The Passes Dallas Could Still Use Against Sacramento

Cooper Flagg sent the ball to Daniel Gafford early in the fourth, and Gafford finished a reverse layup. Sacramento still led by ten. The basket was a useful example of how the Mavericks could turn a pass into a close-range finish on Monday, even as a 115-100 loss took shape around them.

Dallas recorded 19 assists. That did not make its attack as productive as Sacramento’s, but it gave the Mavericks a workable way to use several players in an offense that had trouble making threes. The most useful passes brought the ball to a dependable finisher. Some went to shooters. The difference was how often those chances supplied enough points to keep up.

The Kings made 19 of 43 threes. Dallas made seven of 33. That 36-point difference from beyond the arc swallowed nearly every advantage the Mavericks built elsewhere.

Dallas made 29 of 35 free throws to Sacramento’s 10 of 15 and scored 40 points in the paint, two more than the Kings. Those were meaningful sources of offense, but Sacramento kept adding three-point damage from more than one place.

Marshall’s role made the Dallas approach easiest to see. He scored five points on 2-for-9 shooting and missed all four of his threes, yet finished with seven assists. His two connections with Sasser produced different jumpers, and his pass to Gafford produced a high-percentage finish.

The point was not that every possession looked alike. It was that the pass could still organize the possession even when the final shot changed.

Gafford was the most dependable beneficiary. He scored 20 points on 9-for-10 shooting, added seven rebounds and converted the and-one that gave Dallas its last lead. Morez Johnson Jr. supplied another efficient interior answer, making all five of his shots for 13 points. Dallas did not lack players capable of finishing a chance once the ball reached the right place.

Cooper Flagg supplied a second passing route. With 9:05 left in the fourth quarter, he assisted Gafford on a two-foot reverse layup, trimming Sacramento’s lead to 89-79. Later, Flagg found Johnson for a driving dunk that cut the deficit to 10.

Those were tangible points generated through connection rather than a difficult individual attempt. They also arrived while Sacramento was building a margin that required more than isolated successes to erase.

The Kings’ answer was broader. Sacramento finished with 25 assists to Dallas’ 19, a six-assist difference, and its threes came from several contributors. Malik Monk scored 24 points and made five threes while adding seven assists.

Zach LaVine scored 23 and also made five threes. Leaky Black made four from outside, and Emanuel Sharp went 3-for-3 from long distance. No single scorer had to carry the whole perimeter burden.

Dallas did produce one late counterpunch. Walter Clayton Jr. scored 20 points on 6-for-9 shooting, made four of five threes and helped cut a 94-79 deficit to 94-87 with two fourth-quarter threes. The second was assisted by Marshall, another example of Dallas creating a clean relationship between passer and finisher.

But a brief burst could not compensate for the larger shot-making gap, especially with Flagg finishing 3-for-19 from the field and 0-for-4 on threes. His 11-for-11 free-throw night kept his scoring respectable; it did not give Dallas the field-goal volume Sacramento enjoyed.

The Mavericks’ passing was therefore more than decorative and less than sufficient. Nineteen assists supported 32 made field goals, while Gafford, Johnson and Clayton showed that Dallas could turn varied chances into points. Sacramento’s 43 made field goals, including those 19 threes, gave it more ways to punish each empty Dallas stretch.

With 29.8 seconds remaining, Clayton passed to Tobi Lawal, who finished a two-foot layup. It was the night’s cleanest little Dallas idea: one player created the opening, another completed it at the rim. By then, Sacramento had already built the margin that its wider scoring menu made possible.

Sources

ESPN: final game record and play-by-play

NBA: official game report

NBA: final box score