It all unraveled for the Dallas Mavericks (4-11) on the second night of a back-to-back set on Monday against the Minnesota Timberwolves (9-5) at Target Center. After leaving it all on the American Airlines
Center court in a 138-133 overtime win on Sunday, the Mavericks looked like they were running on empty in Minneapolis and ultimately fell 120-96.
The Mavs pled nolo contendere to all charges in the court of Minnesota basketball. The Wolves ate ‘em up. It was over early on Monday, and the point was re-emphasized often.
Dallas shot just 40% from the field in the loss, turned the ball over 19 times and got out-rebounded 71-53. Naz Reid led all scorers with 22 points and 12 rebounds, while Jaden Hardy (Lord, have mercy) led Dallas with 17 junk-time points on 4-of-8 shooting in the loss.
Small (and ineffective) ball
Moussa Cisse and Dwight Powell, the only two available centers on the Mavericks’ roster without both Dereck Lively II (knee) and Daniel Gafford (ankle) sidelined on the second night of a back-to-back set, picked up two fouls apiece in the first quarter to further hamstring a Dallas roster already dealing with the absence of Anthony Davis, who missed his 10th straight game on Monday. Gafford turned an ankle in overtime on Sunday, while word is that Lively was not available for the second night of the back-to-back set as he works his way back from his early-season knee injury.
That meant Minnesota got a heavy dose of small ball in blue for the rest of the first half. However, Dallas turned the ball over far too often early in the game, preventing any rhythm from developing offensively. Dallas turned the ball over seven times in the first quarter just a night after turning the ball over seven times in the first frame in Sunday’s win. D’Angelo Russell coughed it up three times in just over five minutes of action in the first as the Mavericks fell behind 34-19. The Wolves put together a 13-0 run toward the end of the first quarter before Brandon Williams hit a pair of free throws in the waning seconds of the opening stanza to make it 34-21 at the end of one.
Backup Timberwolves forward Naz Reid feasted on a vulnerable Dallas defense for 10 first-quarter points to lead all scorers, while the Mavs shot just 38% from the field. Cisse and Powell each picked up a third foul as the second quarter wore on.
The Naz Reid of it all
Reid’s hot hand continued into the second quarter. The Mavs are just helpless against certain guys, and he appears to be one of them in recent years. Reid made seven of his first nine shot attempts, including 2-of-3 from 3-point range for 17 early points. He canned a 3-ball from the left corner before he connected on a jump hook over Cooper Flagg in the lane to put Minnesota up 41-28 with just over nine minutes left in the first half. Then he finished off an alley-oop in transition from Jaden McDaniels two minutes later to extend the Wolves’ lead to 15, up 47-32.
He has somehow shot better than 48% from 3-point land in 19 career games against Dallas, and Reid terrorized the Mavs once more on Monday. His season-high scoring mark coming into Monday’s game was 21 — at the Brooklyn Nets on Nov. 3. Reid matched that number and surpassed it with his only field goal of the third quarter, a fading prayer of a 3-pointer from the right wing with two seconds left in the frame. That bucket put him at 3-for-4 from downtown and gave the Timberwolves a 98-66 lead headed into the fourth quarter.
Get Coop the damn ball
For the second night in a row, Flagg was in timeout in the corner for most of the first half against the Timberwolves. He put up just three shots in the first half on Sunday before exploding for a team-high 21 points in the second half and in the overtime period against the Blazers. On Monday, Flagg got up just four first-half shot attempts.
Commentators are quick to applaud the youngster for “letting the game come to him,” and that’s all well and good. But you could also look at his lack of production early in games as a deficiency in head coach Jason Kidd’s game plan, if indeed there is even a game plan in place on any given night. From looking at the on-court results through 15 games, it’d be easy to come to the conclusion that no, there isn’t one. Injuries — completely predictable injuries, mind you — notwithstanding, Kidd is doing little to inspire confidence in his leadership abilities even as there is no small amount of chatter around his own possible ascension to a front office role amid the firing of former general manager Nico Harrison.
The team tried Flagg at point guard. The results were mixed — not great by any means, but Kidd was quick on the trigger to take the ball out of Flagg’s hands, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that the coaching staff had no plan in place for getting and keeping Flagg involved in the offense early on in games after the position switch. If the newly installed Flow offense is built to allow anyone on the floor to initiate offense, it needs to be proportional to the skillset of the players on the floor at any given moment. At no point in the game does Russell need to be dribbling away 20 seconds’ worth of shot clock.
Anywho, while Flagg floated around the perimeter on his way to six points and one board in the first half, the rest of the Mavericks were busy digging themselves into a 61-44 hole at the break. But again, just like on Sunday, the Mavs looked Flagg’s way early in the third, and once again, he delivered. He drove through the lane for a clever little finger roll, then hit a 3-pointer on back-to-back possessions with 8:35 left in the third to get into double-figure scoring for the 11th straight game, but by that time, the outcome had already been decided at the Target Center.
Flagg finished with 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting (2-of-3 from 3-point territory) in the lopsided loss. Despite being frozen out of the offense for wide swaths of the game, Monday was Flagg’s fifth straight game scoring 15 or more points.
No need to tank
If this is all the effort the Mavs can muster, even down two bigs and even on the second night of a back-to-back, there’s no need to wring your hands or clutch your pearls about the idea of “tanking.” It’s becoming more and more clear that no matter who’s available on any given night, Dallas is going to lose all the games they need to lose to end up with a valuable pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.
The Mavericks offer absolutely no challenge to decent and good teams, and they struggle with every meager inch of their soul to beat the other awful teams in this league. Sometimes they can’t even accomplish that.
Dallas was never up to the task of putting together any sort of meaningful comeback in Monday’s second half. The 17-point halftime deficit swiftly turned into a 29-point deficit, as the Wolves went up 87-58 on Rudy Gobert’s putback dunk over the hapless Mavericks frontcourt with four minutes left in the third. From then on, getting back to within 25 points was a struggle, nevermind whittling the lead down any further than that.
Sad!
