CLEVELAND — Tyrese Proctor posted a triple-double with career highs of 24 points and 10 assists, and rookie Meleek Thomas scored a career-high 20 as the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Dallas Mavericks 127-117 on Saturday night at Rocket Arena.
Proctor added 11 rebounds, tying his career high, on 10-of-19 shooting. He had four more assists than any other player in the game. Thomas shot 8-of-17, made 3 of his 9 3-point attempts, and scored 9 of his points in the first quarter on three 3-pointers.
Both guards started with Cleveland resting Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, James Harden, and Jarrett Allen. Proctor was the 49th overall pick in 2025 after three seasons at Duke. Thomas came out of Arkansas and was the 34th pick in June’s draft, and Cleveland acquired him from Sacramento in a June 24 trade.
Kyrie Irving On His ‘Aussie Brother’
Kyrie Irving, who scored 34 points for Dallas, shares two connections with Proctor. Both played at Duke, and both have Australian roots. Irving was born in Melbourne, and Proctor is from Sydney.
Irving said he has watched Proctor grow since Proctor was a young player.
“Ah, man, my Aussie brother, man,” Irving said. “It’s something about this Aussie man in the league, man. I’ll tell you, man. It’s something. I don’t know what’s going on in the water over there. Maybe Team Australia is coming up for gold in the next few years, but he’s, he played with a lot of confidence tonight, and he led their team.”
“It was great to, I don’t want to say be a part of out there, but just like when you’re seeing someone that you’ve watched grow from a young player, be in college for as long as he was, didn’t anticipate him being in college that long,” Irving continued. “Being a Duke Blue Devil as well, and having that connection, just seeing him mature, and also playing behind great players, that sometimes get a little difficult. So tonight, he definitely has something to prove, and he went out and did it, and we didn’t shut off his water quick enough.”
Proctor made consecutive 3-pointers 31 seconds apart early in the fourth quarter. The second gave Cleveland a 113-91 lead with 10:27 left, its largest of the night. His 30-footer with 1.5 seconds left in the first half made it 71-53.
Mavericks coach Dusty May said he had studied Proctor on film before the game and that the guard keeps improving.
“I’ve been impressed on film,” May said. “I was actually talking about him earlier on the bus ride over today. He’s really improved. Seems like he gets better. He’s playing with a high level of confidence, and then these guys with speed, size, and shooting ability, they’ve been able to line us up and play really, really good one-on-one basketball.”
Irving Has A Message For Meleek Thomas
Irving and Thomas shared a moment on the floor Saturday. Laughter broke out in the room when a reporter used the word “sweet” to describe it, and Irving pushed back.
“Two men can say sweet things to each other, man,” Irving said. “Like, chill out, man. I appreciate that.”
Irving has followed Thomas since high school. He said he disagreed with where Thomas was drafted and that the rookie is earning his minutes in Cleveland.
“It wasn’t so much a sweet message that I told him, but it was more or less of a motivation, motivational message that I shared with him,” Irving explained. “I’ve been a supporter of Leek since he was in high school when he was in Overtime, and I don’t tweet it out or anything like that. But somebody asked me, what do you think about Leek? I was like, yes, that’s a person you got to look out for.”
“Obviously, getting drafted where he did, I didn’t necessarily agree with it, but he ended up in a great situation, and he’s earning his minutes,” Irving continued. “And I know that starts in practice, that starts in training camp. So I just told him to keep going. And honestly, he’s earning the respect of veterans in this league, just how hard he plays and how much he attacks and, when you see a young player going through some of their own trials, you just know that he has a great ceiling in front of him.”
Thomas’ first-quarter 3-pointer with 19.2 seconds left tied the game 33-33. He added a fadeaway and a floater during the 28-9 run that closed the first half.
Cleveland improved to 7-7, and Dallas fell to 7-6. The Mavericks play the Boston Celtics on Sunday at 5 p.m. CT at TD Garden.
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