only to get utterly abused by Detroit\u2019s Jalen Duren<\/a>, Dereck Lively and Anthony Davis play a role here, but this team is full of guys who have rarely been able to string together long healthy stretches. Lively (knee), Davis (calf) and Dante Exum (knee) have once again been ruled out for Monday\u2019s game.<\/p>\nThe expectation that a roster full of tall, tall trees would automatically translate to great defense, which was one of the preferred talking points of the coaching staff and front office in the preseason, should have been tempered by that fact. It was staring us all in the face the whole time.<\/p>\n
At this point, Dallas ranks 29th in the league in opponent paint points per game (58.0) and surrenders a league-worst 21.8 points per game in transition. Only the Chicago Bulls (58.4) are worse at defending the paint right now. That\u2019s, uhhh, not good, no matter how many minutes Dwight Powell is being forced to play due to injuries.<\/p>\n
The Rockets come into Monday\u2019s game in the middle of the NBA pack in both of those corresponding offensive categories. Houston is 13th in fast-break points (15.8) per game and 17th in paint points (49.6) per game. They lead the league in team 3-point shooting, at a scorching 45.4% to start the year.<\/p>\n
Cooper Flagg is a shoo-in for Rookie of the Year<\/p>\n
What I\u2019ve left unsaid in the phrasing of this section of my little post here is that Cooper Flagg\u2019s development should be priorities one, two and three for this team. There is an expectation among parts of the Mavs fan base that says this team is in win-now mode \u2014 that the two-timeline tightrope is something the Nico-Harrison-led front office has the ability to tread. Strike this from your minds, my blue-and-green-clad brethren. Life is pain in 2025-26.<\/p>\n
Which brings me to my greater point here. Flagg is not giving Rookie-of-the-Year in the first six games of his professional career. And that\u2019s okay right now. Flagg is averaging 13.8 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3.0 assists through his first six games.<\/p>\n
Those glaring deficiencies you\u2019re seeing? I\u2019d argue those are more the product of what\u2019s around him than anything wrong with him, or that we were all wrong about going into this year. His weaknesses \u2014 as an 18-year-old playing on a court with men 10 years\u2019 experience and 30 pounds worth of advantage against him \u2014 are on full display as he tries to get acclimated to a position he\u2019s never played before with little to no help around him on the perimeter.<\/p>\n
In the absence of a floor general or dependable shooters along the perimeter, Flagg has been called upon to run the show, and, make no mistake, putting the ball in Flagg\u2019s hands in his rookie season is a good thing. Allowing him to make mistakes and learn from them is a good thing. It\u2019s just not always going to be pretty. The ugly bits are going to end up being the best bits for Flagg\u2019s progression and development as a player.<\/p>\n
To add some perspective, Philadelphia 76ers\u2019 rookie VJ Edgecombe has set the NBA on fire to start his rookie season, averaging 21.2 points, 5.6 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game through five games. The Memphis Grizzlies\u2019 Cedric Coward has also impressed to the tune of 14.8 points and 4.8 rebounds per game to start his rookie campaign.<\/p>\n
Size is a nightly advantage<\/p>\n
First of all, injuries are already busy negating the size advantage the Mavs expected to wield this season. Gafford missed the first five games of the season with a bum ankle after stepping on Davis\u2019 foot on the first day of Mavericks training camp in Vancouver, BC, on Sept. 30. Lively and Street Clothes himself went down soon afterward. Let\u2019s disabuse ourselves of the notion that this roster was built with the purpose of \u201csize\u201d behind it. It was built by fools with a horde of chump fans parroting the party line of excitement behind them.<\/p>\n
Second of all, if the bigs you\u2019re building around can\u2019t shoot, they\u2019re basically rendered useless in the position-less, modern NBA, anyway. It\u2019s no longer out of bounds to build a starting roster featuring two bigs \u2014 that seems to have come back into fashion a little bit in the NBA. But at least one of them has to be able to shoot it. And there\u2019s a difference between thinking you can shoot it and actually being able to shoot it. Looking at you, Anthony Davis.<\/p>\n
The Rockets feature a big man in their starting five who appears to have vastly improved his shooting touch this year. Alperen Sengun has made nine of his first 17 3-point attempts on the year through Houston\u2019s first five games. There is a decent chance he will soon revert toward the mean, but if he\u2019s able to even remotely sustain that kind of shooting, the Mavs are cooked on Monday and the Association is on notice.<\/p>\n
Jason Kidd will make any singular, solitary move that makes even a lick of sense<\/p>\n
Why is D\u2019Angelo Russell not starting or shouldering more of the ball-handling and playmaking responsibility on this team? What was he brought in to do exactly, if not give the Mavericks some semblance of stability in the backcourt?<\/p>\n
Why did Mavs head coach Jason Kidd seem to want to depend on Jaden Hardy over Russell in crunch time against the defending NBA champion Thunder last week? Why does Kidd, a former point guard himself (and a great one!), seem to refuse to acknowledge that his former position is the most important one on the floor?<\/p>\n
Why was it such a foregone conclusion to sign Kidd to his most recent contract extension? Why are you the way that you are, Mavericks?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time to stop holding our collective breath waiting for Kidd & Co. to make the right decisions at the right moments. We\u2019ve been through this for five years now. Making it make sense is off the table.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s firmly on the table is the distinct possibility that the Rockets will blow the Mavs out of Lake Houston on Monday, when the two teams square off at 7 p.m. CDT. The game will be televised locally on KFAA Channel 29 and regionally on MavsTV affiliate stations. It will also be streamed on MavsTV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just six games into the 2025-26 season, it\u2019s time for fans of the Dallas Mavericks (2-4) to adjust…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":352342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[4345,85576,43837,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-352341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-houston","9":"tag-mavericks-game-coverage","10":"tag-mavericks-game-previews","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115485204097258414","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}