It seems improbable, at least it should be. 

The Dallas Mavericks, with a healthy Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, lost in overtime to the Atlanta Hawks 132-130 in Atlanta. With the defeat, Dallas ushered in the reality it has put off for too long: the season, barring a miracle, is over.  

The Oklahoma City Thunder still sit in 10th place (the final play-in slot), a game up on the Mavericks. But thanks to a November comeback win over the Mavericks, the Thunder owns the tiebreaker, meaning Dallas needs to make up two games with three left. A miracle may not even be enough. 

“We’ve just been losing tough ones, emotionally draining, but at the same time we’re professionals,” Irving said. “So I think the fun part of it is we still have a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel of where we can still sneak in.

“But at the same time, I’m at peace with just our effort. With spurts throughout the games. We’ve just got to be able to finish better as a team.”

The glimmer Irving speaks of isn't really a glimmer. It is more like a green light at the end of a dock that sits across the bay in East Egg, Jay Gatsby style. 

If the Mavericks are Gatsby, the playoffs, and prospect of them, is Daisy Buchanan — a distant hope with which Gatsy irreverently dreams of a future, based on ideals and ideas of the past. 

It was never meant to be for these Mavericks. And with each loss, that playoff-less reality is only validated.  

Due to the tiebreaker scenarios, Dallas must win two more games than the Thunder. In essence, the Mavericks must go 3-0 while the Thunder go 1-2 or winless to sneak into the NBA's postseason — a place they don't deserve to be. 

When Dallas traded for Irving, it was a move that, though understandable, reeked of desperation. 

The Mavericks sent away two starters and draft capital for a star. And somehow, Dallas got worse. 

In the last 20 games, the Mavericks are 6-14. With Kyrie Irving, the Mavericks are 7-12. And when Doncic and Irving play, the Mavericks are a head-scratching 4-11. 

However you try to spin it, Dallas is a bad ball club, with a coach in Jason Kidd who has only enabled a less-than-mediocre culture not even a full calendar year removed from making the Western Conference finals. 

The Mavericks have now lost seven of their last eight games. And somehow, Sunday's loss felt the heaviest of them all. 

Maybe it is because the loss came in an overtime disaster, where Doncic, again, missed a game-winning 3-pointer. Or maybe, it had something to do with Kidd finally turning to a closing lineup that featured the often ill-used Christian Wood, and it still didn't work. Or maybe, just maybe, it is the reality that with a 24-year-old superstar, and the point guard who hit the biggest shot of the 2016 NBA Finals, the Mavericks are so far removed from good enough that the play-in feels like a distant memory of hope rather than an opportunity to sneak into a postseason party they weren't invited to anyway. 

Like the ending of "The Great Gatsby," the Mavericks' season will conclude with the team dreaming of what could have been if only Daisy, the green light at the end of the dock, could be reached.