Dallas Kept Scoring, and Brooklyn’s Seven-Point Deficit Became 20

The second quarter began with Dallas holding a seven-point lead and ended with Brooklyn facing a 20-point hole. That change came less from one spectacular burst than from the Mavericks refusing to let their offense flatten out.

Dallas scored 33 points again, while Brooklyn slipped from 26 in the first quarter to 20 in the second, and the Mavericks beat the Nets 130-93 at American Airlines Center.

The opening quarter had left Brooklyn within striking distance at 33-26. A few clean possessions could have made the game uncomfortable for Dallas. Instead, the Mavericks opened the second by turning the same advantage into a moving target.

At 11:49, Cooper Flagg drove for a dunk, then completed the three-point play. Daniel Gafford followed with a layup and a free throw, then added a bank shot and another free throw at 10:13. Dallas had moved ahead 44-30 before the quarter was four minutes old.

Those were simple points in the best sense: drives, finishes and free throws that kept the Nets from settling into the game.

Brooklyn did not immediately disappear. The Nets scored on either side of that stretch, but their answers arrived too slowly and too sporadically. At 9:22, Flagg made a 25-foot step-back 3-pointer, making it 47-32.

At 9:01, he stole the ball from Danny Wolf. Zaccharie Risacher converted the ensuing opportunity with a running dunk at 8:58, and Dallas had turned one good sequence into a 17-point cushion.

That possession also captured the quarter’s larger shape. Dallas was not relying on one kind of basket or one scorer to carry the night. Flagg’s steal supplied a defensive play; Risacher’s dunk finished it. At 7:09, Flagg found Naji Marshall for a 23-foot running jumper that made the score 54-32. At 5:49, another Flagg pass led to Risacher’s running layup and a 56-35 lead.

Flagg’s contribution was substantial without being the entire explanation. He finished with 25 points and 12 assists, while Gafford scored 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting. Kyrie Irving added 21, and Dallas eventually got 58 points from its reserves. The offensive burden kept changing hands, which left Brooklyn with no single scoring exchange that could restore the game’s earlier balance.

Irving supplied the next notable response at 4:06, making a 15-foot step-back jumper for a 61-35 advantage. Then Santi Aldama closed the half’s scoring surge with two different finishes: a five-foot driving floater at 1:35 and a 23-foot 3-pointer with 1:04 left. The latter pushed Dallas to 66-42.

Brooklyn scored four more points before halftime, but the damage had been done: Dallas led 66-46 after two quarters.

The Nets had capable individual production. Michael Porter Jr. scored 19 points and made four 3-pointers, while Nolan Traore added 14. Brooklyn also finished with 17 total turnovers against Dallas’ 21, although Dallas’ figure included one team turnover and should not be presented as 21 mistakes forced by the Nets.

The more telling problem for Brooklyn was the gap in shot conversion. The Nets went 31 of 80 from the field and made 11 of 39 3-point attempts. Dallas shot 48 of 84 overall, or 57.1%, and made 14 3-pointers.

That shooting split explains why Brooklyn’s second-quarter slowdown mattered so much. Dallas did not need every possession to become a highlight. The Mavericks made 34 of their 49 two-point attempts and hit 14 threes.

They had more than one way to keep that second-quarter pace going. Brooklyn would have needed to make several more baskets just to stop the lead growing, and the rest of the game offered even less relief.

Dallas also controlled the rebounding total 46-30, though the detail is less one-sided than the final margin. Brooklyn collected 10 offensive rebounds, and Dallas had 12. The Mavericks did not erase every missed shot; they simply paired a few extra chances with far better shooting and 31 assists. That combination helped sustain the scoring when the game needed more than Flagg or Irving to create.

Dallas won the third quarter 34-25 and the fourth 30-22, expanding the margin to 37 by the finish. Those periods completed the rout, but the decisive separation arrived earlier. Brooklyn had a manageable deficit after one quarter. By halftime, Dallas had turned steady scoring into a game that required a comeback the Nets never had the offense to stage.

Sources

ESPN: final game record and play-by-play

Associated Press via ESPN: game reporting

Mavericks: regional broadcast footprint