The Mavericks lost their second straight game to begin the 2025-26 season and their home opener on Friday night in embarrassing fashion, 117-107 to the Washington Wizards. Kyshawn George led the way for the Wizards with 34 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and five steals. Dallas native Tre Johnson also added 17 points, and Alex Sarr had a 14-point, 10-rebound double-double. Anthony Davis led another pathetic performance for Dallas with 27 points and 13 rebounds.
The script was the same for the Mavericks
in Friday’s loss as we saw in the season opener on Wednesday. Dallas started aggressively and looked dominant against a team that won 18 games last season, taking a commanding 35-28 lead. The Mavericks lost the game early in the second quarter, starting the quarter 0-for-8 from the field, while the Wizards put together an 11-0 run. It was 41-39 Washington when Davis made the first field goal of the second quarter for the Mavs with seven minutes left before halftime.
Davis and PJ Washington carried the Mavericks through the rest of a sluggish second, while the Wizards piled up 27 points in the frame. At halftime, the score was 58-52. The Wizards’ bench outscored the Mavericks’ bench 31-10 in the first half, and the Mavericks as a team had shot 5-for-20 from 3-point range. It was the perfect recipe for losing to a lottery team at home.
The second half started off as sluggish as the second quarter; the Wizards quickly extended the lead to 12 points, which they mostly sustained throughout the rest of the game. The Mavericks tried some different looks in the 3rd quarter, giving Jaden Hardy the green light and going with a three-guard lineup to try and generate some offense. The Mavericks kept up offensively, matching the Wizards in field goals for the quarter and even outshooting them from 3-point land in the third.
It did not matter, as the Mavericks could not seem to stop the Wizards, who scored 6 field goals in the paint in the quarter, leading to a 13-point Washington lead going into the 4th. The Mavericks tried to make it a game, whittling the Wizards’ lead down to six before the 10-minute mark of the quarter. Cooper Flagg tried to save the day for the Mavs, going 3-for-5 and leading the charge to keep it close. Head coach Jason Kidd subbed Flagg out after his hot stretch to get Anthony Davis going, who smoked an and-1 attempt, missed the front end of his ensuing free throws and then had a turnover leading to a Wizards’ bucket that put them up by eight.
Naji Marshall fouled Bub Carrington on a 3-point play late, which pretty much ended the game. Kidd let Flagg check back, and the rookie promptly responded with a thunderous dunk, but then turned the ball over a couple times while running the point down the stretch. The lack of ball security allowed the Wizards to maintain their lead and steal the win in Dallas. While the Mavs showed some fight and more competence than they did against the Spurs on Wednesday, it was still an embarrassing loss.
The Mavs’ offense is a mess
The Mavericks’ offense just looks lost. From the coaches to the players, going through multiple lulls against the Washington Wizards, where you do not score baskets, is simply unacceptable for a team with expectations as high as the Mavericks. The lineups are a mess and inconsistent. Jason Kidd seems to be experimenting early, which he is known to do, but you usually see some of the experiments work.
The half-court offense is the worst. The Mavericks run two sets: one is a pick-and-pop with Davis, and the other is a dribble-handoff with Davis. Other than that, Kidd is trusting a bunch of wings and centers to create offense for themselves and others through isolation, which just feels like a disaster. From the starters to the garbage time players, each lineup seems to score on one of about every four possessions, and that simply is not sustainable. The Mavs were outshot from 3-point range, took fewer free throws, shot 7% worse from the field, were out-assisted, and had more turnovers against the Washington Wizards at home. That’s the story of the game.
Be patient with Cooper Flagg
Cooper Flagg showed us tonight why he was the consensus number-1 draft pick this past June. In the first quarter, he was 1-for-2 from the floor and showed his passing skill set early, finding a number of open teammates who left his potential assists unfinished. He also had a rebound and an assist in about eight minutes, a good showing for the rookie after he could not find the basket until the late second quarter on Wednesday. The most impressive part of Flagg’s night was the early part of the fourth quarter.
The rookie got himself to the line multiple times and took over the game with a contested 3-pointer and an insane dunk to bring the Mavs within four.
Kidd subbed him out while he was hot, but the rookie showed a flash of the potential he has and will continue to unlock this offseason
Jason Kidd has given up on D’Angelo Russell
D’Angelo Russell was supposed to be the big offseason signing for the Mavs. The thought was that Russell would be able to provide some stability for the Mavericks on the offensive side of the ball, while his defensive deficiencies would be hidden behind a stifling Mavericks defense. In a close game against a bad team in which the Mavericks struggled offensively, Russell played only eight minutes, and none in the second half.
This includes Kidd’s experiment with a three-guard lineup of Ryan Nembhard, Jaden Hardy, and Max Christie. Russell had one point, three assists and zero turnovers in the first half, but could not stay in front of anyone and was 0-for-3 on some questionable shot selection. Kidd quickly pulled the plug and sat the vet for the entire second half of a game you badly needed his theoretical abilities in.
The second loss of the season summed up in one thought? Yea, it was even more discouraging than the first.
