Dallas Mavericks EXPOSED By Mistakes | D’Angelo Russell Goes Off, Cooper Flagg Pressure

Dallas Mavericks EXPOSED By Mistakes | D’Angelo Russell Goes Off, Cooper Flagg Pressure

On today’s show, the Dallas Mavericks walked into their own demise against the Detroit Pistons, led to everything that led to them losing this game. D’Angelo Russell and more today’s locked on Mavs. This is Cooper Flag and you’re listening to Locked on Mavs on five. Explain. All these changes, you know, I still got my dog Dwight Pal. You are Locked on M. Your daily Dallas Mavericks podcast of the Locked On podcast network your team every day. I’m going to get a city like back and welcome Drew Locked on the Dallas Mavericks your team every day. My name is Nick Angstead media member coming to the map for 10 years. Thanks for being every day making locked on apps your first listen and locked on podcast network the number one sports podcast network. Today’s episode is brought to you by Game Time. Download the game time app. Create an account. Use that code at locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. And joining me as always medium member cover the master 10 years. Right alongside me, the Mexico maniac, the one we’re thinking. What you got for me, Isaac Harris? All right, I got to give you a good moment before we dive into this dumb game. Had a great moment today watching Revenge of the Sith. Oh, with my with my son. First time. Yeah, he’s all into the story. And we have the moment. No, that P spoiler alert. Wait, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Spoiler for everyone listening. If you I’m not I don’t freaking care if y’all haven’t seen Revenge of the Sith. Palpatine 20 years ago. Palpatine reveals that he is the Sith and he tells Anakin to rise as Darth Vader. And dude, Roman, my son, I mean his eyes, he’s looking at me on the couch. He’s the Sith Lord Vader. And I was just I mean just one of those moments that was just etched into my soul forever and uh I love it. Loved all of it until I watched this game and then that just crushed me. Hey, your kids are still there. You can go see it. They’re probably sleeping. You Yeah, it’s like wake up. Go look. We have We have a new hope. Make me feel better about this. We need a new hope. All right. That’s true. We need the vibes. The vibes. He did. Well, the new hope could come from just some coaching changes and the Mavs playing better because I think they shot themselves in the foot in so many different ways in this game. We’ll talk about it. Talk about D’Angelo Russell. We’ll talk about Cooper flag. We’ll talk about Daniel Gaffford’s return. All kinds of different things. The Mavs lose to the Pistons in Mexico City. And I think the Mavs led to their own demise in this game. Like the Mavs in the first three quarters. You saw like the limited turnovers. You saw them like being okay like in the paint. You saw them being able to to hold their own here and there, being able to score here and there. D’Angel Russell doing his thing, scoring the ball. He had 31 in this game, which was awesome. He kept them connected. Seven threes. Absolutely awesome. The Mavs desperately needed somebody to come out and hit some threes here. Klay also hit a couple. You had some here and there. And then the turnovers in the fourth quarter just destroyed them, I thought. Just absolutely took them out of the game. They had seven turnovers in the fourth quarter. DLO had three, Brandon Williams had two, PJ had two, and just over and over again, I thought the Mavericks just like got in their own way when it when it came to this fourth quarter, 17 points for them. And then on the other end, they had to start doubling Kade Cunningham because of various different reasons. I think D’Angel Russ’s defense was rough on him. I thought that they had uh like it was just he Kade is just awesome. Like their their point of attack defense in general was just struggling against him. And Kade made every right pass out of those double teams. Finished with 18 assists and just picked the Mavs apart for that 17 to4 run to end the game because the Mavericks like the the Mavericks had the lead in this game. We’re talking about it like it’s this doom and gloom. Mavs got blown out kind of game. But they had the lead with 451 left in this game and they were only down by three with 230 left in this game and then it was just a a 17 to4 run to end this game and I think it was definitely the Pistons picked them apart but I thought the Mavericks like like really hurt themselves. Yeah, I mean this was, you know, this was three quarters worth of, hey, both teams saying, hey, please don’t let us play in the half court on offense. Yeah. U, both teams do not want to play in the half court. Although Detroit, they do have Kate Cunningham who can orchestrate an offense. He’s just gotten better and better. He’s so good. I love watching him play uh when he’s not playing our team. And uh but yeah, I mean it was just this, you know, I’ve I’ve been tracking uh quarters that the Mavericks score at least 30 points, which has not been a ton. Um the other night I tweeted out um it was like five out of 21 quarters so far they had hit the 30 point mark. So for three quarters, offense wasn’t the issue for this team. Uh DLO was running the ship. You know, he’s hitting he’s hitting shots. They were playing faster. uh not always hitting in transition buckets, but just playing at a faster pace, generating open shots. Um I think they they went 10 of 27 from three in the first half. They were just like keeping up on the offensive side. Detroit wants to get out in transition, too. And it’s like you had both these teams I wrote down both teams winded at halftime. Oh man, everybody on the rough. