The Dallas Mavericks briefly appeared at risk of squandering a chance to end their eight-game losing streak. A 20-point first-half lead had vanished, the Memphis Grizzlies had just tied the game at 84 with just over a minute left in the third quarter, and FedExForum was as loud as it had been all night.
Then Khris Middleton walked onto the floor to start the fourth quarter, and the building went quiet.
Middleton came off the bench to score a season-high 35 points — 22 of them in a dominant fourth quarter — as Dallas held off the Grizzlies 120-112 on Thursday night to snap an eight-game losing streak, the longest skid of the season. It was the Mavericks’ first win since a 123-114 victory in Brooklyn on Feb. 24, and it came on the final night of a grueling six-game, 11-day road trip that pushed this young roster to its limits.
Daniel Gafford recorded a season-high 22 points and 14 rebounds for his fourth consecutive double-double, Cooper Flagg finished with 13 points and seven assists, and Dallas controlled the interior all night in a game that could have gotten away from them if not for Middleton’s second-half takeover. The Mavericks improved to 22-44. Memphis dropped to 23-42 and lost its sixth straight game.
“Whenever you get off a losing streak — no matter if it’s two games or 20 games — it feels like a weight left off your back,” Middleton said. “You feel like you finally did something right. You try to take whatever you did right, moving on to the next game, and try to create a winning streak now.”
The victory came without Klay Thompson, who sat out for rest on the back end of a back-to-back despite playing some of his best basketball of the season. Over his previous four games, Thompson averaged 17.3 points on 47.1% shooting from 3-point range, including a 21-point performance off the bench in Tuesday’s loss at Atlanta. Additionally, Kyrie Irving (left knee surgery) and Dereck Lively II (right foot surgery) both remain sidelined for the season.
A Dominant First Half for the Dallas Mavericks
The Mavericks jumped Memphis from the opening tip. Gafford won the jump ball, and Naji Marshall fed him for a dunk six seconds into the game. Dallas pushed out to a 9-1 lead before Middleton checked in with 6:48 left in the first quarter and hit back-to-back 3-pointers, the second a step-back from 26 feet off a Caleb Martin assist that pushed the lead to 20-9. He added a third 3-pointer with 41 seconds left in the quarter, and Dallas led 34-22 after one.
The rout appeared on in the second quarter. Gafford was dominant, totaling 17 points in the first half on a series of dunks, putbacks, and cuts that Memphis had no answer for. Dallas extended the lead to 20 on back-to-back baskets from Marshall — the second a layup off a Brandon Williams steal that made it 57-37 with 4:39 left in the half.
When Gafford threw down an alley-oop dunk off a Williams feed late in the second to push it to 65-50, Dallas seemed firmly in control.
However, Memphis kept chipping away. The Grizzlies scored the final four points of the first half, capped by Taylor Hendricks‘ tip-in at the buzzer, to make it 65-54 heading into the break. Dallas had held a 31-17 rebounding advantage in the first half and led 42-16 in paint points, but the Grizzlies had clawed within reach.
Memphis Grizzlies Storms Back
The third quarter was a different game entirely. Memphis came out with urgency, and the Mavericks went flat. Wells opened the second half with a driving layup off a Small assist. Javon Small hit a pull-up three. Hendricks scored seven points in the quarter — a tip-in, a three-pointer, and a running dunk — while Jahmai Mashack added two assists that kept Memphis’ offense organized.
GG Jackson scored back-to-back baskets, a driving layup, and a putback off his own miss, to cut it to 84-80 with under three minutes remaining. Things unraveled further for Dallas.
Gafford picked up a defensive three seconds violation. P.J. Washington committed a turnover that Grizzlies coach Tuomas Iisalo successfully challenged, returning possession to Memphis. Small then drew a foul on Williams and converted both free throws to tie the game at 84 with 1:05 remaining in the third, sending FedExForum into a frenzy.
Middleton made two free throws after drawing a Burton foul with 2.4 seconds left to give Dallas an 86-84 edge heading to the fourth, but it felt precarious.
