The Dallas Mavericks beat the Brooklyn Nets 123-114 in New York on a night shaped as much by a blizzard as by basketball. Marvin Bagley III led Dallas with 22 points, and Brandon Williams added 19 points and 10 assists as the Mavericks got back on the floor after a difficult trip.
Bagley said the team had to shake off the travel problems and play with urgency, saying they must have left their legs in Indiana but that the group showed a lot of heart to come out and play like that after the travel issues. Dallas scored 76 points in the first half and never let the Nets settle in, even without Cooper Flagg, who missed his fourth straight game because of a sprained left foot.
The game mattered because both teams had been stranded in different cities before arriving in New York on Tuesday afternoon, and the schedule did not leave much room to recover. Brooklyn dropped its fifth straight game despite 26 points from Michael Porter Jr. and 22 from Noah Clowney, while an unnamed Nets speaker said the team has to find a way to bounce back and could not match Dallas' intensity in the first half.
Read Also: Suns Game: Phoenix faces Mavericks with No. 7 seed already secured
Dallas will host the Sacramento Kings on Thursday, while the Nets are set to play the San Antonio Spurs the same day. For the Mavericks, the win showed they could handle the disruption; for Brooklyn, it was another loss that made the next game feel even more important.
