SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4 Sports) – Without injured All-Star Luka Doncic, newly acquired All-Star Kyrie Irving, not to mention the newly traded Spencer Dinwiddie and Dorian Finney-Smith, it looked like it would be and easy night for the Utah Jazz.

It wasn’t.

Behind career-highs from Jaden Hardy and Josh Green, the shorthanded Dallas Mavericks erased a 15-point deficit and won, 124-111.

“We believed we could win this from before the game even started,” Jaden Hardy said. “The Jazz didn’t seem like they were taking it seriously. They came out late before the game to warm up, all nonchalant.”

When Green was on the court, the Mavericks outscored the Jazz by an astonishing 39 points and won their first game in eight tries without Doncic, their leading scorer with 33.4 points a game.

Utah made just 6 of 31 three-point attempts, and gave up 17 offensive rebounds to the Mavs in what could be labeled as the worst loss of the year for the Jazz.

“This is the first game all season where I feel disappointed in our focus,” said Jazz head coach Will Hardy. “There’s always nights where the bounces don’t go your way, you don’t make shots, the other team plays great, and there was a little bit of that in tonight’s game. But I felt like collectively, we just did not have the necessary focus. They had 27 points in transition and 24 second chance points and that’s why we lost the game.”

Doncic (heel bruise) missed his third game in 10 days. The Jazz beat the Mavs 108-100 on Jan. 28, when the Slovenian star was out with a sprained ankle. This time the Mavericks bested the Jazz in nearly hustle category, including a 49-37 advantage on the boards.

After scoring 12 total points over six games, Hardy broke out for his career night and Dwight Powell added 12 points and a career-best 16 rebounds.

“It was super fun,” Hardy said twice with a smile that didn’t leave his face for a long while.

Jordan Clarkson paced Utah with 26 points on 7-for-19 shooting and Lauri Markkanen added 19 — the first time he has failed to reach 20 points in the last 21 games.

“They played better than us,” Markkanen said. “They played harder than us. Give credit to them, but I don’t think we were ready to play.”

Mike Conley added 10 points and 11 assists, and played through and ankle injury.

The Jazz are now 7-5 on a stretch where they’re playing 11 of 13 games at home, when they hoped to gain ground on teams like Dallas, but are now two games behind the Mavs.

The Jazz struggle when their 3s aren’t falling and they often fail to get back on defense. The upstart Mavs led the Jazz 27-4 on fast break points.

As could be expected with different rotations and the end of the bench getting significant minutes, the Mavericks looked out of sync at times. But they started running at every opportunity and went on a 23-6 run bridging the second and third quarters to take a 75-66 lead.

The Jazz trimmed the lead to a single possession in the fourth quarter but could never catch the Mavs.

Utah wraps up its five-game homestand Wednesday night against Minnesota.