After losing a big lead, Mavericks coach Jason Kidd acknowledged the Mavericks had let their foot off the gas before crediting the group’s composure in holding things together.
“I thought we had a 20-point lead, and then I think we just kind of cruised there for a little bit,” Kidd said. “But I thought the character of the group — no one panicked. It was tied, we kept playing, and then Khris caught fire there in the fourth.”
Khris Middleton Slams the Door
When the Mavericks needed someone to step up to steady the team, Middleton went above and beyond answering the call.
It began when Ryan Nembhard found Middleton for a catch-and-shoot three-pointer 15 seconds into the fourth to push the lead to five. Small turned it over on the ensuing possession, and Nembhard found Middleton again — another 3-pointer — to make it 92-84. After not being given landing space, Middleton’s next attempt drew a shooting foul, and he converted all three free throws to stretch the lead to 11 at 95-84.
Suddenly, Middleton had scored 11 straight Dallas points in under two minutes of game time, and the building had gone silent. He was not finished.
Middleton hit a turnaround jumper along the baseline to make it 97-86, a three off a Williams assist to push it to 106-91, and two more 3-pointers down the stretch — one as the shot clock was expiring — to push Dallas ahead 118-104 with 1:44 left and end any remaining doubt. He finished the fourth 7-of-9 from the field, 5-of-5 from 3-point range, and 3-of-3 at the free-throw line.
For the game, Middleton shot 10-of-17 from the field and 8-of-10 from beyond the arc, tying his career high in made 3-pointers. His 35 points were the most off the bench by a Maverick since Rodrigue Beaubois torched Golden State for 40 on March 27, 2010, and just the 11th time in franchise history a Dallas player has reached 35 from the bench.
“Probably after the second or third three, I felt like I was in a pretty good rhythm,” Middleton said. “The way they were coming off my hand, I was just hoping I was going to get a couple more looks, and thankfully I did. When you’re a shooter, and you get a couple to go down, you keep firing, keep letting them go.”
From the Memphis sideline, Iisalo was direct about what the sequence exposed and what it should teach his younger players. He also took issue with one of the calls that fueled the run, though he acknowledged it did not change the larger lesson.
“The first two threes had very little contest on them,” Iisalo said. “When you allow a player like that to get hot, it becomes very difficult to stop him. There are multiple things you can do in that situation, but the biggest thing is that you never want to allow a guy to get hot in the first place.”
Wells, who led Memphis with 23 points and spent stretches of the fourth quarter tasked with slowing Middleton, said the reality is there is no clean answer once a scorer of his caliber finds a rhythm.
“He’s good. Great shooter,” Wells said. “It’s kind of hard to mitigate a guy like that — he’s been doing it for years. You’ve just got to try to stop him from getting the ball. When a guy is hot like that, every shot he takes probably feels like it’s going in. So you try to eliminate him having the ball.”
Kidd praised Middleton’s decision-making throughout the night, not just during the fourth-quarter explosion, pointing to his veteran approach as something the younger players on the roster would benefit from studying.
“He was good in the first half, and he’s been good for us coming off the bench,” Kidd said. “He didn’t waste any steps tonight. When he was open, he shot it. If they pressed up, he drove it. It was a really nice thing to watch. Just seeing a veteran take what the defense gave him — for our young group, our young players, this would be a good game to watch.”
Middleton pushed back gently on the idea that a night like this says anything definitive about where his game is at this stage of his career.
“If I’m out here, that means I can still play,” he said. “I’ve been known to score more in my career in the past — that was just a different role. I’m always ready for whatever role a team wants me to play. When a night like this happens, it’s a good reminder, but my nights aren’t always going to be like that.”
Daniel Gafford Dominates the Interior
The matchup was favorable from the opening tip. Memphis dressed just eight players with 11 on the injured list and was forced to start Olivier-Maxence Prosper — a 6-foot-6 wing — at small-ball center. Gafford, listed at 6-foot-11 and 240 pounds, went to work immediately and never let up.
