Tuesday\u2019s matchup against the Timberwolves<\/a> with what the injury report called a knee injury, but assuming they\u2019re both ready to go for this one, they should be some of the freshest legs on the court. While is good because\u2026<\/p>\nIt\u2019s the Rookie Bowl, people! Both Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel are having rookie seasons that, in most other years, would be runaway unanimous rookie of the year winners. Both are putting up some pretty eye-watering numbers for rookies: 18.8 points, 6.4 rebounds, 4.1 assists, 1.3 steals per game for Flagg and 18.7 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.6 assists for Knueppel. Kon, though, has gotten there by shooting 48% from the field and 42% from deep on nearly eight attempts per game. Crazy efficiency. However, in the recent Rising Star draft, it was Flagg who was chosen first overall by team captain Carmelo Anthony.<\/p>\n
This game is just one of two times the Mavs and Hornets will face off, so the head-to-head stats and eventual winner will certainly be on voters\u2019 minds when it comes time to crown a rookie of the year.<\/p>\n
When the New Year ball dropped, Dallas and Charlotte seemed like a couple of fellow travelers \u2014 both ecstatic with their young centerpieces, but also quietly resigned to, let\u2019s say, build upon that recent draft success by acquiring another great pick.<\/p>\n
However, in January, the Hornets are the NBA\u2019s number one team in net rating. They have the league\u2019s best offense and sixth-best defense this month and seem poised to not just make a run at the playoffs, but be buyers on the trade market before next week\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n
The outcome of this game may help clarify just which direction both these squads tack to for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
Charlotte\u2019s league-leading offense in January is powered in large part by their fantastic shooting beyond the arc. They are shooting 38.2% from deep in January, third-best of all teams, while also attempting 40.9 three point attempts per game over that time, the fifth-most in the league.<\/p>\n
Dallas, for their part, hasn\u2019t been slouching this month either. They have the 9th-best record, just a skosh ahead of Charlotte\u2019s 10th-best record, and they\u2019ve accomplished that in no small part by preventing opposing teams from getting too hot from deep.<\/p>\n
Dallas\u2019 opponents are shooting a paltry 31.9% from deep in the new year, which is the lowest percentage in the league. How much of that is staunch defensive effort versus lucky shooting variance can be debated, but it seems likely that whichever team wins the three-point battle will have a leg up in walking away with a victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a rare, mid-season extended break from games due to their plane freezing to the runway after their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,686,149,4057,166,39459,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-568030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-mavericks","11":"tag-dallasmavericks","12":"tag-mavericks","13":"tag-mavericks-game-coverage","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115977148361050119","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}