The San Antonio Spurs will seek their first win of the season when they travel to Dallas to face the Mavericks on Saturday night in the second game of a back-to-back set for both teams.
Dallas will be without star forward Cooper Flagg, who missed the second half of a 121-105 road win over Indiana on Friday when he suffered left shoulder soreness on a flagrant foul just before halftime.
Mavericks coach Dusty May told reporters that Flagg “will be evaluated” in the next couple of days.
San Antonio, meanwhile, will look to rebound from a 114-110 loss to Houston on Friday in Austin in a game in which star Victor Wembanyama was denied above the rim by the Rockets’ Amen Thompson on a last-second layup.
Wembanyama bounced back from a 1-for-13 shooting performance in the Spurs’ season-opening loss to Oklahoma City on Tuesday with a team-leading 25 points against Houston on Friday. He also grabbed 13 rebounds, while Dylan Harper had 20 points, De’Aaron Fox added 19 and Stephon Castle tallied 15 for San Antonio.
Even with a better game from Wembanyama and solid performances across the board, the Spurs know they have to be better. They’ve gone from last year’s surprise team — reaching the NBA Finals — to one that likely will get the attention of every opponent.
“We played two of the better teams in the league,” San Antonio coach Mitch Johnson said after Friday’s setback. “We played much better than we did game one. Both games are far from our standard and our habits and our identity. We have a lot of improvement to be had.”
The Mavericks will travel south for their home opener with momentum forged from their victory over the Pacers. Dallas built a 37-point lead in the second quarter and held off a tepid Indiana second-half rally thanks to a game-high 24 points by Kyrie Irving, plus P.J. Washington’s 20 points and 13 rebounds and contributions across the lineup.
Max Christie added 16 points, Naji Marshall 15 and Flagg 14 as Dallas rebounded from a season-opening loss at Houston on Wednesday.
“We’ve been putting an emphasis on not making excuses because we’re a new group,” Irving said after Friday’s win. “We can really control our effort, really put our attitude out there, and just hold our position.
“Taking care of the basketball is important, and then the possessions make sense when the ball finds the right players, and we’re able to do it on both ends of the floor. It’s a team game, and in order for us to be successful, especially later on the season, we got to build these habits now.”
The win was the first as an NBA coach for May, who was hired away from defending NCAA national champion Michigan in the offseason.
Irving fouled out for the first time in his NBA career, a span of 781 regular-season games.