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we were joking before, but like tough game for Gaffer to come, you know, start a season back back on is just, you know, he’s not 100%. He’s he starts this game in Mexico City, which is, I think, a couple thousand or it’s way over 2,000 ft higher than Denver. Yeah. So, I mean, just Yeah, just I mean, the first thing Kate Cunningham says in his postgame interview on the court is like, “Yeah, it’s super high altitude.” So, we were we were feeling it uh tonight and it’s early in the season, but it was just the fourth quarter. Everything hit a wall in the fourth. It’s like the Mavs ran out of gas. It’s like the offense went back to looking uh like it was going through mud. Uh it was like they piece things together and try to make it work. Obviously, no AD, no Derek Lively, obviously Kyrie still out. Um and they didn’t start a point guard XM. They didn’t start a point guard again. And so they for they were forcing that crap again and it’s like you start the game and we’re all just collectively like we got to watch these first four minutes of this game with no point guard. Everybody in the world knew that they were going to start Assar Thompson on Cooper and just say hey just get stay in his grill. Don’t let him breathe without you smelling his breath like and Assar’s so good. And so yeah it was just it got to the fourth. They lost it in the fourth, but it’s like congrats for staying there until the in it until the fourth cuz uh yeah, shout out to DLo, man. I mean, DLO got hot. His confidence uh he was feeling it. I mean, without DL’s points and his I mean, he had to finish with a decent plus minus in this game. I was I was tracking that at one point. One minus one. Well, he was there he was there at the end with a 17 to4 run. So, I mean, that’s just like 13 just right off the like right off of that plus minus. Yeah, because him and Dwight was the only plus plus minus or positive plus minus there for a while. So, um it was tough. I mean, it the story of the game is the fourth quarter and then the points in the paint. Well, I was going to say the other story of this game, yeah, the fourth and then 72 points in the paint allowed by the Mavericks. Like Denon Durn had 33 of them. He looked unstoppable in this game and that’s I mean 33 points on 16 shots is is wild for somebody. He looked like prime David Robinson. All right. So, Grant Grant Hill was like, “This looks like all-star Amari Starttomire going down the paint.” I was like, I mean, Dwight Howard, I mean, we could go down down the the line there. It’s just I mean, Kade kept I mean, a lot of those baskets were easy baskets that Kade just was like serving up on a platter. It it felt like, you know, Luca just serving up to the whatever center he would play with in the past. But still, I I don’t want to take any credit about from Duran. Duran’s a a solid good young big in the league and he played incredible. I mean it might have been. I think Coup said it might have been his best game of his career. So is that going to keep happening that these bigs are going to have the best game of their career against them? I guess as long as the Mavs bigs are out. But this was supposed to be paint defense was supposed to be one of their big strengths and obviously with AD out with Lively out with Gaffford limited and and coming into this game like in a really tough spot. Uh they they were going to struggle with that. The Mavs went small a bunch in this game. Struggled there. Dwight, you know, Dwight, I thought struggled here and there with with the size. He had uh what he had finished with five fouls and Gaffford had four in 18 minutes, under 18 minutes. Just the the points in the paint were were brutal for the Mavericks and that gets honestly like I don’t feel that bad about that because that gets fixed with Anthony Davis and Lively coming back. Yeah, that’s why like I I’m I’m all about making fun of the defense wins championships. Heck, I kind of did a thing the other day just like saying that Nico’s vision is just kind of bull crap. But it like the defense win championship, get it out of here. But I don’t really like I don’t really care about hearing about it for this game because when you do build win you defense defense win championships and that vision, you’re banking a lot of that off of the backline of AD and Derrick Lively and they’re not in there. So I’m I’m not looking at a game like this and saying, “Oo, defense win championships. Like look, it didn’t work tonight.” Okay. But what I am looking at and saying you you needed to invest something on the offensive side of the ball because you got to have like you we can’t go into a fourth quarter saying man if if DL misses some shots or does some turnovers. We really don’t have anybody else that out there that can create and make shots. That that’s a problem right now. Well coming up DL’s game showed me exactly why you’re right about that that they needed to invest something because everything worked when DLO was hitting shots. Talk about that coming up. Today’s episode of Locked on Maps brought to you by Robin Hood. It’s Robin Hood.com/yyoumoney. Your ambition just met its match with Robin Hood. You play for the win, not just on game day, every day. Locking in on every opening, beating your PR, then beating it again. Channel that drive into your money. Robin Hood puts your puts you in control of your money. Trade stocks and ETFs, options, futures, and crypto all on one platform. So now you can build and execute your own trades from a desktop on Robin Hood’s Legends Advanced Tools. or take advantage of the new Robin Hood strategies with a tailored portfolio managed by a team of experts. You expect more from yourself, so expect more from your money. Get started today at robinhood.com/yyoumoney. Again, it’s robinhood.com/yyourmoney. 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Download the Game Time app. Create an account. Use the code locked on NBA. That’s all one word. Locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, that’s code L O C K E D O NA for $20 off. Swipe, tap, ticket. Go. Shut it down. Let’s go home. Thanks for hanging out with us on Lock on Ms. being part of the show. Part of the raccoon squad. That’s what we call our listeners listening every day. Appreciate you for checking out the show and listening. We are talking about the Mavs losing to the Pistons and uh for a a lot of reasons, but one of them is that the offense was humming and going great. 30 points in the first three quarters, something the Mavs had not done all season for sure. Had not scored 30 points in three quarters in a game. Look at that. I I have to imagine I’ve watched this offense. Well, maybe the Toronto game, but potentially the Toronto Yeah, that’s probably a good call. But then fourth quarter 17 points and you can see when there’s a guy that can score just one guy. Just give me one guy that can actually score and score 30. It makes it work. You see how everything else can work around it. They started to double D’Angel Russell. Then all of a sudden other guys can start creating stuff. Cooper Flag got a couple of drives to the basket and got fouled in the fourth quarter. You saw that having to work. You saw PJ Washington get open for, you know, a dunk off of a D’Angel Russell pick and roll. Like you see when things start to work for this Mavs team is when they have somebody that they can rely on to score. They just have not really had that besides Anthony Davis getting some stuff down low or you know that save a really good shooting like PJ Washington game he’s had a couple times here and there. It’s we just have not seen that at all so far. And so if the Mavericks had invested in like a, you know, really good consistent like Kobe White, somebody like that that can score, then I think this would be all a whole different story. Uh, you don’t want your defense to depend on your offense, but you see what happens when you see what happens when the offense is actually competent. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you or did or did DLO just go off? Did DLO just go off tonight and that’s it? like seven of 13 from the from three. Like you can’t expect that all the time, right? No. Like that’s my that’s my thing. It’s just like you had DLO have this like awesome offensive game and you just didn’t have another guy like PJ struggled a lot on the offensive side of the ball tonight. Um he was a plus 14 in the first half and ends up a minus four in the game. Um you know I think he missed all you know all six of his threes. You can’t really blame Clay in this even though he was a minus 21 in his 20 minutes. But heck, they pretty much just like set him down. I think he only played like six minutes in the second half and Max played probably 17 18 uh in the second half. So, you know, they end up going with Max a lot there. They put Clay at the very end for those the last like two minutes of the game and it’s like, “All right, we got to have some threes at this point.” But it’s just tough when you wa, you know, you you just watch other you watch a Detroit team with a guy like Cade, you watch just been watching a lot of other random teams and stuff right now. And so many teams out there like how Dallas was built in the past have multiple people on the floor that can drive and create and all the stuff. And it’s just Dallas just wasn’t built like that. And it’s tough. It’s tough whenever