Last night, we were reminded why the expectations were initially so high for Dallas and Luca Don coming into this year Now, one hurdle they will need to overcome is the 10 back to back games they have scheduled for the second half of the regular season.

Take a look here.

This is tied for second.

Most given the injury concerns for Christoph, for Zynga's definitely something they are going to have to mitigate.

Richard.

Do you expect the math to be better in the second half?

Given especially this hurdle with the schedule that we just got today?

Well, you don't want to say things can't get worse because always things can get worse.

But if you look at the injuries, the lack of the travel because of covid that they had to deal with players being stuck in certain places, you knew that they were going to get off to a slow start and again, like posing is not being at the level.

And I think now they're kind of warming up into their season, which you see a lot of teams do.

They didn't have the great offensive efficiency that they had last year, but the entire league has jumped up offensively.

So I'm not surprised again, kind of similar to what Matt said about Hey there, three or four games away from all of a sudden being right into the okay, The Dallas Mavericks are back, so I'm not surprised.

I think the expectations people thought Luca was gonna win the M V P.

And they thought those numbers were gonna be there and their team was going to continue to grow.

It's just been a very slow growth so far this year.

Well, you know, I think you look at what Lucas done.

I think he scored 30 something 34 points a game over this six and one winning streak that they have, He's gonna be fine.

I don't worry about him.

But if I am the Mavericks and I'm looking at the schedule Rachel that you've put up, I do have concerns about poor Zynga's because first it was the knee he was coming off.

He had to literally get in shape as the season began.

Because of that short off season.

Now there's some back stiffness.

He's very important that he has been really a disaster defensively, which were not used with Porzingis.

He was an elite defensive player for a part of the time with New York and last year with Dallas.

Can he get back to that?

Can he be a rim protector with fighting his way through all these injuries?

The other guy, I think that's really hurt them, that's been out, has been Max Kleber.

He was out.

He was back in.

Now he's out again.

So those are the questions I have also, you know, we've talked so much about the missing Seth Curry.

If you watched that game last night, you say maybe Jalen Bronson could be Seth Curry, so that makes you feel a little better.

But this this scheduled to me is concerning because of those back to backs.

And I can't imagine Parsing is playing a ton of back to backs.

This team had a lot of hype coming into the season after what they did in the bubble.

Uh, what Luca personally did in the bubble.

So, you know, he was odds on favorite to win the M V P.

and we're all expecting a lot from Dallas and, like Richard said, it just didn't happen that way.

But any time you have local, you have a great chance.

And this game is all about getting hot at the right time.

Taking, you know, case in point, the Miami Heat last year.

You know, coming out of that fifth seed to make the finals.

It's just about getting hot at the right time.

The one concern, obviously, is K P and his ability to be able to play over the second half of this season.

But I'm also just interested to see what their what they do before the trade deadline.

Is there a piece they can pick up or a couple of pieces they can pick up to strengthen that roster?

But I think the key to this team's success in the second half is KPs ability to be on the floor and be effective because you know what, You know every night would look was gonna give you now.

Yeah, interesting to bring that up about the trade deadline, Jackie.

We've heard there's rumors out there that maybe the Mavs are even shopping for Zynga's now mark Cuban has come out strongly denied those.

Do you expect them to make some kind of move before the deadline?

I don't know about Porzingis.

My I think this is probably, uh you know, semantics here.

I doubt that.

Their shop actively shopping Porzingis.

But are they listening?

We know one thing about Donnie Nelson.

He's always listening to everybody, but I I expect Porzingis to be with them going forward.

Now, can they make another little move short?

And they probably should.

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