The Dallas Mavericks defeated the Miami Heat 118-108 Wednesday night in Dallas, led by Cooper Flagg\u2019s 22-point and six-rebound effort, which included eight big fourth-quarter points as Miami was making a late push that got them to within four. And Cooper got to those 22 points without attempting a three-point shot, making it a point to move downhill towards the basket and also earning five free throws in the process.<\/p>\n
Anthony Davis had 17 points to go with his 17 rebounds, and Klay Thompson stayed hot behind the arc, going 5-for-12 tonight.<\/p>\n
Kel-el Ware was Miami\u2019s leading scorer. He put in 22 points and 10 rebounds on an efficient 8-of-11 shooting night.<\/p>\n
It almost feels like they\u2019re doing it on purpose. On Wednesday night, just like they did on Monday against the Nuggets, the Mavs came out and fell into a quick, double-digit hole, only to flip the script and romp to a decisive victory.<\/p>\n
While the Denver game had huge standout performances from Anthony Davis and the two rookies, Cooper Flagg and Ryan Nembhard, tonight\u2019s game was an offensive assault from all angles. Seven different players scored in double digits.<\/p>\n
Who\u2019s going to stop Nembhard?<\/p>\n
After his \u201cI\u2019ve arrived\u201d announcement game in Denver, there was a certain sense that, once teams were wise to the Dallas rookie, he wouldn\u2019t be able to catch opposing defenses by surprise anymore. Well, if there\u2019s a team that\u2019s going to put that theory to the test, it wasn\u2019t Miami.<\/p>\n
Not only did Nembhard put up 15 points, but he also finished with another double-double. His ability to pilot the resurgent Dallas offense was apparent on account of his team-leading 13 assists. He also had five rebounds, just for good measure.<\/p>\n
It would be hard to heap too much praise on the undrafted rookie with how he has seemed to be the catalyst for the Mavericks\u2019 abrupt about-face offensively. Who knew having a solid point guard on the floor could yield such good results?<\/p>\n
A smothering defensive effort<\/p>\n
Miami has been making waves this season for just how fast-paced their offense has been so far this season. Predictably, that high-speed mentality has meant they\u2019ve been among the leaders in the NBA in fast-break points. They score the second-most in the league with 19.5 per game.<\/p>\n
The Dallas defense didn\u2019t just hold Miami to 14 points on the fastbreak; they also outscored them with 19 fastbreak points of their own. And it wasn\u2019t just fastbreak defense. Miami has been the league\u2019s second-highest-scoring team (behind the aforementioned Denver, who Dallas also just contained), and Dallas held them to 108 points, 16 below their season average of 124.<\/p>\n
There were promising signs of defensive adjustability. Tyler Herro had 20 points in the first half and looked, by all accounts, like he was going to be the main issue for Dallas\u2019 defenders. But the Mavs came out after halftime and held Herro scoreless the entire second half on 0-for-5 shooting.<\/p>\n
Cooper Flagg is a clutch-time menace<\/p>\n
Dallas has played a disproportionate amount of clutch games so far this year – that is, games within five points during the final five minutes of the game. Their 17 coming into tonight is two more than any other team so far. If nothing else, it\u2019s something of a silver lining that, even when their record was at its worst, they were never really getting blown out.<\/p>\n
Well, all that clutch-time practice is already paying dividends for Cooper Flagg. There was a sequence late in the fourth with Miami looking to make it a one-possession game that went: Flagg turnaround jumper, Flagg blocked shot, Flagg driving layup. Dallas\u2019 six-point lead ballooned back to double digits and effectively ended the comeback attempt from Miami.<\/p>\n
Flagg has said that the physicality of the NBA has been the biggest adjustment. Well, he\u2019s looking plenty adjusted. Flagg didn\u2019t attempt a single three the entire game, and made nearly all of his shots either in or around the paint, often seeking contact and earning multiple foul calls.<\/p>\n
His trajectory continues to point straight up, and he couldn\u2019t have had a more impressive series of games as these two against Denver and Miami<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Mavericks defeated the Miami Heat 118-108 Wednesday night in Dallas, led by Cooper Flagg\u2019s 22-point and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10413,36425,123,125,124],"class_list":{"0":"post-70637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-mavericks-game-coverage","9":"tag-mavericks-scores","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-headlines","12":"tag-miami-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}