‘Earned More and More Trust’: Dusty May Sees Sergio de Larrea Emerging For Dallas Mavericks
DALLAS — Sergio de Larrea scored the first 21 points of his NBA career Saturday night. All of them came in the first three quarters of the Dallas Mavericks’ 122-106 loss to the San Antonio Spurs at American Airlines Center.
The rookie shot 9-of-15 from the field and 3-of-4 from three-point range and added 5 rebounds and 4 assists off the bench in 33:02. He had not scored in about 8 minutes across his first two NBA games, a 128-110 loss at the Houston Rockets on Wednesday and a 121-105 win at the Indiana Pacers on Friday. His 21 points led all reserves on either team.
Dallas played the second night of the back-to-back without Cooper Flagg, who has a left shoulder sprain, and Kyrie Irving, who sat for injury management. Only P.J. Washington played more minutes for the Mavericks than de Larrea.
It was de Larrea’s first time scoring like this, and his first two games went differently. His teammates look for him the same way he looks for them, and the crowd was excellent.
“It’s just to be prepared,” de Larrea said. “I think all of us are connected. We want the best for the team, and all of us are connected to do the best performance possible. Today it was me, probably, but other days are other guys, and that is, I think, is what made this team special. All of us, I think, can do great performances, but at the end, we are helping the team.”
De Larrea, a 20-year-old, 6-foot-5 guard from Valladolid, Spain, went 25th overall to the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2026 NBA Draft. His rights moved to the New York Knicks and then to Dallas, and he signed with the Mavericks on July 3. He averaged 9.7 points, 3.7 assists, and 3.0 rebounds for Valencia in 2025-26, won the Liga ACB’s Best Young Player award, and won the league title with Valencia in June. He was also MVP of the 2025 Spanish Supercup.
In four Summer League games, de Larrea averaged 8.0 points, 8.8 assists, and 4.8 rebounds while shooting 27.3% from the field. He set the franchise’s Summer League single-game assist record with 12 against the Memphis Grizzlies, then broke it with 14 against the Oklahoma City Thunder. In Dallas’ preseason opener against Houston in Macao, he had 11 points and 6 assists in 11 minutes.
Sergio de Larrea Fills Minutes Left By Cooper Flagg And Kyrie Irving
Mavericks coach Dusty May said before tip-off that he was very confident in the players Dallas had available. The Mavericks were not going into the game focused on who they did not have, he said, but on who was playing and how to help them.
“Some of the young guys will have more of an opportunity,” May said. “Obviously, Sergio and Moussa and those guys will play more minutes than they typically do. And those guys are good players that have earned the opportunity. So it’s more of excitement to go after San Antonio with some different guys.”
De Larrea checked in with 6:56 left in the first quarter and Dallas trailing 14-8. His first NBA basket was an 11-foot driving floater with 3:34 left in the quarter.
May said the possessions de Larrea spent against Stephon Castle are invaluable reps as the rookie gets stronger and his body adapts to the speed and athleticism of the NBA. He also said he wishes Dallas could avoid them a little more often.
“I thought he was great,” May said. “In hindsight, I wish we could have gotten him to a point where he could have gotten the catches and not had to initiate the offense and break Castle’s pressure. But I thought he was great. I mean, his defense is improving. I thought his on-ball defense got better. He was chasing down long rebounds. He came up with five rebounds, four assists.”
“Overall just a really, really good game by a young player against one of the best defensive backcourts, when you factor in Castle and Vassell and those guys,” May added. “They’re athletic, they’re strong, and they play hard.”
De Larrea shared the floor for stretches with Marcus Sasser and Walter Clayton Jr.. The three guards combined for 14 assists.
“That’s the best scenario for us, is to have multiple handlers and sub lineups,” May explained. “There’s give and take. You match size, you go small, and it seemed like tonight every time we tried to go small against the bigger lineups, they just countered and went small with us. But yeah, I mean, obviously this was a great opportunity for him. He didn’t get the same last night in Indiana for obvious reasons, with Coop and Kyrie getting those minutes.”
“But he’s certainly earned more and more trust, and he’s played like this pretty consistently,” May continued. “When you factor in summer league, the exhibition play, and in practice, he has a great mindset every day. So 33 minutes against a team like San Antonio, that’s a good night for [de Larrea].”
Daniel Gafford caught de Larrea’s lob for a go-ahead alley-oop dunk with 7:34 left in the second quarter. The bench knew it had a job to do Saturday, Gafford said, picking up where Irving and Flagg left off Friday.
“Just really his poise and him further understanding the game night in, night out,” Gafford said. “He hasn’t really had a good amount of minutes throughout just these first three games, but tonight I feel like he was ready for pretty much anything. And they kinda heated him up, they kinda showed him a little bit of pressure, but I feel like he responded the right way.”
De Larrea was the primary defender on possessions that produced 9 San Antonio points, all of them in the half court, according to tracking data reviewed by Dallas Sports Journal. Seven of those points came with Dallas in man defense and 2 came in zone. The Spurs scored on an unguarded catch-and-shoot three, two runners, and a layup against him, and 3 of the 9 points came on shots the data rated in the top 20% of shot quality. The only points charged to him in the opener at Houston came on a guarded catch-and-shoot three.
