Slow starts, perfect endings

Big early deficits beginning to be a cause for concern

With point guard Dejounte Murray forced to leave the game in its first minute after spraining his left ankle, a case could be made that the Spurs should be forgiven for their slow start Friday night.

But forward Rudy Gay wasn’t in a forgiving mood after the Spurs’ 122-117 loss to the Dallas Mavericks at the AT&T Center.

“The beginnings of games are killing us,” Gay said. “It’s definitely been a problem.”

The Mavericks set the tone for the night by jumping out to a 7-0 lead courtesy of a 3-point basket by Kristaps Porzingis, a Porzingis jumper and a Luka Doncic jumper.

The Spurs (8-8) fought back to trail 37-34 after the first period but fell behind by 18 in the second quarter. They outscored the Mavericks 32

27 in the fourth, but Doncic delivered the win with a clutch basket and assist in the final 49 seconds.

It was the Spurs’ fourth loss in their past seven games and second in a row, following a 121-99 drubbing at the hands of the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday in San Francisco.

The Warriors built a 17-point lead in the first quarter.

After Friday night’s loss, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich praised his team for fighting back against the Mavericks and Doncic, who finished with 36 points and was one rebound shy of a triple-double.

“I told them I was very proud of what they did tonight,” Popovich said. “We dug a hole for ourselves like we often have starting games. But as the game went along, we got more and more aggressive, more and more physical, communicated better, and they didn’t give in after going down 18. I was real proud of them.”

But Spurs guard DeMar DeRozan took no comfort in his coach’s words.

“A loss is still a loss,” he said. “It still sucks.”

Like Gay, DeRozan is tired of playing from behind.

“We have to come out and jump on teams right away, not kind of wait until we get ourselves

in a predicament then play hard,” he said.

The Spurs rank 17th in the league in first-quarter scoring with a per-game average of 27.1

points and sixth in fourth-quarter scoring with a per-game average of 28.2.

“It seems like kind of the same thing over and over, us kind of

having said.

Of course, Murray’s loss likely did hurt Friday. The Spurs’ top perimeter defender entered the

slow

starts,”

DeRozan game averaging 14.8 points, 6.9 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 1.5 steals.

Murray’s status for tonight’s game against Washington (3-8) is uncertain, although Popovich said he thought the fourth-year pro “is going to be fine.”

But Gay said after Friday’s game that the Spurs shouldn’t use Murray’s absence as an excuse.

“When somebody goes down, you just have to pick it up,” he said. “You have to use all your energy and find a way, and we did that today. We just didn’t come out with the win”

So what went right for the Spurs late in the game that they didn’t do in the first half ?

“We were just being aggressive offensively, trying to create for one another and got some open shots, get to the foul line and focus on trying to get to the rim,” DeRozan said. “And defensively we just tried to mix it up. Patty (Mills, who started the second half at point guard) did a great job keeping (Doncic) busy, mixing it up on him. We rebounded the ball when we needed to and gave ourselves a chance.”

The trick is finding a way to do all of that from the get-go.

“We just have to pick it up and play with the intensity that we play with in the second half of the game,” DeRozan said.

Kin Man Hui / Staff photographer Dejounte Murray heads to the locker room after turning his ankle in the first minute of Friday’s loss to Dallas. His status for tonight’s game is uncertain.

Kin Man Hui / Staff photographer DeMar DeRozan battles Dallas’ Kristaps Porzingis for a loose ball in the Mavs’ 122-117 win Friday. The Spurs trailed by 18 early but fought back to make it a one-possession game in the final minute.