Dallas » Deep down inside, the Jazz have to recognize that as much of a nightmare as Wednesday's game was against the Dallas Mavericks, a first-round playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers would have the potential to be even worse.

The Jazz find themselves in that danger zone after coming up less than empty in their biggest game of the season. They were destroyed 130-101 by the Mavericks, who drew even with the Jazz at the bottom of the Western Conference standings at 47-31.

Dirk Nowitzki led Dallas with 31 points, Jason Terry and J.J. Barea combined for 39 off the bench and the Mavericks clinched a playoff spot with the victory. The Jazz, meanwhile, trailed by as many as 31 in suffering their most one-sided loss of the season.

"They came at us, they saw it was a big game, and I just thought we looked like we saw it as just another trip to the arena," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said.

Deron Williams called it "unacceptable" that the Jazz would fall so flat with a chance to take a two-game lead on the Mavericks. Sloan said the Mavericks "beat us all four quarters, all night long" while the Jazz were no contest in the game.

"They were so much quicker than we [were], we looked like we had been on the road for 10 months," Sloan said. "We had two days off, I thought our energy level would be higher than that, but we really weren't able to put up much of a fight for them."

Whatever good feelings the Jazz took from Sunday's victory in New Orleans vanished in Wednesday's disaster. The Jazz were outscored a combined 27-5 to end the first, second and third quarters and dropped to 2-17 on the road against winning teams.

"That's something I certainly wonder about," Sloan said. "What we're doing with ourselves to try to be ready to play?

"I've been around guys a long time in this league, and the guys that are good all the time, they prepare themselves, they're ready to go, and we haven't had that on the road. It's really very disappointing."

The only question after Wednesday was whether the Jazz would be able to avoid the No. 8 seed and a beach trip that would be anything but fun in the sun. The Lakers eliminated the Jazz in last year's conference semifinals and have cruised to a 62-16 record.

For now, the Jazz remain the conference's No. 7 seed by the slimmest of margins. With two victories in Utah, the Jazz split the four-game season series against the Mavericks and own the tiebreaker with a 32-16 conference record to Dallas' 26-22. But if Dallas beats New Orleans here Friday and the Jazz lose in San Antonio -- where they have dropped 22 consecutive games dating to February 1999 -- the Jazz would find themselves as the No. 8 seed with three games remaining.

"It's becoming harder and harder to move up," Williams said. "I don't know what's realistic as far as moving up. We've got our work cut out for us. We've put ourselves in a bad position this last week-and-a-half."

Nowitzki was unstoppable in the third quarter, hitting 6 of 7 shots and scoring 19 of Dallas' 32 points. The Jazz closed the quarter on the wrong end of a 12-3 run and went into the fourth quarter trailing 93-74. As part of the run, Barea drove for a layup, Nowitzki kissed a three-pointer off the rim and in and Josh Howard stole an inbounds pass and was fouled. Before that, the Mavericks closed the first half with a 9-2 run in which the Jazz committed four consecutive turnovers. The end of the first quarter saw Terry hit two three-pointers as the Jazz stumbled with Brevin Knight replacing Williams.

The Jazz went 7-for-21 and were outrebounded 15-7, with Erick Dampier and James Singleton grabbing offensive rebounds all half. After saying the Jazz would have to address the effort, Kyle Korver said they also had to realize they weren't just left for eighth and the Lakers. "No, we're not. That's the thing. We're not at all," Korver said. "But we've got to change the mind-set that we have right now."

rsiler@sltrib.com