Amar'e Stoudemire Calls Out Mavericks After Blowout Loss to Cavaliers

Amar'e Stoudemire is sending a wake-up call to his Dallas Mavericks teammates after a blowout loss at the hands of LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night.

Stoudemire scored 15 points in 20 minutes off the bench. Afterward, Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com passed along comments from the veteran post player. He talked about increasing the focus level heading into a crucial stretch of the campaign:

"

I came here to win, and we're [4 ½] games out of being out of the playoffs, which is unacceptable. This is something we can't accept. We've got to find a way to refocus. We've got to key into the details of the game of basketball.

We can't cheat the game. We can't screw around in games and practices and joke around all the time and figure we're going to win games. This is the pros. It's the highest level of basketball. We've got to act that way.

"

As MacMahon notes, the 32-year-old reserve received a buyout from the New York Knicks so he could join a contending team. Now, he's watching the Mavs edge toward the playoff bubble due to a lackluster 5-6 record since his arrival.

So it should be no surprise he's sounding the alarm bells. The Oklahoma City Thunder and the New Orleans Pelicans, who sit eighth and ninth, respectively, in the Western Conference, are a combined 15-5 over their past 10 games.

If the Mavericks aren't able to break out of their current funk, they could be on the outside looking in before too long. Stoudemire also mentioned the need to show more urgency early in games, especially against elite opponents such as Cleveland.

"We didn't come out with the aggressiveness or determination or focus that we needed," Stoudemire said. "We didn't compete. We're not playing like champions, and they took advantage of that."

It will be interesting to see how the team responds to his request for more focus. The remarks could represent a unifying moment for a team clearly needing a spark, or they could lead to further issues within the squad.