‘I Think We Needed It’: What The Dallas Mavericks Learned From Their 38-12 Second Quarter In Houston
HOUSTON — The Dallas Mavericks scored on 6 of their 30 possessions in the second quarter Wednesday night, according to play-type data reviewed by Dallas Sports Journal. The Houston Rockets scored on 18 of theirs, won the period 38-12, and went into halftime ahead 70-38.
Houston won the season opener 128-110 at Toyota Center. The Rockets led by 6 after the first quarter and by as many as 37 in the third.
In the second quarter, Dallas went 4-of-19 from the field, 0-of-14 from 3-point range, and 4-of-6 at the free-throw line. The Mavericks committed 8 turnovers, and Houston scored 11 points off them. The Rockets shot 13-of-19, went 9-of-13 at the line, and had 9 assists to Dallas’ 2.
Mavericks coach Dusty May saw Dallas compete in the other three quarters. A couple of breaks went against the Mavericks, he said, and they lost their composure.
“Well, we were pleased with our first quarter performance with the way we played,” May said. “We felt like we had a couple breaks not going in our favor and we just didn’t hold our composure. And we let go of the rope as a group. But overall, I thought we played and competed three out of four quarters. Just the second one, we just couldn’t figure out a way to right the ship.”
Houston Rockets Open The Second Quarter With Two Fast-Break Baskets
Dallas started the period with Cooper Flagg, Kyrie Irving, Max Christie, Zaccharie Risacher, and Daniel Gafford on the floor. Houston opened with Bogdan Bogdanović, Jabari Smith Jr., Amen Thompson, Clint Capela, and Reed Sheppard.
On the first possession, Sheppard stole a Christie pass, and Smith finished a fast-break layup 4 seconds later. After Flagg missed a 3-pointer on the next trip, Thompson threw down an alley-oop from Smith on the break with 11:21 left, making it 36-26.
Flagg made 2 free throws with 10:49 left to cut it to 36-28. Smith’s turnaround fadeaway with 10:05 left followed a Gafford turnover and gave Houston its first double-digit lead, 38-28, and Flagg answered with 2 more free throws.
The Rockets pushed the ball 9 times in the second quarter, 4 of them off Dallas turnovers, according to the play-type data. Houston had 7 transition possessions in the period and outscored Dallas 9-0 in fast-break points.
Dallas let its offense determine its defense, in the view of Marcus Sasser, who checked in for Irving with 10:21 left and did not attempt a shot in 5:25 of the quarter.
“Feel like we just let go of the rope a little bit and let our offense kind of determine our defense,” Sasser said. “Missed a good amount of shots and led to them getting easy buckets.”
Transition defense was one of Dallas’ training camp priorities, May said. The Mavericks thought they had made strides before Wednesday.
“First and foremost, the communication, half court and full court. We’ve spent a lot of time. That was one of our priorities in training camp was to fix the transition defense,” May explained. “We thought we had made strides, and tonight when things weren’t going well, we just, we let go of our principles, we lost our urgency.”
“And that was ultimately when the game got away from us when they were just, we had three or four guys back and we were assuming one guy was gonna match up with Jabari or whoever,” May continued. “To be honest, they did a better job.”
Dallas Mavericks Miss All 14 Of Their 3-Point Attempts
Christie and Naji Marshall each went 0-of-3 from 3-point range in the quarter. Flagg, Irving, and P.J. Washington each missed 2, and Risacher and Sergio de Larrea each missed 1.
Dallas had 9 catch-and-shoot jump shots in the period, 3 of them unguarded, according to the play-type data. The Mavericks ran 24 half-court possessions in the second quarter and scored on 5.
May wanted the Mavericks’ shooters taking many of those looks. Dallas sped up once Houston went on its run, he said, and took semi-open shots instead of making the Rockets work.
“A number of things. Obviously, it’s a make or miss game,” May said. “I thought a lot of our looks were guys that we wanted the shots for. Once they went on a run, I thought we started playing a little too quickly and then shooting some shots, some semi-open shots instead of getting possession back, making them work a little bit, finding some connection.”
The Mavericks made 4 field goals in the quarter. Morez Johnson Jr. had 2 of them, an alley-oop dunk from Marshall and a turnaround jumper, and Marshall and Irving each hit a floater.
Houston sent two defenders at the ball on 9 of Dallas’ 11 pick-and-roll possessions in the period, according to the play-type data. Irving was surprised by the double teams off screens, he said, and wanted to attack them instead of playing timid.
“Easy fix? I mean, in theory, but it really comes down to effort. We can make a little bit of an excuse, but we just gotta take this one on the chin,” Irving said. “They put on their boxing gloves and then beat us up pretty good in that second quarter and we got off to a great start. Felt like we were within rhythm and then starting off that second quarter I gotta do a better job.”
“Leading us out and just not necessarily playing so timid and getting some shots up and aggressively attacking double teams,” Irving continued. “It surprised me a bit when they made some double teams at me coming off those screens, which, first game coming back, because I knew I was going to see some different looks and I just got to adjust moving forward.”
Dallas took 27 three-point attempts and 12 shots in the paint in the first half. Irving wants the Mavericks touching the paint against a switching team.
“And when you’re getting down 30 and you start looking at the scoreboard, instead of hitting little singles and doubles, just quick hitters, getting points on the board, slowing the game down, we settled for a lot of three-pointers. And coming into halftime, we can’t have more three-pointers than we have shot attempts at the rim,” Irving explained. “We gotta touch that paint, and a switching team like this is a great challenge.”
