They’re Doing This On Purpose…

They’re Doing This On Purpose…

The Dallas Mavericks are officially tanking. That’s the only thing I can make sense out of what I’ve been seeing so far with this team. And as we all know, the Dallas Mavericks are the number one team for being in clutch moments out of the entire league. And even though we have a horrible offense, we still can’t capitalize on all of these clutch moments. And in tonight’s game, it was no different as the Dallas Mavericks did hold the Miami Heat to only about 20 points in the first quarter. Although we did have 19 points in the first quarter, we have a horrible offense, but our defense did a good job. And even though we were down going to the third quarter, the Dallas Mavericks, as they’ve been doing all season, did fight back and made it a game all the way down to the wire. But just like these games, we lose it, we throw it away. Either it’s a horrible turnover, a bad pass, a bad halfcourt shot. The Dallas Mavericks time and time again have proven that even though we have a bad offense, we can still fight. But unfortunately, that fight does run out and it’s always at the worst time possible. So, in this video, we’re going to take a look at tonight’s loss against the Miami Heat. See what went right, what went wrong, and I guess who stood on business. But how’s it going everybody? My name is Marcel Martin. This is Mavericks Digest. Bring your latest news on everything Mavericks related. And before we get started with today’s video, we’re currently sitting at 23,173 subscribers. You know, we got a goal of 25K. I’d love to hit it before the end of the season. Maybe the end of the year, but the end of the season will be more realistic. So, if you want to be up to date on everything Mavericks related from our live streams, watch alongs, injury updates, trade updates, rumors, everything else in between, make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss out on a single thing that we do. But the Dallas Mavericks continue to have just a very midseason. I think mid might be too generous, a very awful season. The Dallas Mavericks are the number one team in clutch games out of the entire league. Before tonight, it was 15 out of our 18 games, which in hindsight isn’t necessarily a bad thing. That means out of the 18, well I guess now 19 games that we’ve played, 16 of them, including tonight was in the clutch where this team was not getting blown out. That we didn’t just give up and roll over. We kept it competitive for 16 of our now 19 games. But unfortunately, we were we’ve only been able to win five of them, only five. And if you want to look on the bright side, hey, we’re not getting blown out. We’re not going out there getting destroyed by 20, 30 points and we got to throw in some garbage time guys and just sit through it. We actually keep these games competitive. But some people would argue that’s what makes things even more frustrating. We start off these games horrible. It’s almost guaranteed that we’re down at halftime, but then the third quarter comes out and everything starts to fall into place. And that’s exactly what we saw tonight. In the first quarter, we held the Heat to only 20 points. And of course, we only had 19 of our own. We know we have a bad offense that usually is slow to get started, but we held the Ma they we held the Miami Heat to only 20 points and they had Tyler Herro back for his first game of the season. Although Andrew Wiggins was on the bench, we don’t have our best players either, but we still made it competitive. Second quarter comes around, we get outscored, things kind of get away from us. But after the halftime, that’s when things start clicking. Our offense speeds up. We’re scoring more. We’re going back and forth with the heat. We’re trying to build up or trying to break down the deficit and try to build a lead. We go into fourth quarter, things are going good for us. And one of the big changes that we saw was Ryan Nimhard’s back. He’s been hurt over the last several weeks, but today was his first game back. And it was like night and day. First half, we had Brandon Williams who’s been good so far for us. We did have D’Angel Russell back, which was a D’Angel Russell type game. But in the second half, I’m sorry, mainly it was the fourth quarter where we saw Ryan Nhard explode. Finished the game with eight assists while only really playing in the fourth quarter and a little bit throughout the game. But Ryan Nhard really opened up this offense for the Dallas Mavericks. Got guys going, got them to their shots. Guys were hitting their shots. It was amazing. We were fighting. We’re going back and forth. And then the game was thrown away by PJ Washington. Oh my gosh. In the clutch, PJ Washington from an inbounds pass straight to Bam out of bio. I know we’re tanking. That pass was all I needed to know. We were tanking. We’re not trying to win these games. We’ll make it as close and competitive as possible, then just throw at the last second. But even with that horrible turnover by PJ, we still had a shot. We were only down by two points. All we had to do was lay it up, hit a mid-range shot, go for two, go to overtime, and just keep fighting. We could have gone the distance with this heat team. They were slowing down. But what do we do? We try to shoot threes just like we tried to do in the Memphis Grizzlies game, but that was from half court, which was super ill advised. And we tried it again where we swung the ball to Clay. I thought he was going to take it. I really did. But he made the extra pass to PJ and and that’s just that that’s all she wrote. The extra pass to PJ. The shot doesn’t go down. Bam. out of bio gets the rebound, he gets fouled, he makes his free throws and we lose the game. But if we take a look at the box score really quick, Daniel Gaffford finished with 11 points and 11 rebounds with one steal and two blocks. Did a pretty good job. Keller is a pretty good young player who also finished with like 20 points and 20 rebounds. But Daniel Gaffford doing pretty good. PJ Washington, although he I mean I’m not trying to say he threw the game or we lost because of him. If you think so, let me know. But PJ Washington had a good game until he didn’t. He had 27 points on 10 of 20 shooting from the floor, three of eight from three, four of four from the free throw line, had eight rebounds, one assists, and two blocks. PJ Washington did a very good job on the defensive end. I will give him all of his props. And being our leading scorer, I absolutely love it. He took the most shots and he made the most shots. 