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Mavs Notebook: 4 Takeaways From Surprising Win Over Thunder
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- Mavs Notebook: 4 Takeaways From Surprising Win Over Thunder
(Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images)
DALLAS — The Dallas Mavericks won all four quarters Wednesday night at American Airlines Center and beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 120-96.
Oklahoma City had arrived unbeaten and left 4-1. Dallas is 3-2 and has won two straight, starting with a 113-109 win at the Miami Heat on Monday.
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A crowd of 18,111 watched the Mavericks lead for the final 36:55. The margin reached 27 points in the fourth quarter, and the Dallas bench outscored Oklahoma City's 43-19.
The Thunder played without six players: Chet Holmgren (right knee patellar tendinitis), Jalen Williams (left ankle fracture), Alex Caruso (right ankle sprain), Cason Wallace (left shoulder labral tear), Nikola Topić (low back surgery), and Thomas Sorber (right knee surgery). Dallas had five players inactive, including Dereck Lively II after right foot surgery and Naji Marshall with an illness.
My four-takeaways Mavs Notebook ...
1. Cooper Flagg Is Getting More Comfortable as a Playmaker
Cooper Flagg finished with 26 points, 5 rebounds, and 8 assists on 10-of-23 shooting and did not commit a turnover in 32:56. Every one of his points came in the first three quarters. He played 2:04 of the fourth.
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Two nights earlier, he had 11 assists in Miami . That gives him 19 across the two games.
In the first quarter alone, Flagg scored 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting. All three of his first-quarter assists went to 3-pointers, two by Kyrie Irving and one by Daniel Gafford.
Flagg said Dallas knew going in what Oklahoma City's defense would do, and his coaches and teammates put him in spots to capitalize early.
"I think it definitely helped getting those reps and stuff like that," Flagg said. "But I think it's something that just comes with getting more and more comfortable, trusting the guys, the guys trusting me more and more, and getting more of a feel for the game, and I'm drawing a lot of help."
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"So just making the right plays, finding the guys that are open out there, and trusting that they're gonna knock down their shots," Flagg continued. "Just keeping the defense honest, not letting them over help. Whenever I feel heavy pressure, you just gotta give it to the next man and let them make the right plays."
With 7:30 left in the third quarter, he threw an alley-oop to Gafford for a 78-63 lead. Later in the period, with 1:00 remaining, Flagg found Caleb Martin with a no-look pass for a 21-footer that made it 92-77.
2. Zaccharie Risacher's Two-Way Impact Stood Out
Hours before tip-off, Dallas exercised the fourth-year team option on Zaccharie Risacher's rookie contract. The option is worth $17,434,637 for 2027-28.
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The Mavericks acquired Risacher, the first overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, from the Atlanta Hawks on July 19 in a three-team trade that also included Oklahoma City.
Risacher feels he is in the right position in Dallas to be himself and succeed, individually and, more importantly, collectively.
"I heard that before the game," Risacher said. "My agent let me know, and I was super happy, super great news. I'm feeling grateful to be in this organization, this environment, with those people I'm talking about, like staff, front office, teammates. Everybody's been great, and everybody wants to win, and everybody does the right thing to make sure that we get in this position, like win games and competing."
"And I feel like as a young player, that's the best position I can get in, and I'm grateful to be able to be in that environment for like two years at least," Risacher added. "So I'm just super grateful."
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Off the bench, he scored 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting, including 2-of-3 from 3-point range, with 6 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, and 1 block in 28:51. He grabbed 4 of the rebounds on the offensive glass. Dallas was plus-16 with him on the floor.
Through his first four games with Dallas, Risacher had made 3 of 17 3-point attempts. Marcus Sasser assisted both of his makes Wednesday.
Risacher and Flagg entered the night with 16 combined steals and blocks apiece . Risacher now has 9 steals and 9 blocks through five games.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander went 2-of-10 from the field after halftime, much of it with Risacher guarding him. With 3:23 left in the third quarter, Risacher stole the ball from him. Ten seconds later, he blocked Gilgeous-Alexander's layup attempt on a fast break.
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Gilgeous-Alexander sat the entire fourth quarter. He finished with 21 points on 7-of-19 shooting, including 1-of-6 from 3-point range.
Whether Sasser's energy or Risacher's came first off the bench was something Mavericks coach Dusty May could not sort out afterward. Both of them were lighting a fire under Dallas.
"I thought tonight he played a masterpiece," May said. "The two threes he made, it's a prime example of the shot clock and then a step back left when there's no time to think. Whenever he can really get to the point where he's not thinking consciously on his jump shots, because he's a good shooter, he's a very good shooter, but he's impacting every single possession."
"The job he did on Shai in the second half, I've watched a lot of Shai film, and you don't see that very often, to beat him to spots, to get deflections, to challenge shots without foul[ing]," May continued. "[I thought] he was great."
