At 7:06 of the third quarter, Morez Johnson Jr. secured another Dallas miss. Five seconds later, Kyrie Irving buried a 14-foot pull-up jumper, with Johnson credited for the assist. The sequence captured the rookie’s value in Dallas’ 112-100 victory over Utah on Friday: the first shot could fail without ending the possession.
Johnson finished with 17 boards, with ten collected from Dallas misses, and 13 points for his first NBA double-double. The Mavericks were hardly shooting their way out of trouble. They made 9 of 32 three-point attempts and finished at 42% from the field. Johnson gave them another route to points, and another chance to keep their better scorers involved.
The timing mattered. Utah had taken a 70-68 lead after Ace Bailey’s dunk at 7:44 of the third, then the game was level at 70-70 when Johnson collected the rebound at 7:06. Irving’s jumper made it 72-70. At 6:33, Johnson grabbed another offensive board, extending a Dallas possession during the stretch when the Mavericks began to pull away.
That rebound did not automatically become a basket, and neither did all nine of his other offensive boards. The value was more basic and more difficult to fake: Utah had to defend again. Dallas reached 81-70 with 3:33 left in the quarter, with Cooper Flagg and Irving doing most of the scoring during the 22-10 push.
Johnson did not own that run, but he supplied possessions that allowed it to continue after imperfect attacks.
The team totals put his work in proper proportion. Dallas had 21 offensive rebounds to Utah’s eight and scored 20 second-chance points, compared with five for the Jazz. Santi Aldama added four offensive rebounds in 13 minutes, so this was not a one-player frontcourt job. Johnson, however, accounted for nearly half of Dallas’ extra possessions on the offensive glass and finished plus-20 in 24 minutes.
Utah’s perimeter scoring kept the game from becoming a simple interior demolition. Lauri Markkanen scored 24 points on eight made threes, every one of his field goals coming from beyond the arc. The Jazz made 15 threes to Dallas’ nine, an 18-point advantage from outside.
Darryn Peterson added 21 points, while Keyonte George had 16 points and nine assists. The teams went to halftime tied at 57, and Utah’s shooting remained a credible threat even as Dallas improved its control of the game.
Dallas answered that outside deficit with two-point scoring, free throws and repeated chances. The Mavericks made 30 of 61 two-point attempts for 60 points, scored 48 points in the paint and went 25 of 31 at the line. Those numbers do not make the three-point performance attractive.
