Desperate to win on the road, Mavs will have to achieve it without Doncic

The Mavericks haven’t won a single away game in over a month—February 10, to be exact.

Of course, they’ve only had four roadies in that time, but nonetheless, the long drought in terms of time should end quickly as they enter a 10-game stretch, eight of which will be played away from the American Airlines Center. .

It kicks off Wednesday in San Antonio, a team that has targeted the draft lottery and French big man Victor Vembanyama.

But the Spurs, as long as Gregg Popovich is around, will never cheat. They will play to win, and this has become evident in recent times with victories on the road and at home to Denver, leading in the Western Conference.

And with the injury situation still uncertain, the Mavericks will only be able to break out of their three-game losing streak the old-fashioned way.

They will have to earn it. And their confidence is unshaken, which is not to be expected given that the two losses came without Luka Doncic (left hip sprain) and Kyrie Irving (right leg soreness).

Perhaps one of them could come back against Spurs, but not both. The Mavericks’ injury report released Tuesday afternoon still listed Doncic as out. Tim Hardaway Jr. (bruised left calf), Irving and Christian Wood (painful right leg) are all dubious.

Asked if confidence remains in the dressing room, and if so, why, coach Jason Kidd pointed to “the competitive nature of this group”.

And for a long time they lost to Memphis at home and at home.

“You look at the stars who can’t compete in Memphis and Memphis is playing really well at home,” Kidd said. “Put yourself in the position to win this game and you look at the backyard, very young with (Jaden) Hardy and (Josh) Green. I think they did a great job.”

The same group was ahead at halftime on Monday. And the experience gained will help Mavericks.

“We will keep fighting, keep working,” Kidd said, “and if we can recover, that will give us the opportunity to succeed.”

And despite it all, Kidd has had an impossible job of managing expectations, especially when it comes to Hardy, who scored 50 points in his first two NBA games, sparking new fan speculation that the rookie deserves a bigger role going forward. .

Given that it took Hardy 46 shots (of which 24 were three-pointers) to score those 50 points, that tempers the enthusiasm. But Kidd knows that Hardy learns at an incredible rate.

But when someone asked about playoff minutes?

“He grew up. He had an incredible result,” Kidd said. “Being able to hit the paint to score, be able to shoot and find open teammates when he’s driving. So many good things. Let’s finish the season before we start talking about playoff minutes.

“You can’t cast Hardy as Luka. It’s not fair to Hardy. He (Doncic) is one of the best players in the world. And you have a 20-year-old who is just learning to play in the NBA.”

In other words, let’s suspend the anointing of the new star.

Bringing back the current ones should be the first thing.

Twitter: @ESefko