Dallas was within one at 49-48, and the game briefly looked as if the Mavericks had repaired the damage themselves. San Antonio then answered with a 19-3 burst, restoring control before halftime and turning a promising recovery into the hole Dallas would spend the rest of the night trying to escape.
The Spurs eventually held on for a 112-111 victory Wednesday at Frost Bank Center. Dallas fell to 4-4, while San Antonio moved to 6-2. The one-point finish made the game feel available until the final possession, but the more important missed opportunity arrived much earlier: Dallas had already gotten close once and failed to keep the pressure on.
San Antonio led 48-36 in the second quarter when Dallas began its first climb. The Mavericks cut the margin to 49-48 on a 12-1 stretch, capped by Daniel Gafford’s cutting dunk from Naji Marshall 5:03 before halftime. That sequence did not erase the Spurs’ advantage, but it put Dallas in position to make the game ordinary again.
Instead, San Antonio finished the half by scoring 19 of the next 22 points. The Spurs went into halftime ahead 68-51, and the shape of the game changed from a competitive possession battle into another Dallas recovery project. A team can survive one bad stretch. It becomes much harder when the first successful response is followed by an even larger retreat.
Victor Wembanyama was at the center of that retreat. He had 29 points and 15 rebounds before the break, converted all 15 of his first-half free throws and blocked Cooper Flagg, P.J. Washington and Gafford during one second-quarter possession. Dallas had found a route back into the game, but the route toward the rim kept ending with San Antonio’s best defender making the final decision.
The foul-line imbalance magnified the damage. San Antonio went 25-for-27 on free throws before halftime; Dallas made five of eight. Those made free throws kept adding to the Dallas deficit. Dallas did not lose because of one officiating sequence—the number alone cannot establish bad calls—but it did spend the second half paying for those early possessions.
To the Mavericks’ credit, they made the correction on the scoreboard. They won the second half 60-44 and entered the fourth quarter trailing 90-80. Marshall became the main accelerant, scoring 13 in the final period. His three-pointer at 9:46 cut the deficit to 94-87, another at 8:17 made it 92-94, and his pull-up at 7:03 brought Dallas within two.
Other players supplied the connective work. Flagg’s dunk and free throw at 6:05 tied the game at 100-100. After Walter Clayton Jr. collected two offensive rebounds on the same Dallas possession, Washington hit a three at 5:38 to put the Mavericks ahead 103-100.
It was Dallas’ first lead since the opening quarter, a reward for a fourth-quarter push that had finally matched the urgency of the situation.
That lead lasted 18 seconds. Wembanyama made his only three-pointer at 5:20, tying the game at 103-103 even though he finished 1-for-8 from behind the arc. The missed threes were almost beside the point. He made 16 of 28 shots overall, scored 52 points, grabbed 24 rebounds and blocked eight shots. San Antonio’s perimeter shooting was poor, but its interior advantage remained enormous.
