The Dallas Mavericks suffered yet another injury blow to a roster that is limping to the end of the regular season.
The Dallas Mavericks are 10 days away from reaching the end of the 2025-26 regular season, with six games left for a tired, beaten up and woefully injured roster.
The Mavs are 24-52 and host two contenders this weekend at American Airlines Center, the East's play-in bound Orlando Magic on Friday and the West's 3-seed Lakers, led of course by MVP candidate Luka Doncic.
Dallas will do so with likely another addition to the injury report.
In the Mavericks' 123-99 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks at Fiserv Forum on Tuesday, center Daniel Gafford left the court just two minutes before halftime. He would not return to action after being diagnosed with a right shoulder stinger.
It was the second night of a back-to-back for Dallas, and while rookie phenom Cooper Flagg was able to produce his 12th double-double (19 points, 10 rebounds) and two-way rookie John Poulakidas posted a season-high 11, the lack of depth clearly played a factor.
Dallas was without Klay Thompson, Caleb Martin, P.J. Washington, Naji Marshall, Marvin Bagley III, Kyrie Irving and Dereck Lively II, the latter two having been out for most if not all of the season.
Gafford, with averages of 9.6 points and 6.9 rebounds per game, has been a steady force in the middle while Lively's been out, but he's also suffered his fair share of injury-related absences.
"Gaff has gotten way better throughout the season," Flagg scouted. "Now that he’s gotten back to being healthy, everybody’s seeing how he can impact the game at a high level. It’s tough to see him get banged up again. But he’s tough. I’m sure he’ll fight through it."
Flagg, however, was also honest about his assessment of the offense, which has greatly been affected by the injuries to facilitators and reliable scorers.
"We just don’t have any rhythm, at the end of the day," Flagg said after the Mavs shot 35.4 percent from the field and 27.8 percent from 3-point range in Milwaukee.
"It’s tough. No flow, no rhythm. Guys aren’t on the same page. It’s going to be tough, unless we can get guys healthy and get organized. It’s not going to happen overnight. So it’s going to take a lot of coming together and fighting for each other."
That theme of battling through aches and pains has needed to permeate throughout the Mavs locker room, and while the team has remained competitive in a sense of playing hard and not deliberately backing down each night, it hasn't resulted in wins.
Gafford noted that as something the Dallas roster has proven this season.
"Just how resilient we are," he said. "We’ve been through hell. But I heard a quote today: when you’re going through hell, why stop there? You got to keep pushing, you don’t want to stay there. It’s too hot down there.
"We just have to keep taking steps in the right direction, building chemistry, building that bond. That lets us know we can build trust and have fun playing the game with each other."
Gafford's status for the matchup with the Magic on Friday has not yet been determined.
