{"id":956492,"date":"2026-11-08T00:34:19","date_gmt":"2026-11-08T00:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/956492\/"},"modified":"2026-11-08T00:34:19","modified_gmt":"2026-11-08T00:34:19","slug":"mavericks-net-preview-washington-hoping-to-continue-his-red-hot-three-point-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/956492\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavericks-Net preview: Washington hoping to continue his red-hot three-point shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

After P. J. Washington scored a season-high 26 points in Friday\u2019s 112-100 triumph over the Utah Jazz, coach Dusty May made no bones about the eight-year veteran forward\u2019s importance to the Dallas Mavericks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need P. J. to be a three-point shooter for us,\u201d May said. \u201cHe\u2019s got a beautiful shot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s one of those guys that we played him at the five against San Antonio (on Wednesday), we played him at the four, we played him at the three when we want to go big.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wherever the Mavs played Washington against Utah, he made the Jazz pay dearly. That was particularly true in the first half when Washington scored 16 of his 22-first half points in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

In the first half which ended tied at 57-57, Washington was 6-of-7 from the field, including 5-of-6 from behind the third-point line.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love him shooting with that amount of confidence, because we need it,\u201d May said. \u201cBut overall, just a really good game by P. J., especially in the first half.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won the hustle plays in the first half, but without his shots we\u2019ll have a deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Overall, Washington was 7-of-14 from the floor, including 6-of-10 from downtown against Utah.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen anybody has the hot hand you just want to feed them,\u201d Washington said. \u201cThat goes with anybody on the team. When you get the feeling of it\u2019s your night, you want the ball to come to you and you just want to shoot openly.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously shots were falling, so it made my game a lot easier. But in general I just try to be the glue guy for everybody and just to clean up everybody\u2019s messes and just make everything stick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington said Mavs shooting coach, Rob Fodor, has been working judiciously with him on improving the mechanics of his shot. And the improvements have been very noticeable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been huge,\u201d Washington said. \u201cHe\u2019s done a lot with my shot so far.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI just trust everything he\u2019s been telling me, and it\u2019s been doing wonders for me so far.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington also admits that with opponents trying to limit the touches Cooper Flagg and Kyrie Irving receives, he\u2019s finding himself more wide open than he can remember.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how that happened,\u201d Washington said. \u201cIt just kind of happened like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, when you\u2019ve got Kyrie and Cooper they\u2019re going to draw a lot of attention and you got a lot of guys that share the ball. I just try to find myself, get my feet under me and just try to shoot it with confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t just Washington\u2019s offense against Utah that drew praise from May. He was also impressed with his performance on defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe may have told on himself tonight,\u201d May said. \u201cHe really sat down and guarded a couple of quick fast point guards and stayed in front of the ball and got some deflections.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, he was really, really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington noted that backup center Santi Aldama was also really, really good in his debut with the Mavs. In 13 minutes against the Jazz, Aldama scored eight points and collected nine rebounds \u2013 with four of them coming off the offensive glass.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love hm,\u201d Washington said. \u201cI\u2019ve been telling everybody I didn\u2019t realize he was this tall. He\u2019s all of seven feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s a great player for us. Obviously, he was killing it on the offensive glass (Friday), he can shoot, he can stretch the floor (and) he can play multiple positions on the defensive end. I think it was a great addition for us and I\u2019m super excited to have him back.\u201d<\/p>\n

May also is super excited to have Washington coming off his best game of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause each game looks so different now, we have to play the game in front of us,\u201d May said. \u201cSome nights it\u2019s going to be up and down, some night it\u2019s going to be a slugfest, some nights we got to defend the three better.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201c(Washington) just gives you so much versatility offensively and defensively because he\u2019s able to get to the rim and finish. His spacing now is going to give us a whole other dimension because he\u2019s being so aggressive shooting the three. He just has to continue to stay hungry and get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what else to look for:<\/p>\n

*This is the front end of a back-to-back for the Mavs, who will finish this quick three-game homestand with a Monday night game against the Indiana Pacers. The Mavs are 1-0 on the first leg of a back-to-back, having won in Indiana, 121-105, on Oct. 23.<\/p>\n

*Michael Porter Jr. (21.4 ppg, 7.4 rpg), Plano native Julius Randle (21 ppg, 7.1 rpg), Mikel Brown Jr. (12 ppg), Nolan Traore (12 ppg) and Moritz Wagner (10.4 ppg) are the primary production players for the Nets.<\/p>\n

*The Mavs knew they had a secret weapon waiting in the wings to show up in center Santi Aldama. And after not playing since undergoing surgery on his right knee last March while he was playing for the Memphis Grizzlies, Aldama played his first game for the Mavs on Friday against Utah and responded with eight points and nine rebounds in just 13 minutes. \u201cHe\u2019s a mismatch nightmare,\u201d Mavs forward P. J. Washington said. \u201cObviously, being seven feet, there\u2019s not a lot of guys who can guard him. He can play on the perimeter, he can play inside, so I think he\u2019s just a mismatch nightmare for us and I can\u2019t wait to utilize him in a lot of different ways. He\u2019s a great player, he\u2019s smart out there as well, so it\u2019s definitely fun playing with guys like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

*The Nets will be playing on the second night of a back-to-back after playing in Atlanta on Saturday. Porter contributed 26 points and 10 rebounds in Wednesday\u2019s 114-104 win over Charlotte, and Randle added 22 points in that game.<\/p>\n

Brooklyn Nets (2-6) vs. Dallas Mavericks (5-4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

WHEN: Sunday, Nov. 8 | 6:30 p.m.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

WHERE: American Airlines Center, Dallas\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

TV: KFAA-29, MavsTV+\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

RADIO: 105.3 The Fan, 99.1 FM Zona MX (Spanish)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After P. J. Washington scored a season-high 26 points in Friday\u2019s 112-100 triumph over the Utah Jazz, coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":956493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,7235,590,85],"class_list":["post-956492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956492","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=956492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/956493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}