The Dallas Mavericks are struggling, and superstar Luka Doncic knows the Mavs have no one to blame but themselves.
After suffering another blowout loss at the hands of the Utah Jazz on Friday, Doncic could no longer hide his frustration and ripped himself and the whole team for their lack of effort. The Slovenian guard emphasized that it looked like they no longer care, though he pointed put that he still believes they will be able to bounce back.
“I would say right now that it's looking like we don't care, honestly. We need more energy, more effort . . . I know we will and that's all that matters,” the Mavs star said, per Brad Townsend of the Dallas Morning News.
The Mavs started poorly against Jazz and never recovered from their 37-12 first quarter. Despite the absence of Donovan Mitchell, Utah controlled the game behind Bojan Bogdanovic (32 points) and Mike Conley (22 points) to pull away with a 120-101 victory.
Luka Doncic, furthermore, did not sugarcoat it and described Dallas' performance as “terrible.” He also called for Rick Carlisle and the whole team to step up and address the issue as soon as possible, noting again the need for more effort. Luka finished with 25 points, six rebounds and seven assists while going 8-of-17 from the field.
“There’s really not much to say. I never felt like this. We’ve got to do something, because this is not looking good. We’ve got to step up and just talk to each other and play way better than this. It’s mostly effort,” the 21-year-old added.
The embarrassing showing follows the Mavs' 116-104 loss against the Jazz last Wednesday. Friday's game also marked the seventh defeat in nine games for Dallas, who fell to 8-11 on the season–13th in the Western Conference standings.
Next up for Dallas are back-to-back contests against the Phoenix Suns at home in the American Airlines Center.
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