DALLAS (AP) \u2014 Jason Kidd and his Dallas Mavericks went into their game Wednesday night against the Phoenix Suns hoping to put the distractions of the previous 48 hours behind them.<\/p>\n
The game was Dallas\u2019 first since embattled general manager Nico Harrison was fired Tuesday morning by Patrick Dumont, the franchise\u2019s representative to the NBA Board of Governors. That happened only hours after the Mavericks felt as if they lost the home crowd Monday night in a 116-114 loss to Milwaukee during which the Bucks rallied from a 13-point deficit.<\/p>\n
The chant of \u201cFire Nico! Fire Nico!\u201d came from the stands multiple times while the Mavericks were shooting free throws in the fourth period. That included with 1.2 seconds left after P.J. Washington Jr. missed a free throw that left Dallas two points behind with one free throw to go. Washington intentionally missed his third free throw, which was batted around before being grabbed by the Bucks. The loss left the Mavericks at 3-8.<\/p>\n
Harrison was under fire from fans almost from the instant that he made the Feb. 2 three-team trade that sent superstar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for a package highlighted by Anthony Davis. Davis, the 32-year-old, 10-time All-Star, has missed 30 of a possible 46 games since joining Dallas, including the last seven with a strained left calf.<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday was a tough day for everyone, for the organization,\u201d said Kidd, who was brought in by Harrison \u2014 as was every player on the current roster other than Dwight Powell. \u201cWhen you\u2019re losing someone because you\u2019ve spent the last four years with, it\u2019s tough. But I think when you look at the NBA, the season keeps going. We have to continue to push forward, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re committed to.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to keep guys here in this league when they start to think that the home team is not home and it becomes a visiting place. So, hopefully that changes tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like people weren\u2019t really cheering us on,\u201d said Washington, whose relationship with Harrison goes back to his high school days when Harrison worked for Nike.<\/p>\n
The Mavericks have appointed Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi as co-interim general managers to oversee basketball operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they ask me for my input, I will be able to give it,\u201d Kidd said. \u201cBut again, my focus is the team and making sure that we\u2019re prepared for the Suns tonight and any other game that we go forward with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS (AP) \u2014 Jason Kidd and his Dallas Mavericks went into their game Wednesday night against the Phoenix…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[112843,1014,6643,49,48,7236,127799,459,44,82,865,544],"class_list":{"0":"post-280492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-app-professional-sports","9":"tag-app-sports","10":"tag-associated-press","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-dallas","14":"tag-dfw-what-you-need-to-know","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-sports-news","19":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}