Gotta do better closing out games. “In reality, though, Saturday night’s home overtime loss to Charlotte continued a season-long trend of head-scratching results, often characterized by poor late execution and an inability to close out winnable games. More than half of the Mavericks’ 13 defeats can be characterized as bad losses. In short, Dallas is in the process of blowing a promising season. Consider the mounting evidence, if you can stomach it: -- The Mavericks lead the NBA in offensive rating (115.3), but are 28th in offensive rating (92.3) in clutch situations – that is, within the last five minutes of games when the differential is five points or fewer. Only New Orleans (86.0) and Atlanta (79.6) have worse clutch ratings. “Let me do some homework on it and I’ll try to get you a better answer,” Carlisle said Saturday night, when asked about the clutch rating following the Charlotte loss, a game from which Dallas rallied from a 20-point deficit, yet led by six with 1:39 left in regulation. “Now’s not a great time to try to analyze that, but it’s pretty well proven that in any league playing from behind is a losing proposition.” -- The Mavericks are 10-8 at home, including defeats to 15-23 Charlotte, 13-23 Sacramento, 10-25 New York and 15-21 Portland. -- The Mavericks are 0-3 in overtime games. -- In nearly half (six) of their losses, they have led with 42-or-fewer seconds remaining in regulation and/or overtime. Four of those defeats have come at home. Those six losses are to Charlotte, Oklahoma City, Toronto, Miami, the Lakers and Portland, and three of the defeats have occurred in the last two weeks. The Mavericks lost a seven-point lead in the final 2:42 at Oklahoma City, and they led by six with 1:39 left in regulation against the Hornets on Saturday. “Terrible decisions,” Doncic said after the Charlotte loss. “I’ve got to do better. ... We could have won it, but I made terrible decisions.” -- In fairness to Doncic, but of no solace to the Mavericks, the NBA referees’ final-two-minute report released Sunday acknowledged that Dwight Powell was incorrectly called for a shooting foul with the Mavericks leading by six and 1:39 left in regulation; and that Doncic drew a foul with 1:59 left in overtime and should have been awarded free throws with Dallas trailing by two. That marks at least the fourth time this season in which errors acknowledged in two-minute reports factored into Mavericks defeats. That doesn’t count the controversial coaches challenge that Portland won with 9.4 seconds left in a two-point victory. -- Six of the Mavericks’ 13 losses have come in games in which they led by double-digit margins, including Saturday night’s 12-point lead over Charlotte with 9:09 left, and the franchise-record-tying 30-point blown lead at Toronto.” Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk