Have the Dallas Mavericks (7-15) leveled up since the team’s last meeting with the Miami Heat (14-7) — or were the last two games merely blips on the radar?

The injury-riddled, try-hard Mavericks pushed a Heat team without the services of Andrew Wiggins, Nikola Jovic and Norman Powell, and with Tyler Herro playing in his first game of the season following ankle surgery in September, to the brink last week but eventually fell 106-102 at the Kaseya Center. So what can this version of the Mavs, with a suddenly emergent rookie point guard in Ryan Nembhard and Cooper Flagg in full bloom, do differently this second time around to get their second straight win over a quality opponent on Wednesday when the Heat come to American Airlines Center?

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Let’s dive in.

Continue to cut down turnovers

The Mavericks turned the ball over 16 times in last week’s loss at the Heat. That’s about the team’s average, and it puts them in the bottom third of the NBA (23rd of 30 teams) in the ball security department. And that, my friends, is progress. Less than two weeks ago, Dallas was circling the drain, tied for a league-worst turnover-per-game average.

In the three games since their last meeting with Miami, Dallas has turned the ball over just 25 times, and it hasn’t just been cleaner play for clean play’s sake. The Mavs have now won back-to-back games for the first time all season, as Nembhard has taken over starting point guard duties and pleasantly surprised us all in the process.

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There are several things, like injury and roster construction, that are at least somewhat beyond the control of the individual players on the floor on a night-to-night basis. What they can control more is taking care of the basketball when it comes their way, and in the admittedly small sample size of a quarter of the 2025-26 season, cutting down turnovers has directly correlated with wins.

Health trending in the right direction

As of Tuesday’s 4:30 p.m. injury report, P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford, both of whom are nursing ankle issues, are the only two Mavericks listed as questionable for Wednesday’s game against the Heat. It can only be taken as a good sign that Anthony Davis isn’t listed on the report at all after banging his hand on the rim while jumping to receive a pass from Naji Marshall in the second quarter of Monday’s 131-121 win against the Denver Nuggets. The medical staff checked out Davis’ hand on the bench before he returned to the game late in the second, then scored nine of his game-high 32 points in the fourth.

Davis was not available for last week’s loss in Miami, but on the Heat’s side, neither was Powell, Wiggins or Jovic. Having Davis back, and hopefully getting one or both of Washington and Gafford back in the rotation, would represent a huge roster upgrade for the Mavericks the second time around — and Dallas may need that extra firepower. Wiggins (17.5 points per game) and Jovic (7.8) are listed as available for Wednesday’s game, and Powell (25 points per game) is listed as questionable.

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All the defense

In his four games back on the floor this year, Herro is averaging 24.8 points per game. Powell scored 30 in his first game back from his recent ankle injury. Wiggins scored 31 in his first game back from a left hip flexor issue as well. The Heat can score at will from everywhere and will run you out of the gym if you let them.

It’s not just one-on-one matchups. Their system is built on sprinting out of everything — made baskets as well as misses and live-ball turnovers. The Heat replace the pick-and-roll with utter chaos, and under the direction of maestro Eric Spoelstra, it seems to be working. Miami is second in the NBA in points per game (124.3), they’re fifth in rebounds per game (46.2, likely a product of turning every game possible into a track meet) and second in assists per game (30.3).

Everyone can run, and everyone can score, and they appear to be having a great time doing it, as the Heat are currently tied for the third-best record in the Eastern Conference. With both teams availing themselves of a fuller clip than they did the last time they met, Wednesday night will be a truer test of how Dallas stacks up against one of the hottest commodities out East.

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How to watch

The Mavericks host the Heat at 7:30 p.m. CST Wednesday at American Airlines Center. The game will be televised locally on KFAA Channel 29 and various regional affiliates, and it can also be streamed on MavsTV and NBA League Pass.