Mavericks stay on West Coast to play lowly Sacramento Kings

The Dallas Mavericks travel slightly northeast after losing to the Golden State Warriors on Christmas Day and are preparing to face the Sacramento Kings on Saturday evening. If the NBA season were to end today, both teams would be outside of the postseason, as the Mavericks are the 11th seed and the Kings are dead last.

Dallas will have to learn how to play without Anthony Davis once again, as he went down in the second quarter against the Warriors with a groin injury, and it was announced that he's expected to miss a few games. He's listed as questionable for this matchup, but it's hard to imagine that he'll play in this game.

That should just leave more opportunity for Cooper Flagg, who had a pretty great Christmas debut, putting up 27 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists on an efficient 13/21 shooting. What made it even more impressive was that he hardly touched the ball in the first quarter, as Naji Marshall was initiating a lot of the offense early.

Marshall has been playing really well over the last few weeks, becoming incredibly hard to stop once he gets into the paint.

Dec 25, 2025; San Francisco, California, USA; Dallas Mavericks forward Daniel Gafford (21) before the game against the Golden State Warriors at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

The real key will come down to Daniel Gafford, who should be inserted back into the starting lineup with Davis banged up. Gafford hasn't played much since Davis has played primarily at center, averaging about 14.8 minutes per game in his last six games. There has been a lot of trade chatter surrounding Gafford, and this will be a chance for Gafford to put himself on display for the rest of the NBA.

Sacramento is just bad at everything. They're 29th in offensive rating and 27th in defensive rating, they're last in the NBA in three-pointers made, and they're getting outscored by an average of 10.5 points per game.

They made the bet that they could have an old, aging cast of has-beens and be competitive, as their roster includes Russell Westbrook, DeMar DeRozan, and Zach LaVine, but they can't stop anything right now. It doesn't help that Domantas Sabonis has been dealing with injury, but the team is just poorly constructed to begin with.