Mavericks can't ignore the D'Angelo Russell problem any longer

Despite a spirited comeback effort in the fourth quarter, the Dallas Mavericks fell short to the incumbent champion Oklahoma City Thunder by a score of 101-94. While there were notable injuries on both sidelines, the Mavericks played a great defensive contest, but the 46-36 rebounding disparity between the Thunder and Dallas was too much to handle considering the Mavericks shot an abysmal 37.9 percent from the field.

Part of Dallas’ problem on both sides of the ball was once again their guard play, especially with Brandon Williams missing a second game in a row due to personal reasons, as D’Angelo Russell played a very double-edged game throughout 30 minutes off the bench. 

After Cooper Flagg’s best game of the season on Sunday versus the Toronto Raptors, Flagg was rattled by something in his shoulder early in the game, and easily played his worst game as a Maverick by far. With Flagg’s ineffectiveness as a ball handler and shot creator in this game, Dallas desperately needed Russell to step up, and while Russell distributed the ball at a high clip and made relatively good decisions with the ball in his hand, he shot horrendously from the field.

D’Angelo Russell’s play cancels out his own impact

Russell finished with nine points on 3-14 shooting from the field, and while he had a great playmaking game with 10 assists as aforementioned, he was a complete blackhole defensively, which was a concern coming into this season, and this was costly given Dallas was in a tight-knit contest. 

There was a sequence toward the end of the third quarter where Russell was scored on for eight straight points by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Ajay Mitchell, and while these are obviously very dynamic ball handlers, getting scored on for four straight possessions is a microcosm of Russell’s defense this season for Dallas.

Russell is witty in terms of playing passing lanes and providing help defense sometimes, but he gets blown by or separated as an on-ball defender consistently, especially against high-level shot creators. Russell also shot 1-8 from outside in this game, and most of his looks were pretty open, which is a blessing considering how good OKC’s perimeter defense is, but Dallas can't afford for Russell to be this bad from the perimeter.

If Russell even makes one or two more 3-pointers in this game, this would’ve been an entirely different contest for the Mavericks, as Russell is shooting an abysmal 22.2 percent from downtown to start the season. It’s obviously only been four games, but Russell’s solid playmaking has not been enough in the aggregate to override his rough perimeter defense, bad shooting, and spotty finishing.

It doesn’t seem like head coach Jason Kidd has nailed Dallas’ guard rotation down pat quite yet, and the Mavericks desperately could use a change of pace from someone like Williams or Ryan Nembhard, so Kidd needs to at least disperse the guard minutes up a little bit more once Williams rejoins the team. It’s still early in the season, and Russell has plenty of time to prove himself still, but he’s been an overall negative in most of his minutes besides his second half versus the Raptors, as the Mavericks are missing Kyrie Irving more than ever.