The Dallas Mavericks, fresh off their third win of the season, head to Minnesota to face the Timberwolves on the second night of a back-to-back. Not only will it be their second game in two nights, this Dallas team has played three overtime periods over their last two games. They’d have every reason to come into tonight feeling a little flat, but maybe the sweet nectar of victory will provide the boost Dallas needs to be competitive against a Wolves team that scores 120 points a game.
Cooper Flagg has been looking better and better every game, and this will be his first look at Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels, who’ve led Minnesota to an 8-5 record so far this season.
Defending against variance
So far this season, Minnesota is shooting a hair over 39.1% from three, which is fourth-best in the league. With three-point shooting, man-on-man defense can only do so much. If a guy gets hot, there’s not much to be done. That’s not to say opposing shooters should just be left unguarded, but it is, after all, a make-or-miss league.
Dallas’s approach to defending the three-point shot has been to not allow opposing teams to take many. The 34.1 three-point attempts taken by Dallas’ opponents this season are the third-lowest, and they only shoot them at 33.7%, good for fourth-best. Its combination of youth and size has been helpful for Dallas in this regard. We’ll see if tired legs mean they can stick to running teams off the three-point line and preventing a hot shooting night for someone like Dante DiVicenzo, a volume three-point shooter who, on average, takes nearly eight threes per game.
Klay’s scorcher continues
Speaking of three-point shooting, Dallas’s lack of consistent shooting has been one of the main factors in their early offensive woes. However, after a bleak October, Klay Thompson seems to have found his shooting rhythm again. No small feat as he’s been asked to come off the bench, something he came to Dallas specifically to avoid in Golden State. Still, he’s playing well and at least from the outside, seems to have moved into the 6th man role with a veteran’s grace.
In Dallas’s last three games, Thompson has shot 6-of-16, 4-of-10, and 5-of-11. Great percentages on huge volume, and just the kind of scoring punch Dallas has been in desperate need of. As Flagg’s offense has been coming online, and guys like Naji Marshall and Brandon Williams take turns having big scoring nights, Thompson’s reliable shotmaking serves as a great backstop to Dallas’ shooting and spacing.
It seems strange for a team like the Mavericks who, if anything, came into this season flush in big bodies, to be struggling on the glass. Anthony Davis, of course, remains out, and being without Dereck Lively meant an overreliance on Daniel Gafford who, himself, wasn’t playing at 100% due to an ankle injury. Moussa Cisse has been about as good a player as you could reasonably expect, but that hasn’t prevented Dallas from giving up a third-worst 48.5 rebounds per game.
Part of that obviously stems from their poor shooting, but with Rudy Gobert and Julius Randle averaging 9.6 and 7.4 rebounds per game (Naz Reid and Anthony Edwards are also no slouches at bringing in rebounds), Dallas is going to have its work cut out for them if their shots aren’t falling. Lively is back on the floor and working through a minute restriction, but without Anthony Davis’s 10 rebounds per game, the Mavs biggest rebounder has been PJ Washington and Cooper Flagg. It’ll be a big test for Gafford and Lively to keep Gobert off the glass and facilitating easy second chance points for Minnesota.
The game will be on KFAA Channel 29, MavsTV streaming, NBA League Pass and start at 7:00 pm local.
