Favored for the First Time: the 4-2 Mavericks Host the Winless Kings, and Two 19-Year-Olds Run the Show
Dallas has won three straight. Sacramento has lost six straight, by double digits in five of them. Monday night at the AAC is the first game all season the Mavericks are supposed to win — and their coach spent Sunday explaining why that is precisely the problem.
The Dallas Mavericks walk into Monday night's game against the Sacramento Kings in a position they have not occupied all season: expected. Dallas is 4-2, on a three-game winning streak, and home at American Airlines Center for a 7 p.m. tip against the only kind of opponent that reliably ruins a good week — a winless one. Sacramento is 0-6, has lost five of the six by double digits, and gave up 136 points in Memphis on Saturday. Head coach Dusty May raised the trap himself after Sunday's practice. 'This will be the first game that we're favored, that we're supposed to win,' May said. 'So that's a new puzzle for us to put together.' Daniel Gafford put the players' version more plainly: 'They ain't got nothing to lose... we gotta be ready for pretty much anything tomorrow.'
The headline matchup is a pair of 19-year-olds having historically loud starts. Cooper Flagg, the reigning Rookie of the Year, is averaging 26.8 points, 6.0 rebounds and 6.6 assists on 55.7% shooting; on Friday he scored 33 with nine rebounds and six assists in the 116-111 win over Houston, behind Kyrie Irving's 35 points and nine assists. Across from him, Kings rookie Darius Acuff Jr. leads all rookies at 26.3 points per game and scored a career-high 38 on Saturday — his nine 3-pointers tied an NBA rookie record and made him, at 19 years and 349 days, the youngest player in league history to hit nine in a game. The Kings' other problem is older: Domantas Sabonis leads the entire NBA in rebounding at 15.8 a night. Irving, still managing the left knee he tore in March 2025, is listed as questionable — the game's one genuine uncertainty.
Sacramento coach Doug Christie said his search continues: 'We have to find a group that is going to compete at a high level when they are out there on the floor.' History offers the Kings one comfort — they took last season's series 2-1 and have won five straight in this building — and Dallas one warning, which May's staff spent Sunday repeating: Friday's win over Houston was built on habits on a night the shots were not falling, and habits, not the standings, are what a team carries into a game it is supposed to win. The game file follows the final.
