Manny Harris being Manny is a good sign for Cavs.
UPDATED: 12:01 a.m.
Cavaliers guard Daniel Gibson (1) challenges the Mavericks' Dirk Nowitzki in the first half of Monday's preseason game in Dallas. Gibson's 15 points led the Cavaliers in their 85-79 victory.• Joe Tait in Houston hospital with pneumonia: Insider
DALLAS, Texas -- The games don't count, but the impressions players make do, and Manny Harris is making a good one.
For the second straight game, the slender undrafted rookie from Michigan took advantage of the minutes he got from coach Byron Scott and finished with 14 points in the Cavaliers' 85-79 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Monday night at American Airlines Center.
It was the second night that Scott turned to Harris down the stretch, who didn't disappoint with five points as the Cavs pulled away from a 62-62 tie after three quarters.
Harris keyed a defensive stand that saw the Mavericks shoot just 33.3 percent (7-of-21) in the fourth quarter, when they were outscored by the Cavs, 23-17.
"From a defensive standpoint, we didn't take a step forward, but we didn't take a step back," Scott said as the Cavs improved to 3-1 in the preseason. "I thought we played pretty good on the defensive end. I thought we played much better in the fourth quarter with big contributions from Manny and some other guys.
"He did a heck of a job, made some plays for us down the stretch, did a really good job defensively of just locking people down and doing some things we talked about doing, getting some big-time steals, very active and aggressive on that end of the floor."
Harris already knows how to get on Scott's good side.
"If you don't play defense, I don't think you're going to play for Coach Scott," he said.
Of course, defense isn't what earned him the Mr. Basketball title in Michigan in 2007 as a senior at Redford High School in Detroit. He also became the third player to score 1,600 career points at Michigan, and he did it in three seasons.
No wonder Scott is becoming a fan of the 6-5, 185-pound guard.
"Manny has a lot of upside," Scott said. "He just turned 21 years old a couple of weeks ago. At 6-4, 6-5 he's very athletic, a very good defender, hounds the ball pretty well, makes pretty good decisions."
The coach admitted he was surprised how Harris responded down the stretch in Houston, when the Cavs broke the game open. That, no doubt, earned him more minutes at crunch time Monday.
"I thought for him having a chance [in Houston] to play and to play the way he did was a little surprising," Scott said. "I thought it would be a little more of the deer-in-the-headlights syndrome. But I thought he was pretty good, made some big free throws at the end, made some big shots at the end. I kept that group in there on purpose to see how they would handle a little adversity when Houston made its run. I thought they responded pretty well."
It was the same thing on Monday, and Harris wasn't sure he'd get another chance so soon.
"I was ready," he said. "I was excited again. I was kind of surprised, but we got the win and that's all that matters. It definitely helped my confidence, even though it was preseason."
Daniel Gibson led the Cavs with 15 points, although he did have four of the Cavs' 19 turnovers. He tweaked his left ankle just before halftime, but he returned for the second half and did not anticipate any problems with it.