like you knew you like when you build a team like this and you know you’re gonna struggle offensively, but you’re getting flamed on defense too at the same time. They put up 110 in this game which is great for this offense right now. Uh but they still gave up 122. I mean what did what defense I mean uh Detroit’s offensive rating had to be 123.2. I mean, so you if you’re built, which I get without AD and Lively, if you’re going to be without those guys, then you at least got to have good teams got to win different ways. We’ve said this for years on this podcast that the really good teams win in different ways. And you can’t be so reliant on AD and Lively missing games. So therefore, oh man, well, our defense is going to be bad and our offense is already bad, so it’s tough. Well, maybe maybe the whole takeaway is that Nico built this team around three players that get injured all the time. Well, yeah. I mean, and Lively, it’s like, all right, well, those three players are out, then all of a sudden it looks like this. Oh, yeah. I think there’s a lot of a lot of things about Nico’s vision in this. And I just want to say this about Cooper again, and this I don’t care what y’all say, if I’m taking up for him or not. Cooper’s just not one of the main things for me right now when I’m looking at this team. Like, yes. Is he playing at the best of his abilities right now? No. Is he Is he Does he look timid at times? Does he look uncomfortable at times? For sure. Do you want would you love for him to be putting putting up at least 20 a game right now? Yes, that would be awesome. I’m just not like when I’m when I’m thinking about the this Mavs, the problems with the Mavs right now, there is a lot of big things and bigger things than I think Cooper Flag adjusting to the NBA. And and on top of all of it, I still think he’s just playing out of position and they’re like it’s just not what I don’t think they’re maximizing him the best way possible and and on purpose. The coach has said they are doing that on purpose. Yeah. So don’t get like and like he scored sacrificing wins. He scored 16. That’s like two buckets off of 20. So if if 20 was your threshold of like oh if he’s not averaging 20 then I don’t care about him. Then I don’t know like like I’m not playing. I’m watching just like you guys. that’s then that’s what you’re doing. But I get it’s social media and it’s YouTube and stuff, but it’s like it never fails after each one of these Mavs like losses this year. It’s like here comes the Cooper flag. Like I mean as soon as they lost I mean the buzzer hadn’t even sounded and I’m getting mentioned on the flag being the great white hype and I’m like what whoa what what how is this on Cooper? What are we doing? Well, it’s cuz he’s white either. Yeah, we talk. No, he has he has haters in a way that I like that a lot of stars in the NBA have had. He does not have stands in the same way that I that I found, which is kind of kind of interesting. But yeah, he does have he does have a lot. Play at Duke could get haters. Well, honestly, I do think that is part of it. Like Jason Re got them. Obviously, Christian Lner got them. Like he’s just comes with the territory. Jason Tatum, he took the second most shots on the team. So, it’s not like he wasn’t as aggressive. There there are times I guess he could be more aggressive, but he took the second most shots and he had a couple of really good drives in the fourth quarter where he got he went to the free throw line eight times, more than anybody else except for Brandon Williams and hit all of them. Uh he had eight boards, he had four assists, he had only one turnover. Like I thought he had a solid I thought he had a solid game, an impactful game, but it’s not it’s not enough for this team. And that is the bigger problem than the play of Cooper Flag is that this team depends so much on an 18-year-old to be impactful and go the extra like and be way better than you’d expect an 18-year-old to be. Like, can I remind everyone Kobe Bryant averaged seven points a game his rookie year when he was 18? Like, yeah, they just don’t I mean, we’ve said it the other day, they just don’t have an identity right now. And there’s just no there’s no identity with what the team is. And well and you are miss you like to be fair to them they are missing Kyrie and AD which would be so much of their identity obviously missing Lively too Gaffford being like Ha Hafford because he only was limited in minutes like that that matters too and so you are missing a big a bunch of big pieces but the same problems that we’ve talked about all seasons like they the identity is missing they don’t have you know the offense is still trying to figure out what it is that you laid out the other day really well. Well, well, it’s funny. It speaking of that offense, it it’s funny with the with DLO out there sometimes because DLO obviously likes playing the pick and roll and playing a high pick and roll and a lot of times in this offense, the high pick and roll is not part of this Flo Brinston offense on purpose. And