Johnson and Yaxel Lendeborg squared off in Las Vegas as the Mavericks played in their Summer League opener.
New Dallas Mavericks head coach Dusty May watched on at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas as his former players Morez Johnson Jr. and Yaxel Lendeborg, chosen No. 9 and No. 11, respectively, in the 2026 NBA Draft out of Michigan, square off for the first time in Summer League.
While Johnson led the way for Dallas with 27 points on efficient shooting, Lendeborg's late push helped the Golden State Warriors to a 101-90 win on Thursday. It was the Warriors' second Summer League game, and the Mavs' first.
Asked about how they imagined this matchup would go, both former Wolverines knew things would turn into a sort of rivalry.
"I expected him to come at me, of course," Johnson said about Lendeborg. "We competed all the time in practice, we had challenges. Yeah, I was expecting it."
After the final buzzer on Thursday, the national championship-winning pair returned to friends, joking in the postgame handshake lines and conducting backstage interviews and photos with one another.
"I tried to big-boy him. It never worked in practice [at Michigan]," said Lendeborg, who had 21 points on 8-of-13 shooting and a game-high +26 on the plus-minus. "I don’t know why I tried it here in the game. But it doesn’t hurt to try. Didn’t move him at all. Pretty much ran into a brick wall.
"But it was super-fun playing against him."
As the Mavs got off to a slow start shooting, the Dubs built a large early lead - at one point holding a 24-point edge after leading by 20 at halftime.
Slowly but surely, Dallas began chipping away at the lead. A fastbreak dunk by Johnson after an outlet pass by fellow first-rounder Sergio De Larrea brought the Mavericks to within five with under five minutes to play. Dallas hit a triple on the next possession and was very close to answering with another bucket to either tie or take the lead, but Golden State forced a stop and leaned on crafty guard LJ Cryer to cushion the advantage.
Cryer led Golden State with 25 points, hitting 5 of his 8 shots from 3-point range.
When it comes to scouting the Mavs' top rookie, it was evident that his relentlessness and energy are his top trait, and will make a major impact on the Dallas roster this season. As it did with him leading the show on Thursday.
"Morez just brings such a consistency to the team," said one of May's new assistant coaches Joe Boylan, who is also coaching the Summer League squad. "You kind of have that sense of relief that defensively he’s going to be challenging shots, he’s going to be in the paint. He’s going to be rebounding. There was a lot of instances where if he wasn’t being held down by two guys, he’d have had a lot more rebounds in that game.
"I’m really happy with his offensive decision-making. We encouraged him to let it fly from 3, play off the catch as a perimeter player. I thought he had some really, really good possessions."
Second-year point guard Ryan Nembhard facilitated the Mavs offense for 15 points and a game-high 11 assists. He'll figure to fight for minutes as Kyrie Irving's backup in the Mavs' frontcourt this season, and this was a solid opener.
"I love him already," Nembhard said about Johnson. "He plays so hard on both ends, he’s going to impact the game some way, some how, whether his shot’s falling or not. Rebounds, blocked shots, I loved watching him last year in Michigan and it was great to play with him today."
You can bet Lendeborg used to love watching Johnson play, too, but would've rather preferred the Warriors win in their first professional matchup just a tad more.
Dallas' next Summer League game is on Saturday, July 11, against the Los Angeles Lakers. The game airs live on ESPN at 9 p.m. CT from Las Vegas.
