The Dallas Mavericks (5-14) missed an opportunity on Monday when their comeback attempt came up just short against the Miami Heat (12-6), 106-102, at Kaseya Center. P.J. Washington led all scorers with 27 points and pulled down eight rebounds in the loss, while Tyler Herro led the Heat with 24 points and seven boards in his first game of the season after off-season ankle surgery.
The Mavericks came into the game at fifth in the NBA in pace (102.9 possessions per game), and the Heat came into the game in first (106.4), but the potential track meet devolved into a rock fight early on as both teams combined to start the game 0-of-10 from the field. Miami connected on its first field goal five minutes into the first, after missing eight in a row, when Davion Mitchell hit a floater in the lane to cut the Mavs’ lead to two and make it a 7-5 ballgame. The viewing audience continued to twiddle thumbs through most of the first quarter.
Dallas turned the ball over five times in the game’s first six minutes, giving the Heat their first opportunities to sprint out in transition. Cooper Flagg and Cormac Karl “Max” Christie had two early turnovers apiece to help Miami’s struggling shooters find their rhythm in the open floor. Kel’el (not Kal-El) Ware hit Miami’s first 3-pointer of the game eight minutes into the first quarter to give the Heat a 14-10 lead. Jaime Jaquez Jr. hooked home his first shot attempt two possessions later, forcing Mavericks’ head coach Jason Kidd into the team’s first timeout, trailing 18-10.
Washington and Brandon Williams steadied the ship for the Mavs to start the second quarter by getting to the bucket instead of settling for the jumpers that weren’t falling early on. But as soon as the Mavericks started to settle from the perimeter, Miami shot back in front. Bam Adebayo posted Washington up for a fading bucket with 8:35 left in the first half that gave the Heat back the lead at 30-29 and forced Kidd to take a second timeout. Later in the second, Ware hit his second 3-ball to give the Heat a 35-32 led, then scored on a 3-point play inside the next time down to extend Miami’s lead to six, up 38-32. He led all scorers with 15 points and pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds in the first half, aided by Daniel Gafford’s absence on the floor after he picked up his third foul early in the second quarter.
Miami took a 52-44 lead into halftime, and the start of the third quarter was delayed due to a problem with one of the Kaseya Center rims, which required a leveling adjustment. Once things got started, Adebayo and Cooper Flagg exchanged buckets inside before Herro nailed a long, fading jumper to give the Heat their largest lead of the game, 56-46. The Mavs kept the game close with some timely shooting from Christie and Washington, who both knocked down rhythm 3-pointers after the Mavs shot just 5-of-21 from distance in the first half. Meanwhile, Miami made just three of the Heat’s first 19 3-point attempts to prevent them from getting too far out in front. Ware hit his third of the game from the right corner to put the Heat in front 70-61 with 6:29 left in the third.
Washington scored 10 points in the third to lead the Mavericks back from the brink of the blowout that was brewing. Miami’s continued ineptitude from beyond the arc didn’t hurt, either, as the Heat took an 80-72 into the fourth.
Klay Thompson nailed his third and fourth from deep to start the fourth to trim the Heat lead to 85-82 with 8:43 to play. Cooper Flagg took a long rebound down the floor in transition before finding Christie for a slam that made it 91-86, then Christie knocked down a corner 3-pointer with 6:46 left to bring the Mavs within two, down 91-89.
Washington’s third 3-pointer of the game came with five minutes to play on Ryan Nembhard’s seventh assist of the game and had the Mavericks within one, down just 95-94. The next time down, Daniel Gafford jammed one down Ware’s throat to tie the game at 96. All of a sudden, what had been a plodding, loathsome affair for three quarters came to life in Miami.
Flagg drove through the teeth of the Miami defense with 2:45 left in the game to pull the Mavs to within two, down 100-98, but Ware crushed home a vicious alley-oop slam from Mitchell on the other end to give the Heat some stretch-time breathing room.
With the Mavs trailing 102-100 and 1:15 left to play, Flagg took matters into his own hands once again, after a long night of being ignored on the offensive end. He drained a pair of free throws to tie the game with 1:05 left. But Washington threw an inbound pass right to Adebayo with 49 seconds left in the game, and Herro scored on a floater off the turnover to make Dallas pay.
Dallas began the game 3-of-14 from the field, fueling the Heat’s early 13-3 run to take control after their own sluggish start on offense. Miami attacked in waves, while Dallas sputtered throughout the first quarter. Jaquez especially seems to be thriving in his role off the bench in the revamped Miami offense, while nobody in particular seems to be responding well to the Mavericks’ newly installed Flow offense.
The Mavs had to kick it up a notch to come away from the first quarter shooting just 32% from the field. Despite it all, Washington canned his first 3-point attempt of the game at the first-quarter buzzer to bring Dallas back to within 20-19 at the end of one. Dallas came into the game 28th in first-quarter scoring this year, at 27.4 points per game. The Mavericks’ defense held Miami to its lowest scoring first quarter of the year on just 8-of-26 (30.8%) shooting to help offset their own offensive lethargy, but Dallas also turned the ball over seven times in the opening frame.
Cooper Flagg, the Mavericks’ best option on offense, shot the ball just twice in the first quarter.
Turnovers killed the Mavs’ momentum
The Mavs turned the ball over 11 times in the first half — a tale as old as the 2025-26 basketball season. Flagg, Williams and D’Angelo Russell, who came back on Monday after missing the team’s last two games with an illness, combined for seven of them.
After a slower-than-expected first quarter, the Heat started to run off the Mavericks’ turnovers in the second. Miami scored 11 points on the fast break in the second quarter and led the Mavs 15-4 in transition scoring at halftime. All of a sudden, the Heat were seeing the ball go in the basket, but the Mavericks were still stuck in the mud. Dallas shot just 10-of-28 (35.7%) in the second quarter and just 16-of-47 (34%) for the half.
The Mavs stemmed the tide of turnovers midway through the second quarter, but for much of the first half, their struggles were once again compounded by poor perimeter shooting. After a brief flurry where it looked like the Mavs may find their touch from the perimeter, Naji Marshall air-balled a 3-pointer midway through the third before Herro nailed a fadeaway jumper in the corner and drove to the hoop the next time down to extend Miami’s lead to 13, up 76-63.
Herro started his first game of the season, coming off ankle surgery this summer, by going 9-of-13 from the floor and grabbing three steals as the Heat finally started to build a lead late in the third. Herro’s teardrop in the lane with 5:50 left in the game gave the Heat a 93-89 lead after Dallas’ late run and put Herro at 20 points for the game.
He would end up hitting the eventual game-winner five minutes later off Washington’s errant pass on an inbound play.
Dallas shot 38-of-98 for the game (38%) and just 12-of-40 (30%) from 3-point land in the loss, and it took a hot-shooting fourth quarter to get to just south of respectable. Not to be outdone, the Heat went just 5-of-27 (18.5%) from deep in the win.
What got Miami over the very lumpy hump was their production in the paint. They outscored the Mavs 64-52 on the interior and neutralized the usually dependable Dallas bench with Jaquez & Co. to the tune of a 28-25 advantage from the Miami reserve unit.
