Depleted Mavericks overcome Tyler Herro’s 40 points, defeat Heat 118-113

The Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat played in Dallas on Thursday night in the last game before the All-Star break, and both teams were missing plenty of pieces on the second night of a back-to-back. It’d almost be easier to list who WAS available for both teams, but Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, P.J. Washington, Daniel Gafford, Dereck Lively II, Andrew Wiggins, and Bam Adebayo were among the key players out for this contest.

With all of those players out, Dallas started Spencer Dinwiddie, Dante Exum, Max Christie, Olivier-Maxence Prosper, and Kessler Edwards, the 27th different starting lineup of the season, while Miami started Daivion Mitchell, Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez, Kyle Anderson, and Kel’el Ware.

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Max Christie was the main source of offense for Dallas, scoring seven of the team’s first 13 points. But this was an ugly scoring start for both teams. Tyler Herro, who was named an All-Star, started just 1/6 from the floor. With less than three minutes to go in the quarter, Christie, Olivier-Maxence Prosper, and Jaime Jaquez were the only players with multiple baskets made. Dallas also had five early turnovers, which didn’t help their case.

Jaden Hardy specifically had a rough start for Dallas, starting 0/2 from the floor and the free-throw line. That contributed to a 45.5% shooting performance in the first for the team as they found themselves down 22-21 after a three-ball by Duncan Robinson.

The second quarter saw 16 lead changes alone, as well as a few ties. But despite that back-and-forth action, it wasn’t very entertaining to watch. Miami was able to open some space on the inside with the vertical spacing of Kel’el Ware, and Tyler Herro stated to find some success inside the arc as well.

Dante Exum had eight of Dallas’ final ten points in the half, but two straight buckets by Tyler Herro, who had 19 points in the first half, gave the Heat a 56-55 edge at halftime. The Mavs finally got some three-pointers to drop, but they were turning it over far too often.

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The third quarter saw another five lead changes that saw Miami take a seven-point lead midway through the quarter after a turnaround fade to give him 29 points for the game, but then Kessler Edwards woke up.

Edwards has been thrust into a starting center role due to all of Dallas’ injuries, and he ended up with 13 points in the third quarter, including three made triples behind the arc. That helped offset another bad quarter from Jaden Hardy, who couldn’t hit water with a pebble if he was standing on a boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in this game. But Dallas was the team with a one-point lead this time, heading into the fourth quarter with an 84-83 lead.

Kyle Anderson helped Miami build a lead again early in the fourth quarter as they started to show some dominance near the rim, both on the glass and scoring-wise. Dante Exum helped the Mavs keep pace, and then a Kessler Edwards driving layup gave the Mavs the lead again. Naji Marshall extended the lead to four on a three-pointer with 3:43 to go, closing out an 8-0 run.

Exum extended that run to 10-0 on a tough shot inside, then broke out for a transition dunk to extend the run to 12-0, and the lead to a game-high eight. Alec Burks would break the run, but the Mavs still had a six-point lead. Naji Marshall hit two free throws before Tyler Herro converted a four-point play to cut the lead in half from the corner. Exum got the lead back to six before Duncan Robinson hit a crazy rainbow three to get the lead down to three.

Max Christie hit a jumper in the lane to get it to five, but Miami was gifted a technical free throw after Naji Marshall passed the ball at the stanchion. Herro hit that free throw, and Alec Burks went 1/2 at the line on the same possession to keep the lead at three. They’d get a stop, giving Miami a chance to tie with less than 30 seconds left.

Tyler Herro missed a decent look from the corner that would’ve tied the game, and Spencer Dinwiddie went 2/2 at the line to push the Mavs’ lead to five with 8.0 seconds remaining. That would be enough for Dallas to win 118-113 and go into the All-Star break with back-to-back wins.

The Mavericks had nine players available for this game; seven of them scored in double figures. It started with Dante Exum, who led the way with 27 points in just 24 minutes, one off of his career high. He was followed by Max Christie (19 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals), Spencer Dinwiddie (18 points, 6 assists), Kessler Edwards (15 points, 9 rebounds, 3/4 3PT shooting), Naji Marshall (12 points, 9 rebounds), Brandon Williams (11 points), and Olivier-Maxence Prosper (10 points).

Tyler Herro had 40 points for the Heat, but it took him 30 shots to get there. Kel’el Ware had a solid game with 17 points and 9 rebounds, followed by Kyle Anderson (15 points) and Alec Burks (12 points).

Dallas has a little over a week off for the All-Star break before playing the Pelicans at home next Friday. Kyrie Irving will be their only representative this weekend in San Francisco.

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