Mavs Notebook: 6 Takeaways From Loss to Champion Spurs

Kyrie Irving's 15-foot turnaround fadeaway missed with 2.5 seconds left Wednesday night, and the San Antonio Spurs held on for a 112-111 win over the Dallas Mavericks at Frost Bank Center.

Dallas trailed 73-54 with 8:31 left in the third quarter. The Mavericks outscored San Antonio 60-44 after halftime and went ahead 103-100 on a P.J. Washington 3-pointer with 5:38 remaining, their largest lead of the night.

Victor Wembanyama finished with 52 points, 24 rebounds, and 8 blocks for the Spurs (6-2), who have won six straight. Dallas (4-4) has lost two in a row, after playing without Irving in a 115-100 home loss to the Sacramento Kings on Monday.

Add it up, and we've got a 6-takeaway Mavs Notebook ...

Marshall scored 22 points on 9-of-12 shooting off the bench. He grabbed 5 rebounds and handed out 3 assists in 25:58.

All three of his 3-point attempts went in, and all three came in the fourth quarter. He scored 13 points in that period, and the last 3 tied the game 111-111 with 1:41 left on a pass from Cooper Flagg.

Two nights earlier against Sacramento, he had 5 points on 2-of-9 shooting. Marshall had been dealing with an illness late last month.

Being sick had Marshall feeling like he was letting his teammates down.

"It was beautiful," Marshall said. "Great feeling. Back helping the team, being there for my teammates. I feel like I'm letting them down just being sick. I know I'm a human, can't control that, but just want to win and be there for my team. So just blessed and happy to be back in my regular form."

Irving said Dallas needs more from Marshall the rest of the season.

"He made a great impact, a huge impact, and we need more from him moving on throughout the season," Irving said. "And tonight was a little funky in the first half in terms of how our offense was looking. But defensively, like I said, if we would have come up with some of those 50-50 basketballs, I think we'd be in here talking about a different game. But you got to give credit to them for their effort. And we just didn't match it."

"So Naji coming in and picking up and being able to make some dynamic plays, hit some big threes really helped us a lot," Irving continued. "And it shrunk the gap. And without him playing the way he did tonight, I don't think we'd be in this game."

Flagg went 1-of-11 from the field in the first half and had 4 points. Wembanyama blocked two of those attempts, including a floater that started a run of three blocks on three different Mavericks in 13 seconds of the second quarter.

After halftime, Flagg made 6-of-8 shots. He had 15 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists over the final two quarters, and Dallas was plus-18 with him on the floor in that stretch.

He finished with 19 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists in a team-high 40:02. Against Sacramento on Monday, Flagg shot 3-of-19 and made all 11 of his free throws for 17 points.

With 6:05 left, he caught an alley-oop from Caleb Martin in transition, drew a foul on Luke Kornet, and made the free throw to tie the game 100-100.

The shots Flagg missed early were ones he had made all year.

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

"Each game just is going to look a little bit different," May added. "We've got to just play the game in front of us. And it took all five of our guys and their activity on the glass to come up with those rebounds as aggressively as they went with their wings, and then obviously Victor getting nine offensive rebounds."

Flagg was the only Dallas starter with a positive plus-minus, at plus-2.

"He's going to go through ups and downs just like every other professional," Irving explained. "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 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. And I think he started to do that in the second half."

"And you look at the plus-minus, he was plus two, pretty much out of the starting five," Irving noted. "So he was giving us what the game needs. And I think we'll only see him get better from these last two games."

San Antonio outrebounded Dallas 40-20 in the first half and led 68-51 at the break. Wembanyama made all 15 of his free throws before halftime.

The second half went the other way on the glass. Dallas grabbed 30 rebounds to San Antonio's 21, and it committed 3 turnovers after halftime. The Mavericks finished with 8 turnovers, and the Spurs scored 5 points off them.

May said the Mavericks kicked the ball out, re-spaced, and shot it after halftime instead of challenging the rim.

"I thought we battled, competed in the second half," May explained. "I thought we were much quicker to the basketball than we were in the first half. We stopped challenging Wemby at the rim and started making better decisions with the basketball. And credit San Antonio, they found a way to win it at the end."

Daniel Gafford and Zaccharie Risacher played 4:05 apiece after halftime. Washington spent long stretches at center and finished with 21 points and 10 rebounds, 4 of them offensive.

Marshall said the Mavericks will need Washington down the stretch.

"P.J. is great," Marshall explained. "Whatever position you put him at, P.J.'s going to be P.J. He's a very big part of this team. We're going to need him down the stretch. It's still a very young season. I like where we're at. We're getting better every game."

Walter Clayton Jr. played 15:45 in the second half and had all 5 of his assists in that stretch, including the pass on Washington's go-ahead 3. He finished with 8 points and 6 rebounds.

Clayton kept getting into the paint and breaking down the defense, and he stayed on the floor for most of the fourth quarter.

"I thought he was playing well," May said. "He played really well. A big part of him getting in the paint, breaking down the defense. I thought that was pretty obvious why he was playing well."

Marshall had no answer for why that energy was missing in the first half.

"I feel like it's a bad thing," Marshall said. "I feel like we're kind of telling on ourselves and showing ourselves personally what we're doing wrong. 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?"

Giving up 32 and 36 points in the first two quarters is not where Irving wants Dallas to be.

"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% or around 39% on the first actions. They were missing shots. And they got to the free throw line. They slowed down the game. So you got to give them credit for the first half."

"But the second half, I feel like we hit them and they had to respond," Irving detailed. "And that's what got us back in the game. But it really came down to our effort and guys being ready to play, coming off the bench and giving us some firepower. So it was a team game tonight that we definitely feel like we can improve from. But, again, just down the stretch, just got to be a little bit better with the basketball. And it starts with me."

Marshall blocked a De'Aaron Fox pull-up with 1:29 left and the game tied. Devin Vassell stole Marshall's pass three seconds later. Irving then missed a 27-foot pull-up 3 with 43.3 seconds to go.

May said Dallas had an opportunity after the block, and the Spurs sprinted back and took it away.

Wembanyama missed the first of two free throws with 24.2 seconds left and made the second. Dallas called timeout and set up the last possession.

May said the play was designed to get Irving a drive to the middle against Fox, with Flagg cutting from the corner.

"I just wanted to give him a double gap," May said. "We had Fox on him and wanted to get a drive middle and Coop cutting from the corner. Just felt like we had an advantage in space and probably attacked a little bit too late."

Irving had a chance to beat Fox going right, and Fox bodied him into a tough shot.

"I think we had a play call," Irving said. "It was, we talked about it after the game as well, just in terms of the timing of it and just knowing time and score and just what everybody's comfortable with. I'm truly grateful. I have the confidence from my teammates and I have the utmost confidence in myself to be able to make some tough shots down the stretch."

"But it was a great play call for me to at least create an advantage and take a shot at least going to the rim," Irving continued. "And I felt like I got a good look in it, but I just didn't have my legs underneath me as well. And just D-Fox did a great job of bumping me off my spot. And that's just sometimes the tale of the game. So it felt good, but I definitely feel like I definitely could have made that."

Irving finished with 29 points on 9-of-27 shooting, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists in 35:58. He made 5-of-14 3-pointers and 6-of-8 free throws.

Wednesday was his first game against San Antonio this season. Irving sat out the Oct. 24 meeting in Dallas, a 122-106 Spurs win, on the second night of a back-to-back.

Dallas hosts the Utah Jazz on Friday at 7 p.m. CT at American Airlines Center. The Brooklyn Nets visit Sunday.