there I wrote down there’s this moment in the second half tonight. So, a lot of the actions in this offense that they’re trying to implement starts with the big coming up uh to like the free throw line or the top of the key and they pass it to the big whoever it is. Gaffer, AD, Dwight. And in this instance, Dwight was the big in the game and Dwight comes up and they always pass it to Dwight. And then there’s so many different actions you can do off of that. Um whether it’s, you know, off Dwight like a triple handoff like we’ve talked about a lot DHO’s or you can do different actions with the other wings and stuff. Well, Dwight comes up to get the ball to start, you know, this start some of the action in this offense. And uh and TLO just waves him off and brings up PJ for this like high pick and roll. And Dwight just U-turns at the top of the key and runs right back down to like the the paint or the block. And uh I’m just like laughing cuz I’m like, is this why DLO doesn’t get in sometimes? Because it’s like Dlo’s like, hey, like for me to be efficient, I need to run some pick and roll. I need to be running this high pick and roll, which is what we’ve been used to watching for so for so long. And then he was efficient in in a lot of it tonight. And so, yeah, I just laughed at that that moment, too. Teams run that for a reason. Like, every team runs it for a reason, right? They’re you’re talking about like the the Grizzlies tried to do this. Was it was it last year that like they tried not to run a whole bunch of pick and rolls, tried a different offense, and then John Morant revolted and the coach got fired, you know, like and then now he now he’s doing it again with a different coach. So maybe that’s a different story for a different Well, the thing the thing with that this offense too is you don’t like call a lot of plays. So a lot of it is just like depending on the players and high IQ players that you know it’s what you want in this type of offense. So it’s kind of like allows them to make the decisions and uh sometimes there’s some of these players that like hey well let’s if I’m making the decision let’s go with something I’m more comfortable with. Right. And so and then then you get that great and they generated corner threes like they were generating that’s true. That’s you know I said in that pod the other day this offense they try you try to generate corner threes layups or shots at the free throw line. Like this is what this offense tries to create the most in. And even after that game the other night at home AD is at his locker and he was like and we asking about the fourth quarter there when Hardy and DLO had that those good moments in the fourth. AD was like yeah we we we finally started getting to the corners. We started getting those corner threes. They try to generate those shots so much. The first bucket of the game for Dallas was them coming down and getting in transition, hitting Max Christie for a corner three. And but tonight PJ was missing those. Clay missed some. Like if you’re going to generate those those corner threes, especially when you lack the creation that you don’t have on the floor and AD’s out, you almost have to guarantee, you know, a lot of those corner threes just being automatics. They took 18 corner threes tonight. It’s a decent amount against uh Indiana, which we were like, “Oh, they generated more corner threes.” They took 12. So, like they took even more in this game. Yeah. Than they did in that one. Coming up, I want to talk about Gaffford and his his return. What does he bring to the Mavericks going forward? So, let’s talk about him and more coming up. Today’s episode of Lock Mavs brought to you by our friends over at Rugian. It’s too easy sometimes for you to just be like, “Ah, you know, I got excuses. 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Visit rouit.com/lockdownba to get 15% off your first order. Rug at rugit.com/lockdown NBA so you know that we sent you. Use that code lock NBA. Rouette, stop making excuses. Start making moves. Make those moves. Shut it down. Let’s go home. All these changes and you know, I still got my dog Dwight Pal. Still true. Still true. All right, Isaac, we’re talking about the Mavs loss to the Pistons. And I want to talk about Daniel Gaffford because he makes his return. First game of the season for him and like you said, a very tough situation. He’s playing he’s he gets the start. No AD, no Lively. And he’s playing 7,000 ft in Mexico City where everybody in any condition is going to struggle with this game. Everybody talks about it how they struggle playing in Denver because of this. And this is 2,000 ft higher than Denver. 