Schizophrenic Mavs Show Their Good Side. For Now.

I’m not sure where this Mavs’ destination is this season. But I’m now confident that the journey will kill us all.

The schizophrenic Mavs dragged a season-high three-game losing streak into American Airlines Center on Friday and promptly blitzed one of the NBA’s best team – the Portland Trailblazers – to the tune of 40-10 in the opening minutes. A 30-point lead. A definitive statement. A … It’s the Mavs, hold that thought. And hold onto your hat.

As has been one of their multiple personalities all year, they promptly blew the 30-point lead. In fact, they trailed by the third quarter, threatening to add to this year’s long list of lost leads of 19, 18, 17 and 16 points and tying the franchise record for biggest blown lead in a loss. But alas, they also give us our money’s worth.

To that end, Dirk Nowitzki scored and scored some more and Devin Harris made the game-saving plays as the Mavs wound up winning-losing-winning against Portland, 103-98. No lead is safe in the NBA, but this long since sailed past ridiculous.

“How many whatever-point leads have we blown this year?” Mavs’ head coach Rick Carlisle asked in his post-game press conference. “There’s been tons of them. We’ve got to work to prevent it. There’s no harder way to do it than what happened tonight.”

But by the time your heart could recover and you could do some more head-scratching on the blown leads, another of the NBA’s elite was in the building. And last night the Mavs did it again, jumping to a 14-4 lead. Then, of course, there was the obligatory very fuzzy middle, capped by the game-sealing surge at the end in an 11-point win.

On a night when Dirk missed 11 of his 14 shot attempts, it was Harris and Vince Carter and Monta Ellis with the crunch-time plays that allowed the Mavs to rebound from their losing streak.

What does it all mean? When the Mavs are good, they can great. And when they’re bad, they can be Lotteryish.

The Mavs’ ride this season: They’re 0-3 against the lowly Nuggets, and 2-0 against the lofty Pacers.

Enjoy the ride. And, please, don’t forget to buckle up.

A native Texan who was born in Duncanville and graduated from UT-Arlington, Richie Whitt has been a mainstay in the Metroplex media since 1986. He’s held prominent roles on all media platforms including newspaper (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dallas Observer), radio (105.3 The Fan) and TV (co-host on TXA 21 and numerous guest appearances, including NBC 5). He currently writes a sports/guy stuff blog at DFWSportatorium.com and lives in McKinney with his wife, Sybil, and two very spoiled dogs.

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