{"id":116570,"date":"2025-01-07T12:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T17:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=116570"},"modified":"2025-01-07T12:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T17:55:11","slug":"mavericks-daniel-gafford-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/07\/mavericks-daniel-gafford-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavericks Latest Injury Moves Team Further In Wrong Direction"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dallas Mavericks were in a good spot only a couple of weeks ago in a tight, competitive West where a handful of teams are jockeying for the middle playoff seeds. Unfortunately, both\u00a0<\/span>Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Kyrie Irving<\/span><\/a>\u00a0have succumbed to injuries of late. Now, the latest injury the Mavericks must endure is to\u00a0<\/span>Daniel Gafford<\/span><\/a>. Dallas is still in a good place regarding the standings, but the teams around them are winning. The question is, how long can the Mavs hold out?<\/span><\/p>\n

Mavericks Latest Injury Moves Team Further In Wrong Direction<\/h2>\n

Mavericks Hit With Another Injury As Daniel Gafford Goes Down<\/h3>\n

There is more bad news in Dallas as key players continue to suffer injuries. Gafford, who turned his left ankle late in Monday night’s loss to the\u00a0<\/span>Memphis Grizzlies<\/span><\/a>, will reportedly be out for a while, as his head coach, Jason Kidd, stated.<\/span><\/p>\n

“A sprained ankle, I think it is, so we\u2019ll see how he feels. But he\u2019s probably going to be out for some time,\u201d Kidd said with a sigh. \u201cThat\u2019s just part of the game. Unfortunately it\u2019s happening to us \u2014 it seems like we\u2019re losing a guy each day. So, next-man-up mentality.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Losing Gafford is a significant hit for the Mavericks.\u00a0<\/span>Dereck Lively II<\/span><\/a>, who has shared starting center duties with Gafford this season, will likely see his role increase, as will\u00a0<\/span>Dwight Powell<\/span><\/a>. Being without Luka and Kyrie was detrimental to the Mav’s offense already. Losing Gafford, however, takes away much size and strength in the paint. Lively is a solid center who plays hard and injects energy whenever he’s on the floor. He’s currently averaging 8.8 points this season, but Dallas will need more than that from here on out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gafford’s injury comes at a bad time, as the Mavericks are in the middle of a five-game losing streak. They fell to the Grizzlies by double digits on Monday and have to face the\u00a0<\/span>Los Angeles Lakers<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on Wednesday night at home. It will be the front end of a back-to-back as they host the Portland Trail Blazers on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Missed Time Puts Dallas on a Downward Trajectory<\/h3>\n

The Nuggets, Lakers, Clippers, and Mavericks all have 20 wins on the season, with just one or two losses separating, if not tied with each other. The\u00a0<\/span>Warriors<\/span><\/a>, Timberwolves, Spurs, and Kings are not far behind\u2014all with 18 wins. These numbers do not bode well for the Mavs if they continue to drop games. Not to mention that Luka’s lingering injury and Kyrie’s back issues are not soon to be solved. There is a realistic chance that the Mavericks will fall outside the playoff picture come the NBA All-Star break. By then, the teams above should have surpassed them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dallas is trending downward, and the likelihood of significant help coming their way is low. A shorthanded Mav’s team will have to rely on\u00a0<\/span>Klay Thompson<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>P.J. Washington<\/span><\/a>, Lively, and others for the time being. One positive note is that when Luka and Kyrie return from their injuries, this Dallas team will have a shot to fight back up the standings in time for the playoffs. The only hope is they don’t fall too far down to make the climb back up too late.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Dallas Mavericks were in a good spot only a couple of weeks ago in a tight, competitive West where a handful of teams are jockeying for the middle playoff seeds. Unfortunately, both\u00a0Luka Don\u010di\u0107\u00a0and\u00a0Kyrie Irving\u00a0have succumbed to injuries of late. Now, the latest injury the Mavericks must endure is to\u00a0Daniel Gafford. Dallas is still in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":116572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,30,62],"tags":[1453,4840,159,218,70,406,1133,1826],"class_list":["post-116570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-mavericks","category-nba","tag-daniel-gafford","tag-dereck-lively-ii","tag-dwight-powell","tag-jason-kidd","tag-klay-thompson","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-luka-doncic","tag-p-j-washington"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116570"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116592,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116570\/revisions\/116592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}