Kyrie Irving's Mavericks Hope to Regain 'Identity' at Jazz

Dallas Mavericks wing Naji Marshall returned from an illness to turn in his best game of the season, but his 22 points off the bench to spark a late rally were not enough to top Victor Wembanyama's 52-point, 24-rebound double-double to lead the San Antonio Spurs to a win on Wednesday.

The Mavs trailed by as many as 19 in the second half, so for the comeback effort to fall short on a potential game-winning attempt by Kyrie Irving certainly leaves a bad feeling.

Marshall, however, knows that the team's play in the first half put them in a disadvantageous position.

"I mean, I feel like it’s a bad thing. I feel like we’re kinda telling on ourselves and showing ourselves personally what we’re doing wrong," Marshall said. "I feel like we’re letting ourselves down. Just practice what we preach, go out there from the jump and play like that. Who knows how the game will turn out."

The Spurs' 112-111 win continues San Antonio's dominance in the series over the last season-plus. Dallas, now 4-4 on the season, can rebound from back-to-back losses against the one-win Utah Jazz in Friday's NBA Cup matchup.

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Irving, who led Dallas in scoring with 29 points, pointed to the 13-percentage-point difference between the Mavs' second-half shooting compared to the first against San Antonio.

"We just got back to the identity that we’re trying to build for ourselves, which is, it’s not so much a desperation basketball, but it’s just playing to be the hunters," Irving said. "I think we were playing on our heels a little bit too much in the first half. They were getting a lot of offensive rebounds, a lot of second chances. We were holding them to, I believe, under 39 percent or around 39 percent on the first actions. They were missing shots. And they got to the free-throw line. They slowed down the game.”

On Friday, look for Dallas to be the team that attempts to speed the game up in the first half against a Jazz squad that has lost six in a row, which is the second-longest losing streak in the NBA through the first couple weeks of the season.

The "head of the snake" in that regard is Mavs star Cooper Flagg, who is looking to shake off two poor shooting performances in his last two starts.

After shooting 3-of-19 on Monday in a loss to the Sacramento Kings, Flagg got off to another slow start against the Spurs. The teenager was 1-of-11 from the field in the first half.

Flagg would eventually make six of his eight shots in the second half, helping initiate the comeback attempt.

"I thought he was making shots that he had made all year up to that point, and they just weren’t dropping for him [in the first half]," coach Dusty May said. "But I thought he just got lost in rebounding, and I thought he made great passes. I thought he played really well in just a really good floor game in the second half.”

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Flagg, who is averaging 24 points per game in his second season, will look to carry that "identity" of putting the ball in the basket efficiently as the Mavs look to get back in the win column Friday.

"He’s going to go through ups and downs just like every other professional," Irving said of his co-star. "It doesn’t take away from his talent or his skill set or what he’s capable of doing. He’s just got to figure it out, and we’ve got to do a better job as teammates of giving him that support. He has the confidence in himself, but I think he knows it’s just a choice that he’s got to make at times just to go out and be aggressive and seek his own shot."

The Jazz host the Mavericks at 7 p.m. CT with the contest being broadcast live on WFAA and KFAA-29 in Dallas.