{"id":332901,"date":"2025-12-07T14:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T14:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/332901\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T14:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T14:13:07","slug":"player-grades-mavericks-upset-the-houston-rockets-122-109","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/332901\/","title":{"rendered":"Player Grades: Mavericks upset the Houston Rockets, 122-109"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dallas Mavericks<\/a> (9-16) were on the second night of a back-to-back, taking on the Houston Rockets<\/a> (15-6) before a five-day layoff while NBA Cup games take place. Aiming to head into their break on a high note, the Mavs took it to the Rockets with a 122-109 victory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get to the grades!<\/p>\n

11 PTS \/ 1 REB \/ 7 AST \/ 1 STL \/ 0 BLK – 23 MIN<\/p>\n

Nembhard had two turnovers, which is noteworthy purely because that paltry total is somehow a lot for him. He once again had a solid game, hitting 5-for-7 from the field (including his only 3-point attempt). It wasn\u2019t his best night, but there was really nothing to complain about. He\u2019s showing that his early success was not a fluke. We\u2019ve got a real NBA point guard on our hands, folks.<\/p>\n

15 PTS \/ 2 REB \/ 2 AST \/ 1 STL \/ 0 BLK – 28 MIN<\/p>\n

Marshall is on a heater lately and continued his strong play with a 6-for-8 on Saturday. He didn\u2019t have gaudy rebounding or assist totals, but once again his intangibles were off the chart. Marshall played sticky defense to help him to a higher grade than his stat line alone would indicate.<\/p>\n

19 PTS \/ 5 REB \/ 3 AST \/ 2 STL \/ 2 BLK – 36 MIN<\/p>\n

Flagg had a solid, well-balanced game, putting up numbers in all categories and making a couple of big shots in the waning minutes to help Dallas seal the deal. He joined P.J. Washington in putting down a couple of ferocious slams and bringing the energy Dallas has needed for quite some time. His confidence certainly has a positive impact on the home crowd, and it\u2019s apparent his teammates feed off it as well.<\/p>\n

14 PTS \/ 7 REB \/ 1 AST \/ 5 STL \/ 1 BLK – 26 MIN<\/p>\n

Washington never fails to remind me that he is a very important piece to this team, every time he comes back from an injury. He shot a solid 6-for-13, with the majority of his misses coming from beyond the arc (2-for-7). However, he hit a critically important 3-ball from his special spot in the corner during the fourth quarter when the Rockets were trying to claw back into the game. He provided fans with a personal slam dunk contest as well, which got the crowd into it and deflated the Rockets a bit. His impressive five steals helped boost his grade, as did his team-high plus\/minus of +24.<\/p>\n

29 PTS \/ 8 REB \/ 2 AST \/ 2 STL \/ 1 BLK – 30 MIN<\/p>\n

Davis is puzzling sometimes. How a player can look so disinterested and play so poorly, then 24 hours later go 14-for-19 from the field is befuddling. Davis looked like a different player on Saturday after Friday night\u2019s 1-for-9 stinker against the Thunder, hitting nearly everything while also contributing a little something to each of the five primary statistical categories. Zero turnovers relative to how often he had the ball was also a nice showing.<\/p>\n

20 PTS \/ 1 REB \/ 5 AST \/ 2 STL \/ 0 BLK – 23 MIN<\/p>\n

Williams found his shot tonight, going 8-for-12 from the floor en route to tying his season-high in scoring. He didn\u2019t turn it over a single time as he found teammates for a solid assist total and played his typically high-energy brand of basketball.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t look now, but the Mavericks are fun! The early-season games where they looked like five strangers that couldn\u2019t pass the ball now feel like a distant memory. The pall of the Nico Harrison era was not immediately lifted after his departure, but lately things are different. The Mavs are still dealing with injuries, but they seem to have a vibe about them that has brought emotion back to the fan base. The guys all seem to genuinely pull for each other and for the most part, everyone is engaged. Even after Davis laid a stinker at the Thunder, he came out and got to work on Saturday against the Rockets. D\u2019Angelo Russell easily could have pouted about his benching subsequent off-ball role, but instead he seems to be doing what is asked of him without complaint. Dare we say the vibes are good.<\/p>\n

Tonight, 16-for-22 third quarter shooting propelled the Mavs to a win. The Rockets had won 10 of 12 games coming into tonight and the Mavs not only hung with them, but outscored them big in a second half run that resulted in a 13-point win.<\/p>\n

I invite you to follow me @_80MPH<\/a> on X, and check back often at Mavs Moneyball<\/a> for all the latest on the Dallas Mavericks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Mavericks (9-16) were on the second night of a back-to-back, taking on the Houston Rockets (15-6)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,103703,143490,85],"class_list":["post-332901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-mavericks-game-coverage","tag-mavericks-scores","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}