After a rocky start to the season it is a few new faces and the leadership of one of their stars that has them correcting course.
The Dallas Mavericks wrap up the holiday end to November with a rhythm. That’s important as they navigate a favorable stretch of the schedule, mostly without Luka Doncic. In year’s past missing their superstar for any length of time was anxiety filled at best, a death sentence at worst.
But for now this new version of the defending Western Conference champs has shown more balance and variety, and a depth this team hasn’t had in quite some time. This week’s Power Rankings Watch zeroes in on that success, thanks to breakout play from Naji Marshall, PJ Washington, and Quentin Grimes; as well as the stabilizing force of Kyrie Irving star leadership (an unthinkable sentence just two years ago).
The Athletic
Rank: 9 (Tier 2: In a Good Place)
Last week: 15
Thankful: Naji Marshall breaking through
The Mavericks were crying out for a player to help Luka Dončić, Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson offensively earlier this month. Marshall, a free agent from the New Orleans Pelicans, has emerged as that player. Undrafted out of Xavier, Marshall is averaging a career-best 11.3 points on 55 percent shooting from the field. He already has eight dunks this season; Marshall had nine all of last season and has never had more than 14 in a season. Marshall can be even better, too, as he is only shooting 28.6 percent from 3 after making 38.7 percent last year.
ESPN
Rank: 11
Last week: 12
Clutch statistics tend to have a wide variance. For the second straight season, the Mavs have served as an extreme example of this. It was a great development last season, when Dallas was a dominant closing team, ranking second in the league in clutch winning percentage (23-9, .719) and first in clutch offensive rating (127.1). That was in stark contrast to the Mavs’ clutch struggles in 2022-23 following the trade for Kyrie Irving, when Dallas lost 15 of 21 clutch games while limping into the lottery. The Mavs have reverted to that form early this season with a 3-7 clutch record. Dallas is 5-of-15 from the floor in the final minute with a one-possession margin. In contrast, the Mavs shot a league-best 55.2% in those situations last season. — MacMahon
NBA
Rank: 6
Last week: 7
Luka Dončić has missed three of the last four games with knee and wrist injuries, but the Mavs have won in Oklahoma City and Denver without him. They came one stop short of winning in Miami on Sunday.
Three takeaways
The two wins without Dončić have been two of the Mavs’ five best offensive games of the season. P.J. Washington led them with 27 points in Oklahoma City and had seven on the 9-0 run that turned a five-point deficit into a four-point lead with less than a minute left in Denver on Friday.
The leading scorer against the Nuggets was Naji Marshall, who has somehow seized a portion of the Dallas offense from Dončić and Kyrie Irving. The Mavs’ two stars have both seen drops in the percentage of their minutes that they have the ball from last season, with Marshall averaging a career-high 2.0 minutes of possession.
With both of the weekend games going down the wire, Marshall was on the floor instead of Klay Thompson for most of the clutch minutes. Thompson didn’t take a shot in the 4.3 clutch minutes he played, while the Mavs shot 1-for-16 on clutch 3-pointers, including 1-for-13 in the overtime loss in Miami. They’re now 3-7 in games that were within five points in the last five minutes and 6-1 otherwise.
The Mavs have already had three rest-disadvantage games, and they’ll have two more this week. The first (Monday) is in Atlanta, and the second (Sunday) is more than 2,000 miles away in Portland.
Bleacher Report
Rank: 7
Last week: 10
Luka Dončić has missed five of the Dallas Mavericks’ last six games, and his team has won four of the five absences.
Much of the roster, including solid defenders such as P.J. Washington, Naji Marshall, Quentin Grimes, Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford, deserves credit, but the lion’s share has to go to Kyrie Irving.
On the season, Irving is averaging 24.5 points, 5.4 assists and 3.1 threes, while shooting 46.6 percent from deep. And he’s opened up a pretty comfortable lead over Dončić on the team’s 2024-25 wins over replacement player leaderboard.