Just when the smallest ray of optimism crept into the locker room, the Dallas Mavericks (22-18) collapsed in on themselves like a dying star in Tuesday’s 118-99 loss to the Denver Nuggets (24-15) at American Airlines Center. Dallas has now lost eight of its last 11 games as the bad news surrounding this team begets more and more bad news. Denver, meanwhile, has won eight of its last 11.

Kyrie Irving returned after missing the team’s last five games with a back injury, but calamity struck once more as Denver boat-raced the Mavs in the teams’ second meeting in three days. The Nuggets came back on the Mavs not once but twice in Sunday’s game, in the first half from a 17-point deficit, then again in the second half from 19 points down in a 112-101 victory in Victory Plaza.

It was Denver’s turn to get off to a scorching start in the rubber match of this baseball-style series. Jamal Murray made three of his four 3-point attempts in the game’s first 5:30 to lead the Nuggets to an early 16-6 lead, but he was also setting up his teammates with three early assists in the game’s first eight minutes. Murray was everywhere — his mid-range fadeaway jumper gave him 11 early points and put Denver up 23-10 with 4:30 left in the first while the Mavs were still lacing up their sneakers.

To compound the trauma, Dereck Lively II left the game with 8:04 left in the first after his right foot came down on someone else’s while battling for a rebound. As the first quarter came to a close, the announcement came — Lively would not return to the game after suffering a right ankle sprain.

Murray scored a ridiculous 19 points on 7-of-9 shooting in the first quarter to lead Denver to a 36-21 lead at the end of one. His scoring average (19.0 points per game) coming into the game would represent his lowest since the 2019-20 season, but he brought his flamethrower with him to Dallas on Tuesday.

The Mavericks missed their first six 3-point attempts before Klay Thompson finally hit one with just over nine minutes left in the second. PJ Washington found Thompson open on the wing after corralling the loose ball on his own missed floater that was wildly off-target to pull Dallas to within 43-25. But even that early in the game, the writing on the wall was plainly visible for everyone in the building and watching from home. The Mavs had no shot of coming back on Denver without a fully functional Lively in Irving’s first game back from a back injury.

Murray outscored all the Dallas starters by himself in the first half, as the Nuggets’ lead grew as large as 29 points, 71-42, on Murray’s finger-roll finish on a nice find from Jokic with about 30 seconds left before the break. Murray tallied 32 before halftime in a new career-high first-half scoring total — compared to 23 combined points from Naji Marshall, Washington, Lively, Irving and Thompson. Murray’s 32 first-half points were the third most in the first half of any game this season.

The Nuggets applied what can only be described as an absurd beating to the beleaguered Mavs’ hindquarters in the first half, took a 71-45 lead into the locker room and coasted to an easy 118-99 win in the second. Murray led all scorers with 45 points on 18-of-26 shooting and dished six assists in the win over the Mavs. Daniel Gafford led Dallas with 13 points and four boards in the laugher.

Former University of Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, who will be drafted early in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft, was sitting courtside for the proceedings, and he apparently stayed past halftime, which is more interesting than anything that happened on the court in Tuesday’s second half. The Mavericks mounted a 16-2 run stretching across the end of the third into the first three minutes of the fourth behind Marshall’s shooting and activity on the defensive end, but it was never a serious comeback attempt.

Snake-bitten

The Mavs are going through it with these injuries. You can’t make this stuff up. When Lively went out, even the walking corpse of DeAndre Jordan’s career feasted inside on what was left of the Mavs’ interior defense. What cosmic offense has this franchise committed to deserve such cruel and unusual punishment? Jordan came in and scored eight points on 3-of-4 shooting, including two lob dunks that came straight outta 2015, in just seven first-half minutes, forcing TNT color commentator Greg Anthony to wonder if the Nuggets might just rest Nikola Jokic a little longer. I mean, why not? Mavericks fans everywhere should be compensated for grave violations against their constitutional rights.

An eye on Irving

Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said before the game that Irving would be limited to 30-33 minutes in his first game back from the back injury, but upon further inspection, Irving came into the game averaging just over 35 minutes per game. If there was legitimate concern for Irving’s workload in his first game back, the limit would have been much greater than two paltry minutes under his average outing. It’s just further evidence that Kidd prefers word salad to anything remotely based in reality when talking to the media. Irving ended up playing just over 30 minutes and scored 11 points on 4-of-18 shooting in his first game back.

Irving missed all three of his 3-point attempts in his first game back and shot just 3-of-11 on his way to nine points and four rebounds in the first half. He was active on defense in the passing lanes, though, grabbing four steals in the loss — if you’re squinting hard for a silver lining. He drove baseline for a nice reverse lay-in over Jokic that looked vaguely Kyrie-like midway through the third quarter, so there were some signs that he’ll be able to bounce back quickly.

There’s not much more to say about this one, unless you’re just a Mavs masochist.