncic and the Mavericks had to re-learn that lesson firsthand on Tuesday as they took an unseemly 120-103 loss to the Grizzlies who were without their two best players. Once again, the Mavericks started off slowly, falling behind by 15 points at the half, and they were never able to recover.

Falling into slow starts is becoming a concerning habit for the Mavericks, and head coach Jason Kidd is desperately trying to come up with answers as to how to prevent the team from coming out “flat” off the opening tip.

“Energy was flat. We tried everybody. We just couldn't find any energy. […] The energy from the start, we kind of walked into this, and they hit us, and we just could never respond,” the Mavericks head coach said, per Grant Afseth of Sports Illustrated.

With Marcus Smart leading the Grizzlies locker room, there was no way they were going to relent an inch especially amid their injury woes. The Mavericks should have done a much better job in expecting the Grizzlies to come out swinging. Instead, their defensive effort was subpar, even for their standards.

No matter what head coach Jason Kidd tried, the Mavericks simply did not have in on the night.

“We got it to [nine points] tonight. I think we started to get a little energy and then it blew back up to 16 quickly,” Kidd added.

This was already the Mavericks' issue when they were on the receiving end of a whipping from the Utah Jazz back on New Year's Day, and it'll be especially concerning to see it plague them once more. Luka Doncic and company were already trending up, especially when they're coming off a huge win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, but now, they'll have to figure out how to achieve greater consistency on a game to game basis.