The Dallas Mavericks lost again, this time 122-111 to the Minnesota Timberwolves Friday night in Minneapolis. It’s the Mavericks 10th loss in a row. The last time Dallas won was Jan. 22 against the Golden State Warriors.
This game followed the trend of the previous nine losses almost exactly — Dallas gets crushed in the first quarter, then slowly-but-surely work their way back to make a game more competitive than it had any right to be. Dallas was missing rookie star Cooper Flagg, along with their best three point shooter Max Christie.
The Wolves had their main rotation of players and still struggled to put the Mavericks away time and time again. Dallas had runs in each of the second, third, and fourth quarters to give Minnesota a scare, but couldn’t get over the hump.
Anthony Edwards led all scorers with a monster 40-points game. Newly acquired Khris Middleton led a balanced Mavericks attack with 18 points.
Here are the three stats to know.
16-8: Minnesota’s advantaged in made 3-pointers
Dallas did a lot of things right in this game — it attacked the paint, got to the free throw line, and kept turnovers in check after a very sloppy opening quarter. It didn’t really matter though like most Mavericks efforts go to waste because of one thing: shooting. Specifically three point shooting and the lack thereof for the Mavericks.
Minnesota went 16-of-42 from deep, while the Mavericks went just 8-of-25. Both the makes and attempts for Dallas are abysmal, but it’s hard to fault them when a bad shooting team is missing its best shooter in Max Christie. Klay Thompson was responsible for three of the Mavericks makes from distance but it wasn’t enough. The gap was just too big to make up elsewhere.
60: Mavericks points in the paint
Against a top-tier defense and one of the best rim protectors in the NBA, the now 19-36 Mavericks dropped 60 points in the paint. Impressive! It’s the main reason the game was as close as it was.
Dallas has been attacking the paint with force and volume this season, mainly because these players have to go hard to the bucket because no one can shoot. The Mavericks are averaging well-over 50 points in the paint per game, nearing the 55 mark for most of the season, which is top-10 in the league. Dallas can’t get a break because they fall so behind on threes, but the paint scoring does enough to keep them competitive nearly every night.
15, 13: Marvin Bagley’s points, rebounds
Marvin Bagley has only played four games with Dallas since being part of the Anthony Davis trade, but he’s stood-out in every one. This time he picked up another double-double with a solid 15-point, 13-rebound effort off the bench.
This is Bagley’s second double-double since being traded, his first a 16-point, 12-rebound effort against the Spurs in his Mavericks debut. Bagley is fun — he might not be long for this roster, but he’s young, athletic, and shows enough skill that got him drafted second overall by the Kings in 2018 to make you ponder. It’s sort of impressive how Bagley has sort of accepted his destiny as a nice rotation backup big, and he’s better for it. Bagley isn’t forcing shots or hogging possessions, he’s just setting screens, waiting in the dunkers spot, grabbing boards, and running the floor. That’s kind of cool, and plenty of other draft busts have failed to make that transition from sta prospect to role player when the star stuff didn’t work out.
Who knows what Dallas thinks of Bagley long-term, and he might not even be on the roster when opening day of next season arrives, but he’s a worthy dart throw and I look forward to win he can play more minutes with Cooper Flagg when Flagg returns to health. Flagg likes to get up and go, and having another horse to run alongside him could be fun. Bagley can’t really guard a chair, and his rebounding waxes and wains, but he’s fun and with a season this dreadful, that counts for a lot.