Some games never feel competitive from the beginning. The Dallas Mavericks hosting the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday night was one of those games.

Brooklyn was on the second night of a back-to-back after losing a close one to the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday, and whether it was dead legs or just a mismatch, the Mavericks jumped on them early.

8 minutes into the game, the Mavericks had a double-digit lead following a three-pointer from Walter Clayton Jr. Brooklyn would close out the first quarter strong, making it a four-point lead just before the turn of the quarter, but a buzzer-beating three by Cooper Flagg gave him his 14th points of the game already, and the Mavs had a 7-point advantage after one.

Flagg continued his onslaught, even hitting a stepback three, which helped push the lead to 20 a few minutes into the second quarter.

The lead would never get below 15 for the rest of the game. It was smooth sailing for the Mavericks, who used timely three-pointers and a lot of turnovers to continue extending the lead, and the Mavericks went on to win, .

Cooper Flagg ended up finishing with 25 points and a career-high 12 assists, showing complete control of the court. The Mavericks are now 6-4 and will host the Indiana Pacers on Monday night.

Here are three overreactions from this blowout.

Morez Johnson Jr. Is a Pest

I've watched a lot of basketball in my life. It's not often that you see a player foul out in fewer than eight minutes who wasn't intentionally fouling. That happened tonight, as Nets forward Noah Clowney fouled out in 7 minutes and 47 seconds of playing time.

A lot of that was due to Mavericks rookie Morez Johnson Jr., who was being a menace to Clowney. He shoved him down pretty hard in the paint (in a play that they'd go back and assess a technical on Johnson for), but Clowney came down the next play and forcefully fought through a screen, drawing his fifth foul.

A few minutes later, on an inbounds, Clowney just two-hand shoved Johnson in the chest, leading to his disqualification. The whole thing was honestly one of the funnier things I'd seen, but Johnson is coming into his own.

And Clowney picks up a frustration foul on Johnson not long after. That's his sixth, so he's done.

Clowney played 7:47 tonight. https://t.co/IfUtOFnpP2 pic.twitter.com/ULRjrynP7s

— Erik Slater (@ErikSlater_) November 9, 2026

Max Christie Demotion?

Max Christie was fully available in this game after returning from a hip injury earlier in the week, yet he didn't play until this game was well out of hand.

It had been a rough start to the season shooting the ball for Christie, and a lot of Mavericks fans had already written him off. Seeing him only get garbage-time minutes will make it tough for him to regain playing time unless he finds his shot again.

Arguably, the biggest indictment of his play came when Josh Minott ripped Christie free of the ball late in the fourth quarter. He just offers so little upside in everything outside of shooting, and the shot hasn't been falling.

Mavericks Finally Didn't Punch Down

One of the frustrating things about the Jason Kidd era, especially at the end, is that the Mavericks constantly played down to the level of their competition, not taking games like this seriously.

It looked like that bad habit carried over with this team after giving the Sacramento Kings their first win of the season earlier this week, so it was good to see them wipe the floor with a bad team like the Nets, especially since they were without Egor Denim and Mikel Brown Jr.

The big question is if they took care of business quickly enough to not have to sit players tomorrow night against the Indiana Pacers on the second night of a back-to-back.

Sign up to our free newsletter and follow us on X for the latest news.