The Dallas Mavericks were able to win this past week without star rookie Cooper Flagg.
The New York Knicks haven’t been nearly as successful in two-plus games without leading scorer Jalen Brunson.
Both teams hope their centerpieces will return Monday when the Knicks host the Mavericks in New York’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day game.
Each squad was off Sunday after playing at home Saturday. The Mavericks led wire-to-wire in a 138-120 win over the Utah Jazz, and the Knicks continued skidding with a 106-99 loss to the Phoenix Suns.
Flagg missed the rare two-game home set against the Jazz due to a sprained left ankle, but the Mavericks barely trailed at all, thanks in large part to Klay Thompson. The 35-year-old scored a team-high 23 points off the bench and collected the 17,000th point of his career Saturday.
Two nights earlier, Thompson scored 26 points to lead the Mavericks and moved into fourth place on the all-time 3-pointers list in a 144-122 win over the Jazz.
Thompson, who made his NBA debut when Flagg was five years old, shot 56.7% (17-for-30) over the last two games, including 50% (12-for-24) from 3-point land.
“My mindset is to try and get open and get my shoulders square and let it fly,” Thompson said. “And when I do that and I shoot it with confidence, it usually goes in.
“Twenty-three points in 20 minutes is pretty good, so I’ll carry that same flow into New York City.”
The Mavericks are 2-1 this season without Flagg. The No. 1 pick in last June’s draft was sidelined with an illness Nov. 19 when host Dallas fell to the Knicks 113-111.
The current struggles for the Knicks predate the absence of Brunson, who hasn’t played since he sprained his right ankle 4:59 into Wednesday’s 112-101 loss to the Sacramento Kings.
The Knicks missed Brunson — who is averaging 28.2 points per game while shooting 38.8% from distance — down the stretch Saturday, when they couldn’t answer the Suns’ final rally in a back-and-forth game. New York was just 1-for-11 from beyond the arc over the final 8:11 as Phoenix outscored the hosts 19-12.
The loss continued a frustrating stretch for the Knicks, who appeared to establish themselves as an Eastern Conference favorite by going 10-4 in December, when they won the NBA Cup.
But New York lost eight of its last 10 and will enter Monday just 2 games ahead of the sixth-place Philadelphia 76ers, who occupy the final guaranteed playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
“You don’t want to lose games at all, especially going 2-8 in the last 10,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said. “There’s a concern, but not to the point where we are going to overhaul everything. We have to work. We have to look in the mirror. Starting with me.”
Forward Josh Hart missed Saturday’s game with a sore right ankle. Hart has sat out nine of the Knicks’ last 12 contests.
