The Dallas Mavericks finally have some juice. It’s not a ton, and it may soon run dry, but with so much bad around the team this season feeling that energy has been nice as the calendar hit December. They’ve (sort of) gotten healthier, Anthony Davis is back playing games and this week has been on a tear, Klay Thompson has found a rhythm again. But more than anything the upward trajectory has been thanks to the play of Cooper Flagg and Ryan Nembhard
.That is the focus of this week’s Power Rankings
Watch. The Mavericks have collected some wins for the first time in a long time. And yes, the competition will continue to get stiffer. But you gather the positives like a squirrel and store them for winter.
The Athletic
Rank: 24 (Tier 4: Not the tier to fear)
Last week: 24
All is well that ends well, and Flagg went to Intuit Dome and was the best New Balance athlete on the floor Saturday, outscoring a desperate Kawhi Leonard 35-30 in a game Flagg’s depleted and otherwise rudderless team won by four points. Flagg also did it without making a single 3-pointer, mixing in an array of left-handed finishes with a surplus of free throws. It was a remarkably bad month for Dallas, but this is a top-five defense that is getting healthier (slowly, maybe not so surely) and has lost three more clutch-time games than any other team in the league. Flagg ensures that the arrow could go up as soon as December.
ESPN
Rank: 22
Last week: 24
Freshly crowned Rookie of the Month Cooper Flagg has a classmate who is also making a major impact for the Mavs. Ryan Nembhard, who went undrafted and is on a two-way deal, seems to be earning an extended run as Dallas’ starting point guard; he has averaged 17.7 points and 5.7 assists in three games since coach Jason Kidd plugged him in. Nembhard has shot 66.7% from the floor, including 9-of-15 from 3-point range, to help Dallas go 2-1 in his starts. He was dominant in a win in Denver, scoring 28 points on 12-of-14 shooting with 10 assists and no turnovers. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the last rookie to record at least 25 points and 10 assists in a game without committing a turnover was Stephon Marbury in 1996. — MacMahon
NBA
Rank: 21
Last week: 23
Anthony Davis wasn’t able to get the Mavs a win in his return from a 14-game absence on Friday, but Cooper Flagg had a huge performance as they beat the Clippers (without Davis) the following night.
Three takeaways
- Flagg scored a career-high 35 points on Saturday, hitting a huge pull-up to put the Mavs ahead with a little less than three minutes left and then going 6-for-6 from the line after that. That clutch jumper represented the only two of his 35 points that didn’t come in the paint (12-for-15) or at the line (9-for-11). He continues to shoot much more effectively in the paint (58.4%) than he does from the outside (34.2% from mid-range, 25.3% from beyond the arc).
- That was definitely more of a defensive win (the Mavs scored just 114 points on 104 possessions), but they’re now 4-1 when Flagg scores more than 20 points and 2-13 when he scores 20 or fewer.
- Rookie Ryan Nembhard (on a two-way contract) is the latest experiment at point guard. He played more minutes in the Mavs’ three games last week (61) than he did before that (45), and he started the last two. Alas, the Mavs were outscored by 16.2 points per 100 possessions in those 61 minutes and they closed the win over the Clippers with Brandon Williams on the floor instead of Nembhard.
Coming up: The Mavs are still just 1-9 against teams currently sporting winning records, with the one win (vs. Toronto) coming back in October. They’ll play their next four games against teams with a combined record of 60-17, with Monday bringing their first meeting with the Nuggets.
Bleacher Report
Rank: 19
Last week: 25
Are the Dallas Mavericks suddenly…kind of…good?
They’ve won three straight (including a road victory over the Denver Nuggets), are 4-3 in their last seven, and were within single digits in three of their last four losses.
And while the return of Anthony Davis certainly helped in the last two wins, the improved play can largely be chalked up to coinciding improvements from two rookies.
During the three-game winning streak, Cooper Flagg is putting up 27.0 points and 7.3 rebounds per game, while Ryan Nembhard is adding 17.0 points and 8.7 assists.
