Mavs Get 'Punched' As Cooper Flagg Is Held to 12 Points in Loss

The Dallas Mavericks had been bit by the injury bug some this season, but had managed a 7-4 record and three-game win streak going into Thursday night's contest at the Target Center against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

On the first offensive sequence of the game, the Mavs very nearly saw an injury to their best player.

Cooper Flagg, fresh off a 43-point outburst in the Mavericks' latest game, tweaked his right ankle as it rolled over Rudy Gobert's foot after he jumped to make a pass.

Flagg hobbled for the remainder of the possession and was hidden in the corner on the Mavs' next time with the ball. He eventually shrugged off the injury scare with a thunderous slam in transition a few minutes later, but the highlight was hardly enough for Dallas to keep the game competitive.

Minnesota would use a dominant third quarter to open up an insurmountable lead before winning 133-94.

The Timberwolves' top-rated defense would have been tough for Flagg and Kyrie Irving to face even without the teenager's minor stinger.

"Are they number one in defense efficiency in the league now?" Mavs coach Dusty May vented postgame. "I mean, when you’re number one in this league in anything, you’re pretty proficient in that area. When you just look at their team speed and the way, the intensity that they’re playing with, and then obviously it’s a luxury to have two rim protectors behind you.

"We’ll give Minnesota credit. I thought their point-of-attack defense, their activity on and off the ball was extremely disruptive, and they deserved to win the way they did tonight."

Flagg was held to just 12 points on 5-of-12 shooting. He and Irving would receive extended rest on the bench as the Wolves pulled away. Irving, who had 35 points on Monday, scored 10 on Thursday on 4-of-11 shooting and 2-of-6 from 3-point range.

"They had one body on them before they even crossed half-court, and we weren’t able to get clean catches, and we weren’t able to leverage that attention to generate anything else offensively," May explained about how Minnesota guarded Dallas' star duo. "And then their second unit really, I think, injected a lot of life into them."

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Bones Hyland came off the bench to lead the Wolves in scoring with 24 points on efficient 7-of-10 shooting, adding eight assists.

As Dallas begins a stretch where five of the next seven games are on the road, this is the type of game you try to wipe from memory as soon as possible - not even bothering to watch film, hoping to pinpoint adjustments.

"I mean, we didn’t do it early enough," said Naji Marshall about a Mavs team that shot a season-low 37 percent from the field. "And they obviously just punched us in the mouth."

Dallas (7-5) looks to get up off the canvas against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday at Rocket Arena, with tipoff slated for 6:30 p.m. CT.