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Knowing a teammate will cover for a mistake lets Risacher play more aggressively on defense.
"I like it, I like it," Risacher explained. "That's why I'm on the court, just being able to impact the game. And sometimes you're going to be guarding the best player on the court. So that's what I do, and I feel like that's just the mindset that I have every time I step on the court. I just want to be impactful, want to win the game. It's as simple as that."
"I like the challenge," Risacher detailed. "I like the challenge, and being able to compete and impact the game on defense like this has been great for me. And I feel like that's also how I feel the rhythm when I get to my game, because I know that when I'm focusing on those things, the rest of the flow, the rhythm, [will] take care of itself. That's what I do [out there]. And just being able to guard him was great."
Flagg has told Risacher he knows how good he is, and that nobody in the building cares where he was drafted.
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"He's brought a lot," Flagg explained. "It goes back to that competing. Obviously, I think he has a long way to go, and he has so much growth that he can show offensively with his shot making. He's super versatile, but I think he's great overall for us, to impact the game in so many different ways. That's why I tell him a lot of the time, I think we're 15 to 20 points better with him just doing little things, and the shots will fall and all of that. I don't even care about it."
"But when he just goes out there and competes at the highest level and how he can, he makes it so much better just with his versatility all over the court when he's flying around," Flagg noted. "He's been huge for us so far, and we're needing to keep getting better and keep playing with the same fire."
3. Kyrie Irving's Return Changes Dallas' Offense
Wednesday was Irving's first home game of the season. He sat out Saturday's 122-106 home loss to the San Antonio Spurs for left knee injury management on the second night of a back-to-back. A minutes restriction remains in place after he tore the ACL in his left knee on March 3, 2025.
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He finished with 15 points, 4 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks on 6-of-14 shooting in 26:58. Dallas was plus-25 with him on the floor, the best mark on either team.
In the first quarter, Irving made all four of his shots, three of them from 3-point range, for 11 points. He went 0-of-5 from deep the rest of the night.
Flagg also missed the Spurs game. He sprained his left shoulder the night before against the Indiana Pacers , which made Wednesday his first home game of the season as well.
When the franchise players are that unselfish, May said, it is very difficult for everyone else not to fall in line.
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"The beautiful part is he's still just getting his rhythm back," May explained. "You see some things out there, like he's managing the game for us. When he's on the floor, we're really, really good. He's getting so much attention as well. The way he trusts his teammates, I think [the] majority of Caleb's shots were Kyrie generating or drawing two and getting off the ball."
"And that's a real staple of our team, of just making the right plays," May added. "So obviously you guys know how I feel about Kyrie."
Martin made his season debut after missing the first four games with a right thumb sprain. He scored 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting, including 2-of-4 from 3-point range, in 13:49. Dallas was plus-8 in his minutes.
Irving assisted the last of Martin's baskets, a 3-pointer with 7:31 left that made it 108-89.
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4. Ball Security and Rebounding Set the Tone
Dallas committed 11 turnovers, two of them team shot-clock violations in the final minute. Against San Antonio, the Mavericks turned it over 21 times.
Oklahoma City committed 14 turnovers, and Dallas scored 16 points off them. The Mavericks finished with 17 fast-break points. The Thunder had none.
The Thunder went 5-of-32 from 3-point range, including 2-of-16 after halftime. Entering Wednesday, they had been allowing a league-low 100.8 points per game.
Dallas grabbed 15 offensive rebounds to Oklahoma City's 12 and outscored the Thunder 18-7 on second-chance points. Gafford had 6 of those offensive rebounds and finished with 7 points, 11 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 blocks.
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Gafford's 3-pointer off a Flagg pass with 8:29 left in the first quarter was the first of his career. It came on his second career attempt, in his 438th regular-season game.
P.J. Washington added 18 points and 9 rebounds on 7-of-16 shooting. After Ajay Mitchell's free throws cut it to 108-93 with 6:45 left, Dallas scored the next 12 points, and Washington had 7 of them. Mitchell led Oklahoma City with 29 points.
May's opening remarks placed the win against an organization that has become a standard, and he said Dallas is developing winning habits along the way.
"It's a blur," May said. "We've obviously improved. I don't have to get ahead of myself. This was a depleted Oklahoma City team. There's steps that teams have to go through to learn how to win and be confident they're going to win. And we're still learning a lot about ourselves."
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"I'm still making mistakes. Players are still making mistakes. So we still have a lot to clean up," May noted. "But if we do value the ball and we compete like we're competing, we're going to be in the games."
Dallas hosts the Houston Rockets on Friday at American Airlines Center, with tip-off at 7 p.m. CT. Houston won the season opener between the teams, 128-110, on Oct. 21.
