Just six games into the 2025-26 season, it’s time for fans of the Dallas Mavericks (2-4) to adjust some of their expectations for this year. That will be especially true when the Mavs travel to Houston
for their first away game of the season on Monday against the Rockets (3-2) at the Toyota Center.
The Rockets lead the NBA in points per game (127.8) and offensive rating (126.5) through their first five games, and they’re third in second-chance points per game (20.0). Kevin Durant (27.2 points, 5.4 rebounds per game) is turning back the hands of time with a young roster around him and Alperen Sangun (22.2 points, 8.4 rebounds, 7.6 assists per game) has been a revelation in both the low post and from the 3-point line early on this year.
Houston has all the tools to turn Monday’s game against a puzzling and beleaguered Mavericks squad into a bloodbath. Depending on who is available for the Mavs, this one could be done and dusted by the middle of the second quarter.
Here are four expectations you may have had six games ago that need to be put on the proverbial shelf as the Mavs meet the Rockets.
This is an elite defensive team
The Mavericks come into Monday’s game sporting the eighth-best defensive rating (112.0) in the NBA, sure. I’m here to tell you that even that top-third placement six games into the season is chock-full of fool’s gold. The weight of an off night to end all off nights from the Oklahoma City Thunder (in a game the Thunder still found a way to win 101-94) and a narrow win over a team formerly referred to as the Indiana Pacers are boosting an otherwise spotty defensive record to begin the Mavs’ season.
Has Dallas defended the paint as well as we would have expected at this early juncture, or have the Mavericks been gifted some poor shooting nights from their first six opponents? Surely, injuries to Daniel Gafford, who played his first game of the season on Friday, only to get utterly abused by Detroit’s Jalen Duren, Dereck Lively and Anthony Davis play a role here, but this team is full of guys who have rarely been able to string together long healthy stretches. Lively (knee), Davis (calf) and Dante Exum (knee) have once again been ruled out for Monday’s game.
The expectation that a roster full of tall, tall trees would automatically translate to great defense, which was one of the preferred talking points of the coaching staff and front office in the preseason, should have been tempered by that fact. It was staring us all in the face the whole time.
At this point, Dallas ranks 29th in the league in opponent paint points per game (58.0) and surrenders a league-worst 21.8 points per game in transition. Only the Chicago Bulls (58.4) are worse at defending the paint right now. That’s, uhhh, not good, no matter how many minutes Dwight Powell is being forced to play due to injuries.
The Rockets come into Monday’s game in the middle of the NBA pack in both of those corresponding offensive categories. Houston is 13th in fast-break points (15.8) per game and 17th in paint points (49.6) per game. They lead the league in team 3-point shooting, at a scorching 45.4% to start the year.
Cooper Flagg is a shoo-in for Rookie of the Year
What I’ve left unsaid in the phrasing of this section of my little post here is that Cooper Flagg’s development should be priorities one, two and three for this team. There is an expectation among parts of the Mavs fan base that says this team is in win-now mode — that the two-timeline tightrope is something the Nico-Harrison-led front office has the ability to tread. Strike this from your minds, my blue-and-green-clad brethren. Life is pain in 2025-26.
Which brings me to my greater point here. Flagg is not giving Rookie-of-the-Year in the first six games of his professional career. And that’s okay right now. Flagg is averaging 13.8 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3.0 assists through his first six games.
Those glaring deficiencies you’re seeing? I’d argue those are more the product of what’s around him than anything wrong with him, or that we were all wrong about going into this year. His weaknesses — as an 18-year-old playing on a court with men 10 years’ experience and 30 pounds worth of advantage against him — are on full display as he tries to get acclimated to a position he’s never played before with little to no help around him on the perimeter.
In the absence of a floor general or dependable shooters along the perimeter, Flagg has been called upon to run the show, and, make no mistake, putting the ball in Flagg’s hands in his rookie season is a good thing. Allowing him to make mistakes and learn from them is a good thing. It’s just not always going to be pretty. The ugly bits are going to end up being the best bits for Flagg’s progression and development as a player.
To add some perspective, Philadelphia 76ers’ rookie VJ Edgecombe has set the NBA on fire to start his rookie season, averaging 21.2 points, 5.6 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game through five games. The Memphis Grizzlies’ Cedric Coward has also impressed to the tune of 14.8 points and 4.8 rebounds per game to start his rookie campaign.
Size is a nightly advantage
First of all, injuries are already busy negating the size advantage the Mavs expected to wield this season. Gafford missed the first five games of the season with a bum ankle after stepping on Davis’ foot on the first day of Mavericks training camp in Vancouver, BC, on Sept. 30. Lively and Street Clothes himself went down soon afterward. Let’s disabuse ourselves of the notion that this roster was built with the purpose of “size” behind it. It was built by fools with a horde of chump fans parroting the party line of excitement behind them.
Second of all, if the bigs you’re building around can’t shoot, they’re basically rendered useless in the position-less, modern NBA, anyway. It’s no longer out of bounds to build a starting roster featuring two bigs — that seems to have come back into fashion a little bit in the NBA. But at least one of them has to be able to shoot it. And there’s a difference between thinking you can shoot it and actually being able to shoot it. Looking at you, Anthony Davis.
The Rockets feature a big man in their starting five who appears to have vastly improved his shooting touch this year. Alperen Sengun has made nine of his first 17 3-point attempts on the year through Houston’s first five games. There is a decent chance he will soon revert toward the mean, but if he’s able to even remotely sustain that kind of shooting, the Mavs are cooked on Monday and the Association is on notice.
Jason Kidd will make any singular, solitary move that makes even a lick of sense
Why is D’Angelo Russell not starting or shouldering more of the ball-handling and playmaking responsibility on this team? What was he brought in to do exactly, if not give the Mavericks some semblance of stability in the backcourt?
Why did Mavs head coach Jason Kidd seem to want to depend on Jaden Hardy over Russell in crunch time against the defending NBA champion Thunder last week? Why does Kidd, a former point guard himself (and a great one!), seem to refuse to acknowledge that his former position is the most important one on the floor?
Why was it such a foregone conclusion to sign Kidd to his most recent contract extension? Why are you the way that you are, Mavericks?
It’s time to stop holding our collective breath waiting for Kidd & Co. to make the right decisions at the right moments. We’ve been through this for five years now. Making it make sense is off the table.
How to watch
What’s firmly on the table is the distinct possibility that the Rockets will blow the Mavs out of Lake Houston on Monday, when the two teams square off at 7 p.m. CDT. The game will be televised locally on KFAA Channel 29 and regionally on MavsTV affiliate stations. It will also be streamed on MavsTV.
