Ace Bailey’s dunk gave Utah a 70-68 lead with 7:44 left in the third quarter. Dallas then scored the next 13 points. Its answer to a game that was still unsettled came from offensive rebounds, made free throws and a run of finishes from Cooper Flagg and Kyrie Irving.
Morez Johnson Jr. grabbed an offensive rebound at 7:34. Cooper Flagg then made two free throws at 7:30 to tie the game. Johnson collected another offensive rebound at 7:06, and Kyrie Irving followed with a 14-foot pull-up to put Dallas in front. A third Johnson offensive board came at 6:33, setting up a P.J. Washington free throw.
Flagg’s dunk at 5:55 made it 75-70. Irving added a driving floater and an 18-foot pull-up. At 3:33, Flagg made two more free throws to complete Dallas’ 13-0 answer and establish an 81-70 lead. Utah finally stopped the drought with Josh Green’s 3-pointer at 2:48.
The burst was the decisive part of Dallas’ 112-100 victory Friday at American Airlines Center. The Mavericks had reached halftime level at 57-57, with much of their scoring carried by P.J. Washington. Flagg and Irving supplied the third-quarter points, while Johnson kept providing the extra opportunities. Dallas won the period 32-19, enough to give the fourth quarter a very different starting point.
Johnson was the quiet engine of the stretch. He finished with 13 points and 17 boards, ten of them at the attacking end. His first two offensive boards during the run did not automatically produce points; they gave Dallas another chance to create them. The third led to Washington’s free throw, and Johnson’s work kept a bad initial result from ending the possession.
Dallas finished with 21 offensive rebounds and 20 second-chance points. Utah had eight offensive rebounds and five second-chance points. That gap helped the Mavericks survive an ugly night from beyond the arc.
Dallas went 9 of 32 from 3-point range, while Utah made 15 of 39. Lauri Markkanen supplied all 24 of his points on eight 3-pointers, so the Jazz clearly won that portion of the scoring contest.
The offensive rebounds were particularly valuable on a night when Dallas made only nine of its 32 threes. A possession that survived a miss still had somewhere else to go. The Mavericks scored 48 points in the paint and made 25 free throws. They could build a scoring run without waiting for every part of their shooting to improve at once.
Washington provided the first-half foundation. He scored 22 points before the break and finished with a season-high 26, making 6 of 10 threes, 7 of 14 shots overall and 6 of 7 free throws. Everyone else on Dallas combined to shoot 3 of 22 from deep.
His 24-foot 3-pointer with 5:21 remaining in the fourth quarter restored a 105-91 lead, with Flagg credited on the assist.
Irving’s game had a rough opening and a productive middle. He scored two points before halftime while shooting 1 of 11, then made 6 of 9 shots for 12 second-half points. His final line—14 points on 7-of-20 shooting—does not resemble an offensive takeover, and he went 0 of 4 from 3-point range.