7,000 ft which is just wild to me. I have been to like South America. You you’ve been as well where you like you get off the plane and all of a sudden you’re like, “Oh my gosh.” Gosh, we had a we had a girl in our in our group that went with us threw up as soon as she stepped off the plane because of how high the altitude is in Mexico in Mexico. Uh just immediately got out. Tell her to put down the bottles on the plane. Soon we were in high school. Uh so I so she definitely should have been putting them definitely should have been put down. She traveled with B will but but he uh Daniel Gaffford plays 17 minutes cuz kid said he was going to play under 18 minutes for his minutes restriction. seven boards, four four or seven points, four boards, three assists, uh had four fouls. Struggled with Jaylen Dur there a little bit, but I thought he played I thought he played decent in in this game. Gave him some size and it was just it was good to see him come back and didn’t feel like he really got going. And I think somebody but I think somebody like him is really going to struggle with this like Princeton offense. Like where is his offense coming from if they’re going to try and do some of the like the the the tenants of this offense that they want to try to run? Yeah, it’s tough that that’s when you know when they go when they went away from the after they made the trade. I mean, it sucks to always go back to the trade with some of this stuff, but it’s like not just like the removal of Luca from the team, but it was just a switch to a whole different type of roster and offense. So, it’s kind of like this like moment for the Mavs of like BC AD here. Um or BTAT. We’re in the AD era right now for sure. BTAT. So, after the trade era here um after they planted their flag. Yeah. So to whereas like all right well the extension stuff is going to come up at some point for Gaffford and then it’s like all right well we did extend him but he’s you know still eligible to be traded and all this stuff and that’s why I kind of went into before the extension happened of like all right they’re probably going to trade him or right after the extension happened they’re probably going to trade him now and because Gaffford is like made to play with a Luca type a point like a you know point guard running high pick and roll. This is why Gaffford and Derek Lively excelled. Dwight Pal has excelled with Luca Donuch and Kyrie Irvings of the past running this pick and roll stuff. So then you kind of like double down of like keeping Gaffford and Lively, these pick and roll guys. Now I get the answer probably is, well, they’re more than pick and roll guys. Well, that’s what they excel at. And in order to be a big in this offense, like without AD, then you’re going to be the guy that comes up and they like run the actions off of you. With AD, it’s going to be a little tough probably for Lively and Gaffford to uh get their buckets and stuff and get their lobs. Um, it’s going to take a lot of there’s so much movement in this offense when it’s working well that you’re just hoping that a Cooper or Anagi or somebody is hitting the paint off a cut and then they’re it’s a switch. It’s a miscommunication. Then you’re just getting a lob from one of them in the paint there. But yeah, I’m I’m with you. Once again, I feels like this is a theme right now with it doesn’t feel like this type of system is maximizing certain players like abilities. I’m with you. I’m a little worried about Gaffford even when he’s rolling and like feeling fine and in game shape and all this stuff that this technical like system won’t maximize the best of his abilities. So, I’m with you on that. Offense or defense cuz they’re going to do some switching and that’s one thing he one thing he told us at media day is that he’s got to get better defending on the perimeter and that’s something they’re I think they’re going to ask him to do a little bit more because they’re going to try to attack somebody and you’re not going to you’re not going to pull up AD. you’re not going to pull up Flag necessarily, like you’re going to you’re not going to pull up PJ, you’re going to pull up Gaffford and like that is that is the spot they’ll probably look to. Um because they guys can can drive by him and once you drive by by him, then it opens up the defense for all kinds of different issues and we’ve already seen those issues over and over so far beginning of the season. Yeah. I just after seeing after seeing Gaffford on the floor with this system, I was like, “Oo man, uh this may be a little this may be a little tough.” Well, yeah. And I just I want to see him play with AD, too. I mean, they’re committed to running these two big system and stuff. So, and we saw the Houston half. We saw the Houston half and it went pretty It went pretty well. We’re about to see another half coming up with Houston. So, went pretty pretty well with them uh on this one. So, yeah, Gaffford’s Gaffford’s debut was was okay, but we’ll we’ll see. We’ll see what happens going forward. I’m not taking I’m not taking a lot where I’m like, “Oh, he looked terrible.” I’m not taking that from from this game, but I’m curious to see how he looks in the system going forward, I guess, is the thing. I want to say Max Christie I thought played another great game. 33 33 minutes hit two threes. Uh 13 points, six boards, five assists. I thought he’s had some he’s had some great drives. That’s the thing kid