27 points, that’s what we need. PJ Washington is a very, very reliable player. And before I continue, I also want to make notice that PJ Washington only had two turnovers. I know two turnovers is two turnovers too many, especially when one of them was in the clutch. However, we’ve seen PJ Washington walk away with five or six turnovers a game. So, less turnovers from him. Cool. But in that moment, things just fell apart. But I will give PJ Washington his flowers. I’ll give him props. We weren’t able to stay in this game if it wasn’t for his scoring. So, I do appreciate it. And continuing with the starters, Cooper Flag, a very average game, I guess. 12 points. He shot five of 14 from the floor, 0 of four from three. That three-point shot still isn’t falling for him, but he was two of two from the free throw line with seven rebounds, three assists. He did have three turnovers, but he also had two steals. Brandon Williams still having a pretty good season so far. He had 12 points, four of 13 shooting, not the best, one of four from three, three of four from the free throw line with two rebounds, five assists, three turnovers, but he did have a steal. And Max Christie continuing to be the most reliable player that we have. 15 points, five of nine from the floor, three of five from three, two of two from the free throw line, five rebounds, one assist, two turnovers, and one block. And honestly, that stat line from Max Christie, it’s it’s just what you expect. Every single night, I expect a very good game from Max Christie. 15 points, a couple rebounds, a couple assists, maybe still, maybe a steal or a block, but I can always count on a couple threes from Ax Christie. And that’s what we got. Overall, our starters did their best. I guess Cooper Flag probably could have gotten more shots in the second half. We all know that he in the first half he starts off really slow. Doesn’t do too much. Doesn’t force things. But in the second half, like we saw tonight and every other night, he turns it up. He gets more aggressive. He attacks the basket. There was actually a moment after the game where he was walking out with DLo and he was telling DLo that he himself should have attacked the basket. He should have just gone up for the two. We’ll get to that later in this video. But to just round off the box score, Dwight Pal got some good cardio in out of two out of 10 minutes, only getting two rebounds and one assist. Caleb Martin, who we played at the center position again for five minutes, small ball five. Caleb is probably the dumbest thing that uh Jason K has ever done, but in five minutes, he got one rebound. Naji Marshall had seven points with five rebounds, one turnover, and two steals. Musa Cisce only really getting about five minutes, only had one rebound. Klay Thompson had 13 points, five of 12 from the floor, three of nine from three with two rebounds, one assists, and two steals. I will say Klay Thompson played very good defense tonight. I felt like it was a little bit underrated. If you watch this game back, yes, Klay Thompson played very, very good defense. D’Angelo Russell’s first game back. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that good. Zero points, 03 from the floor, 02 from three, one rebound, two assists, two turnovers. Ryan Nhard, however, much much better. In contrast, he had two points. Shooting wasn’t there. He was one of seven from the floor, 0 of2 from three. However, he had three rebounds and eight assists, the most assists out of anybody on our team in only 17 minutes. And I appreciate what we got out of Ryan Nimhard. He did play 17 minutes. The majority of it was in the fourth quarter. And I appreciate that he was able to help us come back. I hope we get to see more of Ryan Nimhard. I think he should get more minutes, maybe a little bit more than DLO, somewhere near Brandon Williams. However, I do appreciate what we got from Ryan Nhard. And then unfortunately Jay Hardy, only five minutes, but he did have three points. He was one of three from the floor, one of two from three, as well as two rebounds and one assists. And I don’t think I’ve ever said this once, but I kind of wish we had more of Jay Hardy. He’s been playing fairly well lately. His shots falling. Why not play more? You need offense. There’s your offense right now. We know Jaden Hardy is just offense. No, no real defense, just offense. But if we want to take a look at a few other things that happened from tonight’s game, I tweeted out, “No way. We’re not doing this on purpose because it it just it’s just mind-blowing. We lose against Memphis in the clutch where Klay Thompson, granted he was hot all night, so I get why he gave him the shot. Cooper Flag gave him a really sloppy pass that he pretty much dropped. He had to pick it up real quick and just threw up a heath. It was a sloppy play. Not a bad decision. I understand why he go to Clay. I get that. But then tonight, we turn it over out of the inbounds. PJ, you looked right at Bam Adabio and just passed the ball. Just gave it to him. And then when we have another chance, the basketball god smiled on D said, “Hey, I’ll give you a second chance to try to tie it or win it. Here you go.” Shoots a three and misses. It was just very, very frustrating. Which leads me to believe that the tank is in full effect. No one’s still in business tonight. But you know what? That tank is alive. Mavs tank 2025. But a few other things that we want to take a look at this right here. Brad Townson saying, “Cooper Flag is a winning player, pure and simple. Perhaps sometime soon he’ll play on a winning team.” Brad, I agree. Yes, Cooper Flag is a winner. He doesn’t want to tank. He wants to win these games. He’s always trying to make the winning play. And I get that. Hopefully, slowly, surely, we get some guys back. AD maybe. No, we’re not getting Dante, but AD for sure. Maybe Kyrie right after and the wins will start to come or we go through rebuild. Who knows what we’re doing. But like I said earlier earlier in the video, uh there was a moment after the game where Coupe and Do were talking and M sorry uh MFL Nation tweet out saying as the Mavs were walking off the court, Coupe told DLo he’s got to attack the basket on the last play. We’ll always want him attacking the basket. We move. That’s right, Cooper Flag. We want you to attack the basket. We want you to take the last shot. I could still be upset if he took the shot and miss. But all in all, for his own development, we want him to be in these moments to learn what it’s like to be in these moments, to overcome these moments. But as of right now, the Dallas Mavericks are five and 14. But don’t worry, guys. It’s only 19 games. We move. We’ll be all right, I guess. But let me know in the comments section down below, who do you think still business? Do you think should have gone to PJ? Do you think someone else could have got it? Let me know what you think. Maybe we can have a conversation about it. But that’s all I got for guys today. Thank you for watching the video. Make sure to check out our Twitter and Discord links in the description below. And as always, y’all take care. Drink water.

