Nowitzki: NBA screwed up handling of Mavs-Hawks game

Dirk Nowitzki had a rough night Wednesday in the Dallas Mavericks' loss to the Atlanta Hawks, scoring a season-low four points. 

A winter storm in the Atlanta area had many under the assumption all day that the game would be postponed. 

Athletes are known to be big on structure and routine, so did the fact the Mavs spent most of Wednesday assuming the game in Atlanta would be cancelled contribute to their poor showing?

"The afternoon was weird," Nowitzki said after the 104-87 loss, Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN reports. "I don't think the NBA handled it pretty good. They screwed this one up pretty good. They kept telling us, 'We're waiting to hear from the NBA.' The next thing you know, we're all kind of sitting around. ... We fought through it and I thought we were ready to play."

There were conflicting reports all afternoon about whether the game would go ahead and it didn't help matters when Hawks guard Shelvin Mack tweeted this out.

Roughly 15 minutes later, it was decided that the game would be played. By then, the Mavericks had packed their stuff onto buses bound for either the hotel or the airport, according to Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In January 2014, Atlanta was paralyzed by a storm that locals referred to as "Snowmageddon." The metro area has an average mean temperature of about 47 degrees this time of year and under one inch of snow.