The Dallas Mavericks entered Thursday’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves with some momentum after Cooper Flagg put 43 points on the Indiana Pacers on Monday night.
Minnesota has won four of its last five games despite not having Anthony Edwards because of a knee injury. They’d make it five out of six because they absolutely blew the doors off the Mavericks in this game.
The Mavericks led for most of the first quarter, doing a great job of scoring off turnovers, but a bad stretch in the final minutes of the first frame gave the Timberwolves a 34-26 lead going in the second.
After the Timberwolves built a lead up to 10, the Mavericks cut it to 43-42 about five minutes into the quarter. It quickly got out of hand, as the Timberwolves made 22 of their next 30 shots (which stretched into the third quarter), going into halftime with a 67-52 lead.
The onslaught continued into the third quarter, as the Timberwolves built the lead as high as 36 points, and they’d head into the fourth with a 103-69 lead.
Eventually, the Timberwolves would go on to win, 133-94, pushing the Mavericks down to 7-5 on the season. Here are three overreactions to this horrific loss.
Everyone Was Bad
Any time you lose by 39, there will rarely be a positive to take away from it. Cooper Flagg wasn’t very aggressive, Kyrie Irving struggled against Minnesota’s length (was a -36), Walter Clayton Jr. was turning it over and shooting poorly, and Santi Aldama couldn’t space the floor enough to keep Rudy Gobert honest.
Morez Johnson Jr. had as many turnovers as he did rebounds, Daniel Gafford was quickly played off the floor, P.J. Washington was fouling a lot… Need me to keep going?
This was a classic burn the tape kind of game.
Caleb Martin Is Useful
The only positive I could find from squinting was that Caleb Martin is at least a useful role player. He’s done a great job keeping the ball moving, finding the open man, and he hit a few tough shots early that kept the Mavs in it.
They’re probably overextending his usefulness by having him in the starting lineup, but Martin is at least a capable player. That’s a lot more than we could say a year ago. They could possibly even throw him in a trade offer and not immediately be laughed at.
I Might Be Over Naji Marshall
Naji Marshall had a good game against the San Antonio Spurs last week, but it has mostly been a struggle for him this season. He had 13 points and 4 assists in this game, but he shot 4/10 from the field, 1/4 from three, and turned the ball over twice. It also just felt like the offense stopped completely when he was in.
In theory, Marshall has a lot of valuable traits, but I’m not sure that he fits with this version of the Mavericks. Because they extended him, though, it would be awfully hard to trade him this year. Teams won’t be lining up to pay him more than $51 million over the next three seasons.
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