‘Good Rebounding, Not Great’: Santi Aldama Out To Prove Dusty May Wrong As Dallas Mavericks Grab 21 Offensive Rebounds Against Utah Jazz

DALLAS — The Dallas Mavericks grabbed 21 offensive rebounds Friday night and turned them into 20 second-chance points. The Utah Jazz had 8 offensive rebounds and 5 second-chance points, and Dallas won 112-100 at American Airlines Center.

Dallas outrebounded Utah 55-41 and outscored the Jazz 48-36 in the paint. Morez Johnson Jr. had 10 of the offensive rebounds and finished with 17 total. Santi Aldama grabbed 4 in his Dallas debut, 3 of them in the second quarter.

Mavericks coach Dusty May has told Aldama he is a good rebounder, not a great one, according to Aldama.

“Dusty was saying I wasn’t that good. He was, ‘You’re good rebounding, not great.’ So, kind of talking some,” Aldama said. “But so I’m trying to prove him wrong every night, not just one night, every night. So, yeah, like I said, I just, wanting to play hard and get a win, and sometimes you crash and you don’t get the board.”

“So it’s not a, oh, you grab more or less rebounds. It’s just about crashing every time and getting more possessions,” Aldama continued. “And the more shots we take, the better chance we have at winning.”

Santi Aldama, Morez Johnson Jr. Crash The Glass

According to play-type tracking data, Dallas turned 10 putback possessions into 10 points and reset its offense after 11 other offensive rebounds. The Mavericks scored 1.000 point per possession after offensive rebounds, and Utah scored 0.400.

Johnson had 5 offensive rebounds in the first quarter alone, including a tip-in with 3:51 left. Aldama’s first points as a Maverick came on a tip-in of a missed Walter Clayton Jr. 3-pointer with 7:29 left in the second quarter. Johnson followed an Aldama miss with another tip-in a minute later.

Midway through his answer about Johnson, Cooper Flagg checked how many offensive rebounds Johnson had. It was 10.

“I thought Rez was amazing,” Flagg said. “But I think just his effort crashing every single time … He was playing both sides of the ball at a really high level, so I think when he’s in that mode, it’s gonna make us a lot better.”

Johnson, Aldama, and P.J. Washington shared the floor for the first 3:06 after Aldama checked in during the second quarter, and Dallas outscored Utah 9-5 over that stretch. Utah’s guards get confused against that kind of group, Johnson said.

“I think we definitely win the rebounding battle. I think the guards, they get confused. They want to switch all, and we have mismatches down low,” Johnson said. “Yeah, I think that’s a very versatile group.”

Dusty May Says Effort Plays Kept The Dallas Mavericks Close

Utah shot 53.5% from the field in the first half and led by as many as 8. Dallas had 12 offensive rebounds and 12 second-chance points before halftime, and the game was tied 57-57 at the break.

Utah had Dallas bogged down early, May said, by limiting passes and assists and getting the Mavericks into one-on-one battles.

“The effort plays, the second shots, those allowed us just to hang around, and we didn’t have to dig ourselves out of a hole in the second half because Utah was playing well in the first half,” May said. “They were making shots. They found some holes in our defense. They had us bogged down. It’s what they do. They limit passes. They limit assists, and they get you into this one-on-one battle. And they’re quick and fast, and they’re good individual defenders.”

“So we didn’t adjust to the game very well early, but because of the effort plays, we were able to hang around, and in the second half, just on our intensity level, our on-ball pressure, and we were able to wear them down, especially with our bench,” May continued. “I thought our bench was awesome tonight, and each night it’d be a little bit different. But the group that played majority of the minutes really had a major impact.”

May said Johnson was out-hustling everyone on the court on multiple possessions. Johnson, who entered Friday averaging 3.1 rebounds, played 23 minutes, 48 seconds off the bench and finished plus-20.

The win snapped a two-game losing streak and moved Dallas to 5-4. The Mavericks host the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday at American Airlines Center, with tip-off set for 6:30 p.m. CT.