‘Our bench stinks’… Jason Kidd furious over Mavs’ effort against Suns

The Dallas Mavericks suffered a close but disappointing loss to the Phoenix Suns on Friday night, falling 114-113 after Jusuf Nurkic hit a last-second free throw. It was a loss that felt all too familiar to Jason Kidd as the Mavericks let the Suns take a big first-half lead, beat them on the offensive glass, and Dallas simply couldn’t get any production from a bench that is now in the bottom five of the NBA in points.

In his postgame press conference, Coach Kidd fired into his team and seemed furious at the lack of energy and execution, especially from his bench.

“For whatever reason, we get off to a slow start, that needs to be addressed,” coach Kidd began. “We’ve talked about it, it’s got to be action. . . . Somebody’s got to bring some damn energy. We’re flat. . . . To understand the offensive rebounds, we’ve got to be tough, no matter how many injuries we have or how small we are , that’s how small the league is. Right now we don’t… Our bench stinks right now. Someone has to join the party (Kyrie Irving) and Luka (Doncic) And it’s not just one team who have made it played the whole f—ing team tonight, and we couldn’t find anybody.”

Kidd also talked about some positives, especially that the tempo they played at in the second half is how he wants them to play, but the slow starts are dooming this team. The starting lineup combined for 104 points, and their leading scorer off the bench was Dwight Powell with four points. That’s where some of the problems lie until Maxi Kleber, Dereck Lively II, PJ Washington and Dante Exum return.

The Mavs are also in the bottom ten in first quarter scoring margin and in the bottom half for defensive rebounding. These are things the Mavs need to get better at when they start a three-game road trip at the Denver Nuggets on Sunday.

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