Marcel Martin breaks down the Dallas Mavericks’ 106-102 loss to the Miami Heat, analyzing how late-game turnovers and missed opportunities doomed another close contest. He highlights PJ Washington’s performance, the team’s struggles against Miami’s physical defense, and the lack of execution down the stretch. Marcel also discusses what this loss reveals about the Mavericks’ ongoing issues with consistency and composure in clutch moments.

—

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3LUFqYD8SgjGiBgx89jgld?si=0f488d4b60754ab6
Twitter: https://x.com/mavericksdigest?s=20
Discord: https://discord.gg/jd8MtF2Bkh
Become A Channel Member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOv9J-_UbMIjUfYT_WDlB8g/join

Mavs Digest is a channel that breaks down all of the latest news, reports and rumours on the Dallas Mavericks. This includes coverage on players such as Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, Derrick Lively, PJ Washington, Daniel Gafford, Jason Kidd, Mark Cuban and more!

Have you ever wanted to break into sports media as a write or content creator? Apply to join the Digest Media team today here: https://digestmedia.ca/join-us/

for_digest_redistribution

—

Unchanged

—

NBA Trade Rumors, NBA Free Agency, NBA Draft, NBA Finals Preview, Fantasy Basketball Advice, NBA Betting Odds, NBA Jersey Review, Player Performance Breakdown, Sports Analytics, NBA Highlights, NBA News Update, NBA Stats, NBA Roster Moves, NBA Predictions