DALLAS -- It’d be ridiculously premature to reach for the panic button one practice, two games and four days after a blockbuster trade to acquire a four-time All-Star point guard.

So the 105-102 loss Monday night to the Atlanta Hawks -- a game much more lopsided than the final score indicates -- is certainly no reason to declare the Rajon Rondo deal a disaster for the Dallas Mavericks.

However, all the concerns cited by critics of the trade reared their ugly heads during the Mavs’ miserable first three quarters, in which Dallas dug a 24-point hole it couldn't rally to overcome.

A quick summary of those fears: Rondo’s tendency to dominate the ball and poor perimeter touch would bog down the league’s best offense, and his defense has dropped off drastically over the past couple years.

The Mavs’ offense was a mess most of the night against an Atlanta team that has played the best December defense in the league. Dallas shot 37.3 percent from the floor through three quarters before exploding for 39 points in the too-little, too-late final frame. The spacing in halfcourt sets was way out of whack, with the Hawks sagging way off Rondo, daring him to shoot and clogging things up for the Mavs’ scoring threats.

“It’s going to take time, and we knew that,” said small forward Chandler Parsons, who finished with only four points on 2-of-6 shooting, a far cry from the spectacular statistics he’s been putting up in December. “It’s going to have its ups and downs, but we definitely want a player like him. We’ll get it down.”

Frankly, the Mavs are more concerned about the other end of the floor. One of the primary reasons the Mavs pulled the trigger on the Rondo deal was they needed a pit bull to defend all the dominant point guards in the Western Conference.

Well, backup Hawks point guard Dennis Schroder scored 22 points on 9-of-15 shooting and dished out six assists in a spot start while Jeff Teague nursed a strained hamstring.

“Our pick-and-roll coverage can get a lot better,” said Rondo, whose latest of four straight All-Defensive team selections came after the 2011-12 season. “It starts with me. I’m going to continue to build and learn from this game and get better.”

It’s not like Rondo’s night was all bad. He stuffed the box score with 13 points, 11 assists, four rebounds, three steals and a block. He was a catalyst in the Mavs’ near-miraculous comeback bid, as he scored twice on driving scoop shots, dished out five assists, grabbed two rebounds, racked up a steal and a block, and drew two offensive fouls in the fourth quarter.

But it’s painfully obvious opponents will dare Rondo to beat them with his jumper until he proves he’s capable of doing it. That’s a problem for a player shooting 31.5 percent from outside the restricted area this season.

“If they just go way under like that and give him elbow shots, then he’s just got to step into them,” said Dirk Nowitzki, who scored 16 points on 6-of-13 shooting. “There’s nowhere to drive, nowhere to do anything if somebody goes under an elbow jump shot. He’s going to have to step into those and be aggressive.”

The Hawks went under every screen set for Rondo and sagged almost comically far off him when he was on the perimeter, even when he had the ball in his hands. That’s why he had as many shots as Monta Ellis and Parsons combined in the first half -- when the point guard was 3-of-10 from the floor -- and a major reason the Mavs scored only 38 points in the first 24 minutes.

“He’s got to take rhythm shots when he’s there,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “He knows that. We’re spending a lot of time on it. This is a beginning for him here.

“He’s got a different set of teammates. He wasn’t seeing this kind of coverage quite like this, playing with Dirk and playing with Ellis and some of these other guys. Look, I like his aggression. I like the way he played tonight. He’s going to continue to shoot the ball better as we go along.”

As Carlisle stressed, with Rondo in the starting lineup, it’s a must for the Mavs to be solid defensively and generate offense by getting stops and getting out in transition.

That’s what this starting five is best suited to do. Ellis, Parsons and Chandler all have excellent speed for their positions, with the wings also handling the ball well in transition. Nowitzki won’t win many races, but he’s lethal as a trailer 3-point threat. And Rondo is a remarkable athlete with court vision so rare Carlisle keeps comparing him to Jason Kidd.

“He’s going to pass first,” Carlisle said. “But it’s hard to be an effective pass-first point guard taking it out of the other team’s goal.”

Of course, the Mavs can’t make a playoff run just by running. They need to work out the kinks in their halfcourt offense that come with adding a pass-first, poor-shooting point guard in the middle of the season.

“It’s going to take time,” Rondo said, “But it won’t take too much longer.”