“Taking advantage of my size, I think I’m a player who can cover spaces, still polishing these moments, trying to be more effective in all facets of the game, especially in defense,” de Larrea explained in Spanish. “It’s something I’m working on every day, I’m putting all my trust in it. And little by little, every day, there will be a better version of that.”
De Larrea was a plus-8 through three quarters. He finished a minus-5 after San Antonio outscored Dallas 30-17 in the fourth quarter.
“Probably this is kind of so. I think for sure a lot of things to improve,” de Larrea said. “Just rotations on defense, be prepared. … I think I’m working every day for this moment. And I think today was a result of this work.”
de Larrea Hits Go-Ahead Floater In Third Quarter Before San Antonio Spurs Pull Away
De Larrea scored 11 points on 5-of-6 shooting in the second quarter on three floaters, a layup, and a pull-up three with 47.9 seconds left. Dallas led 51-45 with 5:23 left in the half before San Antonio closed on a 23-9 run to lead 68-60 at the break.
San Antonio stretched its lead to 77-63 with 8:17 left in the third quarter. De Larrea hit a transition three off a Sasser pass at 7:44 and a transition pull-up three at 4:37. His driving floater off another Sasser feed with 2:01 left gave Dallas an 85-84 lead, the finish of a 22-7 run. He scored 8 points on 3-of-5 shooting in the quarter.
Sasser assisted on 4 of de Larrea’s 9 field goals. Sasser finished with 12 points, 3 rebounds, and 5 assists and was a plus-1 in 26:41.
“I think we do a good [duo],” de Larrea said. “He can release the pressure. He can make a lot of baskets. He’s spreading the court. He can [shoot]. He’s making [the three]. So for me, it’s very good to have this kind of teammates, to pass to them and be sure that they are making the shots.”
De Larrea’s 4 assists included a pass to Morez Johnson Jr. for a cutting dunk 18 seconds into the second quarter. Johnson Jr., the ninth overall pick in the same 2026 draft, played 12:03 under a minutes restriction.
“I think it’s a pleasure to play with him,” de Larrea said. “He’s a guy who lives 100% every day in the court. And he’s bringing energy, so this energy is like, for me, it’s very important that he’s bringing all this energy to the team, and to have him in the team is great.”
“He’s doing all the work. Probably he doesn’t look like he’s in the stats, but it’s amazing to play with him, and I’m very happy to have him also,” de Larrea added. “We’re building outside-the-court chemistry, so he’s a good teammate.”
De Larrea went 0-of-2 with a turnover in 10:19 of the fourth quarter, when San Antonio outscored Dallas 30-17. Victor Wembanyama blocked his three-point attempt with 4:10 left, after also blocking a de Larrea layup in the second quarter.
“I think we had a clear idea of what scouting was about him. I think we played well against him. Maybe the first [half] was better, we had a better start,” de Larrea said in Spanish. “In the end, he’s a player who’s very big and has a lot of skills. We have tried to minimize it as much as possible. In the attack, we are trying to find his weaknesses, which are few, to try to be the most effective in those weaknesses that he has.”
De Larrea committed 4 turnovers, 3 of them after halftime. San Antonio scored 26 points off 21 Dallas turnovers.
“I think it was a good experience, despite the result,” de Larrea said. “I think we could have polished some things and been more in the game in the last five minutes. But above all, what I learned is the, how to manage the minutes, how to manage the opponents, maybe know the players better, shooters, non-scorers, to make better rotations.”
“And then in the attack, I think that at certain moments we have been very good, in other moments perhaps a bit unwell,” de Larrea noted. “So that’s what you have to learn and improve and get better every day.”
De Larrea scored 10 of his 21 points on runners, 9 on threes, and 2 on a layup, according to the same tracking data. Six came in transition and 15 in the half court, all of them against man defense. One of his threes came off a catch, and the other two came off the dribble.
“We were just making plays and making guys make decisions,” Gafford explained. “Set screen, holding them. Wemby and Luke, they were playing in kind of a drop. So we were trying to make sure our guards got downhill. Just had to make the bigs make a decision. We were just trying to finish around the basket too.”
Dallas got a little stagnant in the second half, and May credited that as much to San Antonio as to his own team. The Mavericks scored 46 points in the paint in the first half and 16 after halftime.
“We were hitting very difficult shots, and that’s what they force you to hit,” May said. “And we have guys that can make them. Naji, [de Larrea], those guys have the floaters with their face guard [on] your shooters. I thought we did a nice job of hitting a few mid-ranges and floaters, which kind of loosened them up a little bit.”
The data rated 15 of his points as coming on medium-quality shots, 4 on low-quality shots, and 2 on a high-quality look. His 4 assists went to Naji Marshall, Johnson Jr., Gafford, and Tobi Lawal.
“I don’t know, probably watching some guys on TV when I was young, even right now,” de Larrea said. “I think I grew up learning about Ricky Rubio, Sergio Rodríguez, Calderón, these Spanish point guards, and I looked a lot when I was young. And probably this watching film of them that brings me to these places.”
Dallas (1-2) visits the Miami Heat on Monday at Kaseya Center, with tip-off set for 6:30 p.m. CT on NBA TV.
