The Dallas Mavericks (19-34) rolled their tank into Mortgage Matchup Center on Tuesday and offered little to no resistance against the Phoenix Suns (34-22) in a fart-and-fall-down 120-111 loss, the team’s eighth in a row. Naji Marshall scored 11 of his team-high 31 points in the fourth quarter in the fakest comeback attempt the NBA has seen this year. Cooper Flagg added 27 points and five rebounds in the loss.
The early returns for Tyus Jones as starting point guard are not pretty, folks. The Suns
held the Mavericks without a field goal for the first 5:45 of the game, including two early misses from 3-point range from Jones. His second was an unsightly airball from the right wing. Finally, mercifully, Max Christie found an open driving lane with 6:14 left in the first for the Mavs’ first bucket of the contest, pulling Dallas to within 16-6. Christie followed that bucket up with another airball on his next 3-point attempt.
The Hateable Dillon Brooks shot 7-of-9 from the floor through the first nine minutes on his way to a game-high 15 points after one quarter. It was Brooks’ highest-scoring first quarter of his career, but Brooks scored just eight points the rest of the way in the Suns’ win. Jalen Green scored nine more off the bench in the first, as Phoenix tried to put the Mavs to bed early, extending their lead to 36-16 at the end of the first. The Mavs shot an anemic 6-of-22 (27.3%) from the field in the frame. The 16 points are a new season-low in any quarter this year.
The Mavs made Phoenix reserve Ryan Dunn look like an All-Star early in the second, as he made mincemeat of the Dallas defense with 8:20 left in the half on a basic give-and-go along the baseline for an easy dunk to put the Suns ahead 47-20. The Suns coasted to a 65-48 lead at the half. The Mavericks backed themselves into a corner before storming back with an 18-1 run late in the second to make it that close.
At some point in the third quarter, as the Mavericks gave back all the ground they gained with that second quarter run, the utter futility of watching this team flail forced your faithful correspondent to devour an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s Americone Dream. It was a far more productive exercise than anything the Mavs were perpetrating on the court. As the last creamy bite slid down my gullet, I looked up at the television screen to see Dunn finish off an alley-oop slam from Isaac Ighodaro to put the Suns ahead 96-74. Phoenix led 96-75 going into the fourth.
The fourth quarter was barely worth mentioning, as the Suns played just bad enough to give the Mavericks some hope and just well enough to keep Dallas at arm’s length down the stretch. To add insult to injury, Phoenix used up all five of its fourth-quarter team fouls in the first four minutes and change of the fourth, putting the Mavs in the bonus and extending the game with meaningless free throws and extra stoppages. Pain.
This team has packed it in
The Mavericks’ complete lack of effort and desire on either end of the floor was evident from the game’s opening tip. The starting lineup reflected the business decision made, and the Mavs’ footwork on defense bolded the point in all caps.
Dallas didn’t so much fail to close out Suns’ offensive possessions on the defensive glass as much as they simply didn’t care to try. The Mavs’ effort was an affront to the game, but hey, it may net them another lottery ball or two, am I right? The recent additions to the roster continued to simply take up space on Tuesday
The Mavericks gave up 17 offensive rebounds in the loss, turned the ball over 16 times and got beat 26-10 on the fast break.
Cooper Flagg: Still doing his thing
As ugly as this game was early on, Flagg showed off his wheels in the open floor, gliding down the court in transition for opportunistic scores while the rest of the Mavs’ offense looked completely lost. He sealed off his defender in close to the basket late in the second and scored on the receiving end of a nice find from Naji Marshall to pull Dallas to within 62-40 and led the Mavs with 15 points in the first half. His final bucket of the first half was at the end of a fast break when Flagg reared back and stuffed it in Brooks’ face to inch Dallas back to within 62-45.
Flagg and Marshall combined for 27 of the Mavs’ 48 points in the first half. Flagg scored eight of his 10 second-quarter points during the 18-1 run that opened the door for a second-half comeback. He scored seven more in the third before canning a baseline jumper through Amir Coffey’s foul with nine minutes left to play to bring the Mavs to within 13, down 102-89.
Negative three
Dallas shot a putrid 1-of-15 from 3-point range through the first three quarters against the Suns. Marshall finally hit the Mavs’ second 3-ball of the game with 10:40 left in the fourth quarter. Middleton knocked down another one on the Mavericks’ next possession, but it was far too little, far took late.
The Mavs made four of their seven attempts from deep in the fourth quarter to finish a paltry 5-of-22 (22.7%) in the loss. Phoenix outscored Dallas 48-15 from 3-point range in the win. 48-15, for the love of God. On the other side of that coin was the Mavs’ plus-35 differential in free-throw attempts in the loss. The Mavs went 32-of-44 from the line in the loss, while the Suns shot just nine in the win and made six of them.
We’ll keep watching these games as the 2025-26 season wears on, Mavs fans, so you don’t have to.