really like called out like I think was it kid that said it or Max said it like kid wants me to to drive more. That’s the thing he wants me to do next. And I think he’s been doing that and that adds just a little a little element to this offense that they really desperately needed. It feels like we’re back to the 2018. We’re like can any of these wings like do like do do some extra ball movement? And this is and in this case, they need the Wings to do the ball movement first in this. Yeah. No, I mean, he’s one of the if you’re you’re drafting some of the positive things about the Mavs to start the season, he’s definitely one of those things that you would draft of like, hey, Max Christie has come out this season looking good and looking good enough to challenge, you know, C, I mean, Clay for that starting spot. And we say the other day that I mean I think Max should stay in the starting lineup no matter when AD comes back and all of that. U Can I point out another positive thing about tonight? Yeah, you guys had a thing though. Oh yeah, one more thing. Yeah, I thought the court tonight looked amazing. You liked it? You like the DJs? You like the middle? Great. I loved it. I loved things weren’t too busy for you. No. No. I thought it was great. Great stuff. good job uh with the court and the whole presentation of that. Shout out to Followwell being on the the Peacock broadcast. I will say this. All right. I thoroughly laughed whenever been, you know, we have all these streams this year and it’s just like pick your stream or pick your network that you’re going to watch all these games on and it’s like all right well Amazon’s tonight or ESPN tonight or this night, you know, it’s like whoever pe exclusive. So it’s like I just watched some I just watched the game last night or you know some of the games last night and it’s like Dirk and Blake Griffin. And it’s like, man, this is a lot of fun. And you know, the ones the other night, it was like Vince Carter and T-Mac and you got all these like cool things. Well, then tonight goes to goes to halftime. It’s Robbie Hmel and Austin Rivers. I’m like, what in the Dollar General brand halftime show is this? I was like, how did what what is rolling what are y’all rolling out right now? For Glen River’s son. I’m like, my gosh, this was uh what a difference between the Well, because this was it was the only Peacock exclusive game tonight. Wonder why. I mean, I thought Fwell and and Grant Hill did great. And uh but no, yeah, I thought that was that was funny for me. But not as much Spanish from Fowlwell as I thought we were going to get. No, no, he doesn’t want to flex on him too hard. Ah, he could have though. I also just found myself too whenever I was getting frustrated at times I just think of like other storylines in this game. I was thinking about the Thompson brothers and I go back to that draft and Clay and Trace. No. Oh, cuz Trace played for the Dodgers. So many people didn’t know what to do with those guys in the draft and I was one of them. I didn’t know. Like you seen all of the uh all of the athletic stuff, all of the just like holy crap, they’re so athletic, but you’re like, “All right, it feels like you’ve seen athletic guys before.” So, are you just going to ride this athleticism? Neither one of them really had a shot. So, it’s just like, can they are they going to be really good in the league, but like not have this outside shot in their game? And it so much of that boils down to will these guys commit to being elite defenders? And that’s what’s like I think so hard to like like judge with prospects going to the league is like will they be willing to commit to being that locked down one of the best wing defenders in the league. And I just I I’m it feels weird saying I’m just so happy for him. Um, I I am happy for him though because I think they’re both considered one of two of the best wing defenders in the league. They’re both just a menace on defensively. I think he’s a great pairing with Cade uh and Duran and those guys like and I just I love watching both of them playing and I was just thinking back that to that draft. I was like, dude, y’all are the biggest wild cards. They went to over overtime elite route too and it’s like no one really knew what to like do with them and they’re just proving that hey the super athleticism is working in the league and uh it’s working for them so I’m happy for him. Who has made more threes this season Assar or Amen? Probably Amen. Right. Amen is zero for 10 and Assar has is two for nine. I saw shot that free throw tonight and it was one of the worst bricks I’ve ever seen on a free throw in a long time. I was like, dude, with the Mavericks rim mics, that could have been hurt. That could have been heard up in Frisco. That would have hurt somebody like if they had hearing aids would have like injured them. I was like, whoa, somebody fire off something in here. So, shout out to the Mavs, though. Have a Rockets game coming up, so that should be good. Excited for that one. Well, the Rockets haven’t been like