Banged-up Mavericks set to face Detroit Pistons in Mexico City

The Dallas Mavericks will travel away from the American Airlines Center for the first time this season, as they'll face the Detroit Pistons in Mexico City on Saturday night. And they'll be missing a lot of primary pieces in their frontcourt.

Neither Dereck Lively II nor Anthony Davis made the trip due to injuries, and Daniel Gafford is still working his way back from an ankle injury, though his status for Saturday is still unknown. They're also without Kyrie Irving and Dante Exum, while D'Angelo Russell's status is also in doubt.

That will put extra pressure on first overall pick Cooper Flagg to rise to the occasion and be a primary threat. After Davis left Wednesday's game against the Indiana Pacers with what they're now calling a calf strain, it was Brandon Williams and Dwight Powell who stepped up and provided quality play for the Mavs.

Powell is the only center on the roster fully healthy, unless they want to start using undrafted free agent Moussa Cisse in some minutes. They're in an awfully similar position to where they were at the end of last season with their frontcourt, but this time, they're only five games in. And yet, if the offense looks better this game, it wouldn't be a surprise.

Detroit entered the season with high expectations following a fun opening round matchup against the New York Knicks in last year's playoffs. It's been a weird start to the season, opening up with a loss to the weirdly good Chicago Bulls, and then getting dominated by the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday.

Cade Cunningham is one of the league's rising young stars, but he is really struggling with turnovers this year, coughing it up 4.4 times per game. They don't have a top-tier second option, but the collection of Jalen Duren, Tobias Harris, Duncan Robinson, Ausar Thompson, and Ron Holland II is all averaging double-digit scoring.

Their biggest issue is that they're just an inefficient basketball team. They're 27th in the NBA in effective field goal percentage, and they take more two-pointers than anyone. It's tough to win that way in today's NBA.