Dallas’s 56 Bench Points Couldn’t Cover the Starting Shortfall

The Dallas reserves outscored their own starters Saturday, 56-50. That is a considerable contribution from a bench, and an uncomfortable arrangement for an offense trying to cover two major absences. San Antonio left American Airlines Center with a 122-106 win while the Mavericks were still trying to make the sums work.

Kyrie Irving and Cooper Flagg were unavailable, which made the remaining starters’ margin for error especially thin. That is context for this game, not a permanent excuse for every game Dallas plays without them. San Antonio’s starters scored 94 points. Dallas’ first five managed 50, forcing the second unit to carry more than half of the Mavericks’ scoring load.

Max Christie and P.J. Washington presented different problems. Christie scored five points on 2-of-9 shooting, including 1-of-5 from 3-point range. Washington had 12 points on 6-of-12 shooting but went 0-for-3 from outside. Washington found offense inside the arc; Christie did not convert enough of his perimeter opportunities. Lumping those nights together would miss the detail, but neither starter gave Dallas the lift it needed.

Washington’s scoring was useful rather than absent. He made a 9-foot driving floater in the first quarter, added floating jumpers during the second and finished a dunk with 5:27 remaining. That basket made the score 109-96.

Victor Wembanyama then scored to move San Antonio ahead 111-96, and his free throw shortly afterward made it 112-96. Washington had contributed, but his late basket arrived after the Spurs had already taken command.

Dallas’ reserves supplied the game’s most convincing offensive stretch. Sergio de Larrea finished with 21 points on 9-of-15 shooting, including 3-of-4 from 3-point range. Marcus Sasser added 12 points, five assists and a 5-of-9 shooting line. Their work helped Dallas turn a 68-60 halftime deficit into an 85-84 advantage with 2:01 left in the third quarter.

The rally was built from specific possessions. At 7:44 of the third, de Larrea made a 24-foot jumper assisted by Sasser. De Larrea connected again from 24 feet at 4:37.

Sasser followed with a 25-foot pull-up at 4:14 and a 3-pointer at 2:59. Then, at 2:01, de Larrea’s 7-foot floater put Dallas in front. For a while, the bench guards were producing the cleanest answers in the building.

San Antonio had too many contributors waiting on the other side. Wembanyama scored 23, Dylan Harper had 22, and the Spurs’ two primary guards each finished with 19. Devin Vassell added 11 and Julian Champagnie scored 12.

Four Spurs starters reached at least 19 points. Dallas had Daniel Gafford’s 12, Washington’s 12, Zaccharie Risacher’s 11, Naji Marshall’s 10 and Christie’s five. Gafford also delivered nine rebounds, three steals and two blocks, but strong center play could not erase the gap at the top of the lineup.

The opening of the fourth quarter made that gap plain. Gafford’s layup, set up by Walter Clayton Jr. with 11:32 left, brought Dallas within 92-91. San Antonio answered with 11 consecutive points: a Vassell 3-pointer, an alley-oop finish by Tarris Reed Jr. and a Champagnie 3 helped push the lead to 100-91, before Harper’s 3 at 9:05 made it 103-91.

Clayton answered from deep at 8:47, but Dallas had surrendered the momentum it had worked to build.

The Spurs added more separation with 3-pointers from Champagnie at 6:31 and Harper at 5:53, reaching 109-94. Those were San Antonio shots, a small but revealing detail in a game where Dallas’ reserves had already delivered their best sequence. The Mavericks had mounted a legitimate rally; they did not produce enough after San Antonio answered it.

The bench total needs its timing attached. Tobi Lawal and Jett Howard scored five points apiece, with their baskets arriving after San Antonio had already pulled well away in the fourth. Those points count, but they were serving a different purpose from de Larrea’s third-quarter scoring. The fifty-six-point total cannot turn every reserve minute into evidence that the starters should simply have been replaced.

Washington could finish inside and the bench could generate a rally. What Dallas could not find was enough scoring across the rest of the starting group to sustain those contributions. San Antonio’s five starters accumulated ninety-four points. Against that output, Dallas’s reserves were being asked to provide much more than relief.

Sources

NBA: official box score

ESPN: box score and play-by-play

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