Mavericks’ Kristaps Porzingis Takes Blame After Rick Carlisle Defends Him in the Loss Against Bucks

The Mavericks were on a 4-game win streak before meeting the Bucks at their home court. However, their streak came to an unfortunate end after they let the game slip through hands in the last couple of minutes. The Mavs lost 109-112 in a closely fought game.

For Mark Cuban’s team, star forward Kristaps Porzingis played his second game of the season. He had earlier injured himself in the Orlando Bubble against the Clippers.

Because of missing the action for so many months, he was a little rusty and that cost the Mavs hugely in the game against Bucks.

Kristaps Porzingis failed to make the winning shot

The Latvian player had already scored a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds. He then had the opportunity to win the game for the Mavs with a three-pointer when they were trailing 107-109. But he missed the wide-open three as he got off-balanced and air-balled it. This potentially took the game away from the Mavs.

In the post-game interview, the head coach Rick Carlisle took his side and expressed, “Hey, if you were out for five months and you’re getting a chance to get back with the team, you’d be aggressive, too.”

His shot attempt made him appear over-excited, and that took away the precision from it. A dejected Porzingis later accepted in his address to the media, “I want to take a lot of responsibility for this [loss].”

What upset Mavericks’ Luka Doncic?

With three minutes remaining in the game, James Johnson made a corner three to make the score 104-103. However, the Mavs soon lost that lead after back-to-back threes from a dangerous Khris Middleton. 

Things turned interesting with 23 seconds remaining. Luka Doncic had the ball, and he passed it to Trey Burke. Till that point, Trey was 3/5 from the three-point range, but he failed to put this one in.

Johnson grabbed the offensive rebound, and that is when Luka hoped the coach must’ve called a time-out. He even signaled a ‘T’ sign towards the bench after the goof-up.

That did not happen, and they lost the game after another crucial miss. Now, it can not be claimed that the time out could have saved the game. But a chance to someone like Tim Hardaway who already had 4/9 made 3Ps or Luka himself could have increased the probability of making those buckets.