HOUSTON - After the understaffed Mavericks had put up a strong fight against the Rockets, Houston legend Hakeem Olajuwon came past the visitors’ locker room at Toyota Center.
He dispensed with well-wishes and went straight to the core.
“Why doesn’t that team have a better record?” he asked about the Mavericks. “They play really hard. If they play that way all the time, no way they have that record.”
Indeed, the compete level, which has been mostly rock-solid in the past couple months, was there again Sunday as the Mavericks went to battle without many of their heavy lifters, but still pushed the red-hot Rockets to the end, finally losing 104-97.