Rockets Score 14 Straight Points In 3:18
Bogdanović hit a pull-up bank shot and a 3-pointer during the middle stretch of the quarter. Smith added a 3-pointer with 7:04 left, and Marcus Smart hit another with 6:37 left. A Marshall floater from de Larrea cut the deficit to 51-36 with 6:17 left.
Dallas did not score again for 3:37. Smith opened the run with a driving dunk from Alperen Şengün, and Şengün followed with a 4-foot hook. After Fred VanVleet stole a Washington pass, Kevin Durant converted a three-point play on the break.
Smart hit a turnaround bank shot, and Thompson followed a VanVleet miss with a putback dunk with 3:42 left. Thompson then stole the ball from Flagg and made 2 free throws for a 65-36 lead. Irving’s driving floater with 2:40 left was Dallas’ first basket since the 6:17 mark.
Johnson was called for 3 fouls in the quarter and missed both of his free throws. He had 4 points and was minus-15 in 4:30.
Gafford blocked shots by Thompson and Şengün late in the half. Şengün scored Houston’s last 5 points, 3 on free throws and 2 on a turnaround fadeaway with 18.8 seconds left. Flagg missed a 26-foot pull-up and a 21-footer in the final 36 seconds.
Flagg was minus-21 in 9:08 of the quarter. Washington was minus-16, and Christie, Johnson, and Sasser were each minus-15. Smith scored 11 points for Houston in the period on 4-of-6 shooting.
Dallas was not organized and did not get back in transition, according to Flagg. The Mavericks got away from what they had done since training camp.
“I would say, got stagnant,” Flagg said. “They obviously went on a run and we just didn’t have any answers. We weren’t organized. We weren’t getting back in transition. We just got out of the norm for us and what we’ve been doing since training camp started, it showed. People were doing things that they don’t normally do and it really showed.”
Irving would not put the quarter on one player, himself included.
“There was just the effort just horrendous man. Be honest with you,” Irving noted. “I don’t want to use a graphic word like to just negatively put it on just one person or even just myself, it was a total team effort. We were just horrendous defensively. When you score 12 points in an NBA game, give up 38, a few fast break points and turnovers, it’s just going to work like that. It was rough to go through, but I think we needed it. It was necessary just for us to grow as a group, just develop this chemistry that we need moving forward in order to win basketball games.”
Mavericks On A Second-Quarter Pattern From The Preseason
Second quarters have been a problem throughout the preseason, according to Flagg. Dallas keeps coming out in the third quarter and digging out of a hole.
“I mean, it’s difficult. I mean, down, what, 32 at halftime, 34? It’s not ideal. It’s not where you want to be,” Flagg said. “And honestly, that’s been the thing for us is second quarter. It’s like all preseason, it’s been bad second quarter going into the half, kind of come out in the third quarter and dig ourselves out of a hole. So we gotta find ways to combat that and have better second quarters and leave off on a good foot going into that.”
Dallas went 1-3 in the preseason. On Oct. 16 against the Atlanta Hawks, the Mavericks trailed 73-54 at halftime and lost 135-111.
The trend frustrates Flagg, who wants Dallas fresh and at its standard for the whole first half.
“It definitely is. We gotta find ways to keep our level up all the way through the first half into the second half and not … go into halftime and have these conversations every time,” Flagg explained. “We gotta come out with some fire and we gotta pick up our level. So we gotta find ways to have our level high at all times and be able to be fresh at all times, have guys coming in fresh, holding our level to what we hold our standard to. So I think that’s a big part of it, it’s definitely frustrating.”
Practice has been good, Flagg said, and the communication has died down in games. Nobody was communicating on defense Wednesday to get everybody on the same page.
“Up to this point, I think in practice it’s been good and it’s died down in the games. And we gotta find guys, myself included, that are gonna pick up our level of communication, be leaders out there and I don’t think we really had that tonight,” Flagg continued. “We didn’t have anybody … defensively communicating, getting everybody on the same page and it really showed. The second quarter when we weren’t getting stops, we weren’t scoring on offense. So we got somebody to step up and be really vocal in those moments.”
Flagg went 0-of-3 from the field in the second quarter. He could have done a better job getting Dallas into its actions, he said, and it did not have to mean him shooting.
“I mean, it’s just flow of the game. I think I got to do a better job of, I think, in the second quarter, especially I could have done a better job of getting us set up and being vocal and being a leader and getting us set up into actions,” Flagg said. “It didn’t have to be me taking shots, but just getting us into the right actions. We missed a lot of easy shots too during that stretch. Like things were going well and we were missing a lot of easy ones that I think could go in on any given night as well.”
The first unit competed, according to May, and the second quarter was the difference. Dallas does not have the margin to give away loose balls, he said.
“I thought the first unit played well. I thought that the second quarter is what killed us, and even in that first unit, I thought we were competing. We were playing good basketball,” May said. “We just, we made some errors and mistakes. We dropped a couple loose basketballs and we just don’t have the margin. And we’ve got to get all those possessions.”
Dallas outscored Houston 72-58 in the second half. The Mavericks play at the Indiana Pacers on Friday at 6 p.m. CT, and May wants them to find the lowest-hanging fruit on film in the 48 hours before then.
“Learn from what we did well. I thought we made some strides in areas that we’ve struggled in, but just look at the film, figure out what’s the lowest hanging fruit, what can we fix in a 48-hour period so we’re not chasing every rabbit, but focus on a couple things and then just trust it a little bit more,” May said. “… These extra possessions, they steamroll on you, and so if we just clean up a few things, I think we’ll make a significant jump.”
