It’s a battle of teams on the second night of a back-to-back, as the Dallas Mavericks meet the Denver Nuggets at home on Tuesday night. Dallas is coming off a blown double-digit fourth-quarter lead to the New Orleans Pelicans on Monday, while the Nuggets completely dominated the Utah Jazz at home on the same night.
These two teams met at the start of the month, and the Mavericks came away with an improbable 131-121 win, as Anthony Davis lit up the scoreboard for 32 points and 13 rebounds, and Cooper Flagg was impressive with 24 points and 8 rebounds. However, the big difference-maker in that game was Ryan Nembhard going for 28 points and 10 assists on an efficient 12/14 shooting.
Part of the reason the Mavericks haven’t been playing as well recently is that teams have started to limit Nembhard. In his last five games, he’s averaging 6.2 PPG and 7.2 APG. In the six games before that, he was averaging 14.8 PPG and 6.8 APG. His playmaking is still a big reason that the offense has looked much better in the last few weeks, but teams are hunting him on defense, and they’re limiting his scoring opportunities. He’ll keep playing because they need that ball movement, but his starting role may not be safe.