world beaters so far this season. And it’s not like they’re going to just like destroy them. No, similar struggles. Um, you know, with like the creation stuff and all that, but I they got to figure out some defensive stuff, man. Like I would, you know, I’m laughing because they’re not great defensively right now. If they went if they were going into this game and they were like living by the Nico vision of defense win championships and we’re like, man, they’re just killing it defensively right now, but the offense is struggling, but man, they’re No, both sides are struggling. So that’s why it’s just like, “All right, well, hope someone else gets hot.” Uh, cuz AD’s AD’s not going to play in that game either. Can I come up with a new concept here at the end of the show? Oh, please do. The Mavs have three sides of the ball. Uhoh. The Mavs. It’s not a It’s not a special teams. The Mavs have an offensive side, a defensive side, and an injury side. That’s the third side of the ball. The M the medical side. They’re struggling on the medical side of the ball, too. Like that is the third dimension to this team. It’s like that one is not s that one’s not surprising, but they are still struggling with that. Anthony Davis is um Are we allowed to say what his his designation is? What do you mean? He’s dayto-day. He’s not dayto-day. That’s bull crap. Well, they’re going to evaluate him after two games, so I guess that’s not dayto-day. He’s not dayto-day. Like, no, I don’t that I said this on our subtext the other day. This is why you gota just you gotta wait for the injury report to come out. Yeah. You gotta wait for the official stuff to come out. You can’t buy not Yeah. You just can’t buy kid and AD and they’re like, you know, he’s doing better. He’s day to day and and then it’s just like literally hours later. This is what he has and he’s going to be at a minimum two games and re-evaluated after. I’m like that’s not dayto day. Like well the kid I thought he had like a like some medical history. kid. I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know. And wait, I thought he told the truth all the time. I don’t always tell you guys the truth. What I mean, is he sorry that he didn’t play D’Angel Russell more to begin the season? I have to apologize that you felt that he should have played more. He did. I’m He might not have this one. I’m just glad that he’s got Cooper right now because he just wants to get underneath the hood and touch the car. I don’t want to have that one anymore. I’m playing. I’m watching just like you guys. I don’t know. The car one. The car one is about Luca. I’m not doing that one anymore. But yeah. Uh yeah, Anthony Davis. I mean, who know who knows what what’s going to what’s going on with him. Um they’ll evaluate him after a couple of days and we’ll see. They’ll Castra’s man. I mean, it took down the last team. M’s going to take down this one, too. Like I I don’t want to be like super negative about it, but it’s like of all the random injuries, of all like the strains you could have, the one that scares me the most over the last like five years is calf strains because there’s the calf strains that players play too soon on and it leads to a bigger injury. There’s the lingering aspect of it, too. We’ve dealt with it with Luca, you know, different stuff with with that calf that he’s, you know, injured different times. Um, I just hate that it was a calf strain. Anyway, let’s go to bed. It’s Saturday now. Thanks for listening to Lock hanging out with us. Check the QR code links in the description for different ways to follow the show, guys. Thanks for listening to Locked on Mavs. Explain yourself. Sorry. Peace out. Boom.

The Dallas Mavericks fell to the Detroit Pistons in a tough NBA matchup in Mexico City, struggling in the fourth quarter despite strong performances from Cooper Flagg and D’Angelo Russell. The Mavs’ loss highlights concerns about their offense and defense with Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving sidelined, and raises questions about their rotation, coaching adjustments, and the roles of key players like Daniel Gafford and PJ Washington.

Nick Angstadt and Isaac Harris break down how the Dallas Mavericks lost a close game to the Detroit Pistons, focusing on turnovers, points in the paint, and the impact of missing stars like Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, and Dereck Lively II. The hosts discuss performances from Mavs players D’Angelo Russell, Cooper Flagg, Max Christie, Daniel Gafford, Dwight Powell, PJ Washington, and mention Pistons standouts Jalen Duren and Cade Cunningham. They analyze the coaching strategy of Jason Kidd, front office moves by Nico Harrison, and the implications for the rest of the Mavs’ NBA season, as well as referencing other teams and players such as the Houston Rockets, Klay Thompson, Naji Marshall, and Ausar Thompson.

0:00 Mavs’ Fourth Quarter Collapse
12:05 Offensive Struggles Without Star Power
24:00 Daniel Gafford’s Debut & System Fit

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