Spurs continue to find creative yet infuriating ways to lose games

This was one of, if not, the most embarrassing losses of the season. San Antonio entered this game favored by 7 points. That felt like a comfortable number to me when I saw it before the ball tipped off, and it made sense. The Mavericks have been decimated by injury, and their issues are much worse than SA's, yet they found a way to win the game anyway.

Dallas lost their last five games coming into their third matchup of the season against the Spurs. They've been fielding a makeshift team of backups, role players, and unknown factors.

The Silver and Black may be without Victor Wembanyama and Jeremy Sochan, but they had what should have been plenty to dispatch their North Texas rival but failed yet again, making me question the pride of some of these guys.

Spurs lost to Dallas for several reasons

Before we get to the reasons the Spurs lost, I want to emphasize how unfortunate it is to lose games when two players on the team shoot video game-esque field goal percentages. Harrison Barnes was 12/14 from the field and 4/6 from three (29 points). Keldon Johnson shot 10/16 FG and 4/6 3PT (28 points). The team shouldn't lose games when two guys who aren't supposed to do that go off like this.

The Mavericks only had eight players who could play in the game. Eight players is the bare minimum number you must have to be eligible. Otherwise, the team must forfeit. This was a team without Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis, Daniel Gafford, Dereck Lively, and more. Those are all of their best players, minus Klay Thompson. Losing to them is just absurd.

De'Aaron Fox didn't have a huge scoring night, but he was still efficient, dropping 14 points on 6/13, adding four rebounds, and dishing out eight assists. The offense was on point for the most part. They faltered at the end of the game, but they finished with 129 points, so harping on that side of the ball isn't where the focus should be.

The defense was horrendous. When you look at the game totals from both teams, San Antonio did well in most areas that win you ball games. Unfortunately, they did horrendously in a key area that will lose them 9/10 when the discrepancy is as large as it was tonight: the free-throw line.

The Spurs were 14/24 (58.3%) from the charity stripe against the Mavs, who went 27/30 (90). They beat or tied Dallas in just about every other category.

That doesn't take into account the trend of nobody players elevating to superstardom when they see silver and black colors. Spencer Dinwiddie going off is one thing; he's a talented scorer. However, Kessler Edwards going 9/12 from the field and grabbing 11 boards while letting Naji Marshall shoot 50% on 8/16 is what shouldn't be happening.

I don't love 8/14 for an old Klay Thompson, but he's an all-time great shooter. That's excusable. This other stuff should be eliminated with grit, which this team seems to lack too often for my liking. It's always one step forward and two steps back.

The front office has a lot of work to do this summer to fix this roster. The players need to look inside themselves and decide if they're real hoopers or if they just want to be NBA players for the prestige.