He finished 9-of-12 from the field with six offensive rebounds among his 14. The Mavericks outrebounded Memphis 60-38 — a franchise-high total this season — held a 64-42 edge in points in the paint, scored 32 second-chance points compared to Memphis’ 11, and added 20 fast-break points. Dallas’ 60 rebounds were also a season high for any Grizzlies opponent this season.
Competing against his former teammate added a layer of motivation that Gafford said sharpened his focus from the opening tip.
“Just my approach, honestly,” Gafford said. “As soon as we found out how many guys they had playing, I knew it was going to be a dogfight, especially with the guys they’ve got on their side. I was going against my former teammate O-Max. That guy plays hard, man. He pretty much brought the best out of me tonight for sure. I’m trying to reassert myself in ways that I’ve done before. I’m starting to feel better as the days go by, so I’m just putting a lot of games in front of me right now.”
Prosper, for his part, refused to concede the matchup. Playing small-ball center has become a recurring reality throughout Memphis’ injury crisis, and he described his approach against Gafford as getting crafty rather than trying to overpower anyone.
“You’re not going to out-battle them physically, so you try to work around them — deflect the basketball, make things difficult, and not let them get comfortable with their positioning,” Prosper said. “I don’t care how many pounds a guy weighs. I’m going to find a way to make it hard for him.”
Wells acknowledged the rebounding battle was impossible to win given the personnel Memphis had available. Rather than chasing boards himself, he took an individual approach: creating chaos around Gafford wherever possible.
“I try my best to run into the big man and push him under the hoop,” Wells said. “I usually don’t try to go for the rebound — I just try to take out the big man. I don’t really care about the rebound stats, but the team getting the rebound.”
The physical toll of that rebounding battle was real on Gafford’s end, too. He described a game where Memphis made him earn every single board.
“It means I did my job for sure, just setting the tone physically,” he said. “They weren’t letting me get the rebound easy either. I had somebody pushing me in my back or hitting me in my face every time I was down there to get one. They most definitely made me work for it.”
Exploiting the size mismatch was not accidental — it was a deliberate point of emphasis on the Dallas side before tip-off. Kidd confirmed Gafford delivered exactly what was asked of him.
“That was something we talked about before the game, and G responded in a big way,” Kidd said. “He dominated the paint. If we missed, he had the opportunity for putbacks, and then being able to get to the free-throw line and knock those down. You look at PJ and Gaff having double-doubles for us.”
Washington contributed 12 points and 10 rebounds for his own double-double. Marvin Bagley III added 6 points and 9 rebounds in 19 minutes off the bench. Kidd specifically mentioned Williams and Nembhard as contributors to the win, even with modest stat lines.
“Max shot the ball better for us tonight,” Kidd said. “I thought Ryan ran the team really well. That bench was good. I thought Bags was good for us, too.”
The Mavericks’ recent schedule has been brutal logistically. It includes a six-game road trip that stops in Charlotte, Orlando, Boston, Toronto, and Atlanta before Memphis, then concludes with a back-to-back on Saturday in Dallas, followed by another road back-to-back.
“That’s what we get paid for,” Gafford said. “I can’t take too much from what we’ve been going through for 11 days now. I think this is one of my first long trips in a minute too, so I was not prepared for it, but I stuck with it, stayed patient, and really just had fun while we was on the road.”
Cooper Flagg and the Pace Factor
Cooper Flagg had 13 points on 6-of-16 shooting with seven assists in 33 minutes. While he didn’t produce an explosive scoring night, Flagg played within the flow and made winning plays, including a key block in the fourth quarter to protect the lead.
Flagg has recently said he felt he was playing too fast at times since returning from his midfoot injury, and Kidd addressed that dynamic while also making clear that the rookie’s overall contributions have not gone unnoticed.
