The Mavericks take on a feisty Pistons team
The Dallas Mavericks continue their five-game road trip by heading Detroit to face the Pistons Friday night.
Dallas is coming off a thrilling 137-136 win against New Orleans, where the Mavericks made it two straight games hitting 20 or more three pointers. They’ve risen to four-games above .500 at 26-22 despite the extended absence of Luka Doncic and now Dereck Lively and Maxi Kleber.
The Pistons are on the upswing after a historically bad season in 2024. They’re now somewhat firmly in playoff position, near .500, and looking like a much more composed and confident basketball team, despite the youth.
This won’t be a cakewalk game for the Mavericks — Detroit can play, despite losing five of its last seven games. Perhaps Dallas caught the Pistons at the right swing, but they’ll need to play well to win. Here’s what to watch for.
Gafford’s continued dominance
On Jan. 15 the Mavericks lost their second consecutive game to the Denver Nuggets, with Nuggets backup old-man center DeAndre Jordan outplaying the Mavericks Daniel Gafford. Gafford himself admitted after the game his performance wasn’t up to snuff, and the big man has since responded to his own call out.
In the eight games since that loss to Denver, Gafford is averaging 18.9 points, 10.6 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game on 73.2 percent shooting. In the 231 minutes he’s played in those eight games, the Mavericks are plus-50. That Nuggets loss was also the game Dereck Lively suffered a stress fracture in his ankle, sidelining him for the next few months. The Mavericks went 4-4 in those eight games, with two impressive wins against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Without Gafford rising to the occasion, Dallas could be under .500 right now.
He’ll face a tough test in Detroit, with third-year center Jalen Duren squaring off across from him. Duren is an athletic monster, and while some of his counting stats are slightly down from a season ago, he’s shooting a career-high from the floor and has a relentless motor. The Mavericks have faced some lightweight frontcourts in the last week, so this will be a nice challenge for Gafford and the shorthanded Mavericks.
Can they slow down Cade?
A big reason why the Pistons are resurgent this season is the arrival of their franchise cornerstone, Cade Cunningham. A former number one overall pick in 2021, Cunningham’s first few seasons were marred with injury, inconsistent play, and the Pistons overall franchise malaise casting a shadow over everything.
Detroit did a good job to clean as much of the muck off last season’s misery in the past off-season, bringing in a new coach (J.B. Bickerstaff) to replace the exceptionally checked-out Monty Williams. With that, some under-the-radar offseason acquisitions, and Cunningham’s so far clean bill of health, he’s had a big impact in his fourth season, averaging 25 points, 9.3 assists, and 6.4 rebounds per game.
If you haven’t watched a ton of Cunningham, well, we don’t blame you — the Pistons have been stinky for years now and Cunningham struggled initially entering the league. But the best way to possibly describe him to Mavericks fans is that he’s sort of like a Luka Doncic proxy, except a little bit more athletic but a little less skilled. That’s still an awesome player and Cunningham has had huge games to lead the Pistons into the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference after being dead in the water a year ago. Cunningham has size, vision, and ball skill to manipulate defenses similar to how Doncic does it, and he completely runs the show in Detroit.
The Mavericks point-of-attack defense has been their biggest question mark all season, even when healthy, so Cunningham will present a ton of problems. Look to see different coverages and different personnel on Cunningham all game as coach Jason Kidd tries to find the right combination of scheme and players to slow down the Pistons budding star.
THJ revenge game?
Tim Hardaway Jr. is on the Pistons after being traded there last summer for Quentin Grimes and so far the move has appeared to be a win-win for both teams — Grimes has brought more youth and defense to the off-the-bench gunner role Hardaway occupied for years with Dallas, and Hardaway has given some veteran know-how to a youthful Pistons team still learning how to win.
Hardaway’s season in Detroit won’t surprise Mavericks fans — he’s still hitting threes (37.8 percent on over six attempts per game), still taking and missing some bad twos (only right at 50 percent on two pointers), and not really doing all that much else in passing, defense, or rebounding. Still, for a Detroit team starved for shooting, Hardaway’s trigger finger and gravity has been a boon to Cunningham’s success, opening up the floor for him in ways that just weren’t possible in the last few seasons.
Dallas’ defensive scheme naturally allows some threes, especially ones from above-the-break, where Hardaway mostly operates. It’ll be interesting to see if Hardaway can burn his older team and exploit this advantage, or if the Mavericks are ready to extend out and stick to him at the three point line.