CLEVELAND -- Remember when they used to call the NBA team in this city the Cadavers?

Well, who's playing dead now?

The Mavericks, looking more and more like road kill in the first month of the season, fell behind by 20 points in the first quarter, then basically never had a pulse after that and fell to their eighth consecutive loss, 128-90 on Friday night against the defending NBA champion Cavaliers. The Mavericks trailed by as much as 45 points.

Yes, the gap between the 2016 title winners and the team with the worst record in the NBA really is that humongous right now.

Cleveland remains the real deal, one of a small handful of teams that has a legit shot to win the title. Kyrie Irving blitzed the Mavericks with 19 first-quarter points, and LeBron James and Kevin Love took turns later in the game creating their own highlight shows as the Cavaliers rolled.

The Mavericks? Well, let's just say it's becoming more than just a joke about who will win more games in November and December, the Mavericks or the Cowboys?

The Friday night in Cleveland will go down as one of the worst in franchise history. The Mavericks were routinely down by 30-something.

Except when they were down by 40-something.

"It's embarrassing, man," Deron Williams said. "We've had some embarrassing losses. We're pissed off. But we've got to get pissed off and do something about it."

And so, the Mavericks went 0-3 during a week when they were at San Antonio, home against the Los Angeles Clippers and Friday at the Cavaliers.

In the final two of those games, they were outscored by 57 in the first half.

The only good news for Dallas was the injury situation continues to get modestly better. Williams returned and played 15 minutes in the first half before taking a seat.

Next, Devin Harris is likely to return, perhaps as soon as next week.

What the Mavericks have to worry about is whether they can avoid the sort of lifeless, carefree showing they had against the Cavaliers.

"It was a horrible performance by us and a great performance by them," Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. "We simply must play better and compete better. Very disappointing. We're getting healthier gradually. But we have too many things we have to fix. And we've got to fix them in a short period of time."

It's reached the point where the players know the effort level isn't where it should be -- until they get down by 20 or 30 points.

"We didn't really bring it," forward Harrison Barnes said. "We didn't get any life in us until we were down 30. There's not a whole lot we can take from this game except we have to bring a whole lot more fight, everything. We've reached the point where we don't have to analyze what the problem is, we just need to bring more."

More everything. Shots. Hustle. Taking care of the ball. It's a cornucopia of things that have gone wrong and need correcting.

The hope was that the starting lineup being back together for the first time since Nov. 2 would provide some sort of springboard for a stronger showing.

It didn't happen. The starters played precious little time together in the preseason and the hope was that, by now, they would have bonded and forged an identity.

That hasn't happened because they haven't been together.

And, of course, a 2-13 record is humiliating for players who, for the most part, are used to being playoff-caliber.

"We've got to get some wins, man," Williams said. "Chemistry or not, we've got to get wins."