“I think for Coop, if he’s saying he’s playing too fast, I would have to go with that,” Kidd said. “But I think he’s taken on the challenge of having a big crowd in front of him, and he’s making the plays, finding his open teammates. I know he thinks he’s getting fouled on some of them, but as a rookie you have to understand that sometimes that whistle is not going to come until you earn it. For him, he continues to keep driving, he keeps getting to the basket, and he’s also making plays — spreading the ball for us to create those threes.”
The pace at which Dallas played was another factor Kidd identified as central to the offense’s effectiveness, noting that the Mavericks tend to break down when they slow things down rather than push.
“We get in trouble when we walk the ball up, and that’s where our spacing kind of goes sideways,” Kidd said. “Playing with pace, playing quicker — but also understanding with Max and Khris on the floor, those guys are capable shooters. That gives Coop and our point guards — B-Will and Ryan — the opportunity to get downhill.”
Turnovers Still a Problem for the Dallas Mavericks
Dallas committed 20 turnovers that led to 29 Memphis points, a persistent issue Kidd addressed directly after the game.
“We’ve got to be better with turnovers,” Kidd said. “We just have too many turnovers, and again tonight to have 19 — that’s just too many.”
Marshall had six turnovers in 23 minutes. Williams added several costly miscues in the fourth quarter as Dallas struggled to ice the game cleanly. The Mavericks gave it away 10 times in the first half alone, which kept Memphis within striking distance far longer than the size mismatch should have allowed.
Middleton said the chemistry developing between this group has been helping them communicate through moments like that, even without the benefit of regular practice time.
“A lot of times now we’re able to figure things out a lot quicker because of instances in the past,” Middleton said. “We see different things, and now we’re on the same page. Those things are coming faster. It just comes with getting enough reps together. There’s not a lot of practice time, so we’ve got to figure out as much as we can during games and keep talking to each other.”
Memphis Grizzlies Fight But Fall Short
Wells led the Grizzlies with 23 points. GG Jackson finished with 20 points, Small had 19 points and a career-high-tying nine assists, and Hendricks came off the bench for 17 points and 10 rebounds. Rayan Rupert added 13 points and seven rebounds.
Prosper finished with 9 points and 8 rebounds in 26 minutes, going 1-of-8 from 3-point range while competing in an impossible matchup against Gafford. He hit a three-pointer in the fourth to briefly make it 103-91 before Middleton answered with consecutive 3-pointers to end any hope of a Memphis comeback.
Wells offered a candid assessment of what the injury situation has cost Memphis offensively, beyond just the rebounding disadvantage it creates on defense.
“Not having a center in general makes things a little harder on defense,” Wells said. “Offensively, he’s a bucket. Our offense can get a little sporadic late in the shot clock because normally we have that guy we can throw the ball to in the post, and he can go get a bucket. We’re still trying to figure out how to keep the offense flowing without just repeating the same thing over and over again.”
Despite everything, Iisalo said his players’ willingness to keep competing through a punishing stretch has not gone unnoticed.
“I’m really proud of the way the guys keep showing up,” Iisalo said. “Today, there were plenty of reasons we could have folded. We didn’t start well, but we found a way to get back in the game. Now we just have to find a way to finish those games.”
Among the Memphis inactives were Ja Morant, Santi Aldama, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Zach Edey, Ty Jerome, Scotty Pippen Jr., Brandon Clarke, and Walter Clayton Jr. The Grizzlies signed Burton from their G League affiliate, the Memphis Hustle, on a 10-day contract simply to have enough bodies dressed for the game.
Up Next
The Mavericks briefly return home Friday to host the Cleveland Cavaliers in their only home appearance during a nine-game stretch, before heading back on the road for a back-to-back with stops in Cleveland on Sunday and New Orleans on Monday.
Gafford said he expects a significant step up in competition against Cleveland’s frontcourt — a contrast he is already looking forward to.
“I feel like it’s going to be the same amount of pressure, just to another level,” Gafford said. “Once you get past that, you’ve got to deal with the two towers under the basket too. It’ll be a really good game for us to see where we’re at as a team.”
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