The Dallas Mavericks rounded out a home-and-home against the Cleveland Cavaliers Sunday afternoon. Unlike Friday’s matchup, Dallas was much more competitive in an 130-120 win.
Let’s get to the grades!
Ryan Nembhard: B
11 PTS / 3 REB / 3 AST / 2 STL / 0 BLK – 24 MIN
It has been a minute since Dallas started a conventional point guard and unfortunately Nembhard may give Jason Kidd reason to abandon the idea again. Nembhard only connected on one of his five first half shots, but heated up a bit after that. Dallas’ performance can’t be exclusively attributed to Nembhard,
but even on average nights, he shows the value of having a true point guard orchestrating.
Max Christie: B-
9 PTS / 2 REB / 5 AST / 1 STL / 1 BLK – 29 MIN
Christie has had a pretty poor run of late, so his performance looked great by comparison despite not being particularly epic. He didn’t play all that much but managed to chip in on every major statistical category without doing hardly anything detrimental. Solid game he can hopefully build on, especially with a dunk and made three-pointer in the final two minutes of the game to nail down the win.
Naji Marshall: A
25 PTS / 5 REB / 7 AST / 1 STL / 0 BLK – 32 MIN
Marshall led the way for Dallas in the first half, connecting on a ridiculous 85.7% of his seven shots while dishing five dimes.
Cooper Flagg: A
27 PTS / 6 REB / 10 AST / 0 STL / 2 BLK – 33 MIN
Sunday afternoon felt like a welcome back for Flagg who hasn’t quite been himself since returning from his mid-foot sprain. Against Cleveland, Flagg had a very well-rounded game, though he piled up turnovers (three) and fouls (four) at a high rate as well.
P.J. Washington: A+
20 PTS / 11 REB / 2 AST / 5 STL / 1 BLK – 33 MIN
Washington got the rare start at center for Dallas and although opposing center Evan Mobley had a nice night, Washington joined Marshall as the best players for Dallas in the early going and ultimately throughout. This was not a fluke – Washington was just dominant with the only mark against him being his total fouls committed. We’ll see if this is a one-off or is in fact Washington turning the corner on some relatively mundane games.
Marvin Bagley: B
6 PTS / 5 REB / 0 AST / 0 STL / 1 BLK – 16 MIN
Bagley continues to impress even when his numbers don’t leap off the page. In his first eight minutes, he had three points, four boards and a block. He ended the day with a perfectly fine game for a backup, but was a bit of a hack-machine with four fouls
John Poulakidas: A
10 PTS / 3 REB / 0 AST / 1 STL / 0 BLK – 15 MIN
Poulakidas had a personal 10-0 run to close the third quarter, made up of back-to-back three-pointers followed by a deep two-pointer. At this stage in the season and within the context of his overall game and playing time (and virtually zero performances to compare to), we’re going to show some generosity in an improbably win and reward the shooter for shooting well.
Final Thoughts
Even despite playing .500 ball over their last 10 games, this was an embarrassing loss for Cleveland against a somewhat patch-work Mavs team. The NBA is weird and oddities like this actually happen more often than one would think, but getting obliterated by a team that can’t win on the road and who has dragged themselves across the country for the better part of a month has to be a moment of thoughtful introspection for the Cavs. Credit to Dallas. Playing for nothing but the offseason, the Mavs brought it on Sunday afternoon.
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