The Dallas Mavericks continued their road trip against the Phoenix Suns with hopes of ending their season-high seven-game losing streak. Instead, their skid stretched to eight games after a 120-111 loss that was nowhere near as close as the score would indicate.
Let’s get to the grades!
Tyus Jones: C
2 PTS / 2 REB / 3 AST / 1 STL / 0 BLK – 15 MIN
Jones couldn’t find the range (1-for-4 from the floor) and contributed little else in what amounted to light bench-player minutes despite his starting role.
Max Christie: C+
5 PTS / 6 REB / 3 AST / 1 STL / 2 BLK – 31 MIN
Christie went 2-for-8 overall and 0-for-3 from deep. His three
stocks spare his grade a bit, as does his rebounding total, but this was a lot of minutes for not a lot of output.
Cooper Flagg: B+
27 PTS / 5 REB / 2 AST / 1 STL / 0 BLK – 36 MIN
Flagg had a real nice game, but late in the game there were drives he couldn’t finish and in one instance, a rebound he couldn’t secure and lost out of bounds. He got to the line 14 times (converting 11), but three turnovers hurt his grade a bit. He was somehow a team-best plus-10 in terms of plus/minus.
P.J. Washington: C
13 PTS / 5 REB / 1 AST / 0 STL / 0 BLK – 26 MIN
Not a lot of minutes, not a lot of impact, not a lot to say. Washington’s shot was still a bit rusty (4-for-9) and despite semi-decent numbers, his overall game wasn’t quite right.
Daniel Gafford: D
4 PTS / 4 REB / 0 AST / 1 STL / 3 BLK – 17 MIN
There was something about the number four for Gafford on Tuesday night. He had four each of points, rebounds, turnovers and fouls. His three blocks were awesome, but ultimately negated for grading purposes by how poorly he did on the glass, often missing out on boards that should have been his.
Naji Marshall: A
31 PTS / 4 REB / 2 AST / 1 STL / 0 BLK – 36 MIN
By far the best player on the team, Marshall rarely missed (12-for-17) and was engaged all night. His stats outside of scoring weren’t necessarily his best, but they weren’t bad either. He was 2-for-4 from deep and his 5-for-7 from the free throw line. Two turnovers negated his assist-to-turnover ratio, but this was still an overall excellent game – a rarity for the Mavs Tuesday night.
Khris Middleton: B+
13 PTS / 5 REB / 2 AST / 0 STL / 0 BLK – 22 MIN
For the first time out on a brand new team, Middleton had a nice game, but his offense largely came from the free throw line as he converted only 2-for-5 from the floor, but 8-for-9 from the charity stripe. Nice job playing Klay Thompson’s role in his first outing as a Mav.
Marvin Bagley: B+
9 PTS / 8 REB / 2 AST / 0 STL / 0 BLK – 24 MIN
Bagley was the anti-Gafford with the effort he showed on the glass and in general. He had a few key tip-ins and brought a ton of energy to a team that was lethargic for almost three full quarters. In a very small sample size, Bagley has shown ability to be a valuable backup, doing a lot of dirty work while looking like he’s built chemistry with his teammates that he really couldn’t have built just yet – he finds his spots on the floor and the times his man converted were more often than not because Bagley was forced to rotate to another man who burned his defender.
Final Thoughts
This was every bit a terrible road team playing a very good home team where the former missed shots they normally make and the latter made shots of every kind from everywhere. Sure there were a lot of new faces and experimental lineups for Dallas, but even that can’t explain it all away.
Yet again, Dallas showed an appealing tenacity to actually make it a game late, but it was really never a realistic expectation to suspect a comeback was in the works. How Dallas got beat so badly despite shooting 35 more free throws than the Suns is completely befuddling.
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