Mavs on the brink

This is the extent of the effort that Jason Kidd has given this series

The most frustrating aspect of the game 4 loss against the New Orleans Hornets, is that the Mavericks should've won.

Generic point, right? The thing is, if they're going to let Chris Paul run wild and score a billion points and get a trillion assists, they should expect to lose. But in both games in Dallas, Paul has been kept in check. He's not shooting well, often he looks out of position just trying to find someone to get the ball to as he picks up his dribble. He seems contained.

No one else just ate your lunch. David West was good, but just 22 points good on less than 50 percent shooting. Jannero Pargo was blech. Julian Wright was good in 16 minutes. The Hornets only went to the free throw line 19 times and hit only four three pointers. To their credit, the Hornets did hit on 49 percent of their field goals.

This was a game -- down 2-1 in the series, at home -- that the Mavs had to win. And they didn't for several reasons.

One, they became jump shooters. Win or lose, in the first three games the Mavs got in the lane, created contact and got to the three throw line. It won them the third quarter in game 3. This game: 16 total free throw attempts. Fourteen of those from Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry. Yes, zero attempts from Jason Kidd and Josh Howard.

Two, Howard is awful. If this were the regular season, I would bench him. It's one thing to fuel the marijuana thing, but it's another to suck. He sucks. I counted about 10 different instances of him fucking stuff up -- bad passes, mishandling the ball, fouls, turnovers and bad shots. He looks not only out of sorts, but scared. Puff, puff, pass.

There are three guys playing with any energy or passion: Nowitzki, Terry, Brandon Bass. And Terry's hit or miss.

Finally, there is one person who is skating with no blame on his shoulders and he's not only supposed to be the guy in the playoffs, but he's playing like he doesn't want to be there. He's not playing awful, but he's not playing on a level to win.

Jason Kidd.

It's tough to be anti-Kidd since the trade and then try to convince anyone how ordinary he's been on both sides of the ball. It's clear I have an agenda. Certainly everyone's seeing how he's played this series. Nevermind the stats (despite the fact that Kidd is a "stats guy" and his impact is negligible elsewhere), but he's playing flaccid, making mistakes and sleepwalking through the series.

Why is it that Nowitzki is getting all the blame for not being "tough," when it's clear he's not the problem?

By the way, the final act of a desperate coach trying to make anything work: inserting Jerry Stackhouse and J.J. Barea in the second quarter. J.J. Barea shouldn't have been in the arena!