The Brooklyn Nets spent Sunday night chasing the game from the opening tip, and by the time it was over, Dallas had turned it into a blowout. The Mavericks rolled to a 130-93 win at American Airlines Center, handing Brooklyn a 37-point defeat after the Nets had already coughed up a 17-point lead the night before in Atlanta.
Cooper Flagg was the engine of it all. He finished with 25 points and a career-high 12 assists, carving up Brooklyn in a way that never really let the Nets settle in.
He came out aggressive right away, scoring 14 in the first quarter by slipping into the lane for floaters and finishes. Then he opened the second quarter with a dunk through contact, knocked down the free throw, and shifted into playmaking mode.
That second quarter was where the game got away. Flagg found teammates over and over, piling up seven assists in the period as Dallas outscored Brooklyn 33-20.
The Mavericks were up 22 after Naji Marshall buried a transition 3-pointer with 7:09 left in the half, and they took a 66-46 lead into the break. Brooklyn made a brief push early in the third, but Dallas answered with another run and stretched the margin to 30 before the quarter ended.
The Mavericks shot 57.1% from the field, scored 64 points in the paint and finished with 31 assists despite turning it over 21 times. Kyrie Irving added 21 points, while Daniel Gafford chipped in 18 on 7-for-8 shooting.
What made the night so rough for Brooklyn was how easily Dallas got where it wanted on the floor. Flagg and Irving kept getting deep into the paint before the Nets could stop them, and the Mavericks rarely had to work through multiple actions or swing the ball around to generate a clean look. They got contested shots, sure, but they also got a lot of the shots they wanted.
Brooklyn didn’t have much to answer with offensively, either. Mikel Brown Jr. and Egor Dëmin were out, which left the Nets short on guards who could create 3-pointers off the dribble against Dallas’ size and switching defense.
Nolan Traoré picked up his second foul with 8:47 left in the first quarter, and that only made Jordi Fernández’s rotation trickier. Traoré still finished with 14 points on 6-for-15 shooting.
Michael Porter Jr. tried to keep Brooklyn afloat early, scoring 15 of the team’s 26 first-quarter points and hitting three 3-pointers to trim the deficit to seven. After that, though, he made just one of his final nine shots and ended with 19 points on 5-for-15 shooting.
Julius Randle scored 13 points and finished minus-33 in 30 minutes. As a team, Brooklyn shot 38.8% and went 11-for-39 from beyond the arc.
Fernández had more lineup questions by the end of it. Noah Clowney fouled out with 2:29 left in the third quarter after picking up six fouls in just 7:47.
He finished with two points and no rebounds, and his foul trouble only added to Brooklyn’s issues on the defensive glass. Josh Minott didn’t check in until the fourth quarter, but he made an impression there, scoring 10 points with two steals and a block against Dallas’ reserves.
Danny Wolf, in his second straight start, had 10 points and three rebounds against former Michigan coach Dusty May. Day’Ron Sharpe added six points and six assists after posting a triple-double Saturday.
Brooklyn couldn’t hold a lead in Atlanta. In Dallas, it never even got the chance to build one.
The Nets are now 2-8, and their four-game trip continues Wednesday against the New Orleans Pelicans and Saturday against the Memphis Grizzlies. Fernández has two days to sort through a night that left plenty to fix.
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