Houston will be without Wall, House and likely Wood. Mavs should build some wins before the difficult Denver/Utah/Utah stretch.
6-5 on the road
2-2 at home
Mavs will have 10 home games in february. Only 4 on the road.
Assuming that the missing players are back that should be the perfect opportunity to go on a winning streak.
The table below is from BBall Index. Here is how they describe this table:
Matchup Difficulty is an estimate of the difficulty a defender takes on with their defensive matchups/assignments. We develop matchup difficulty using partial possession player tracking data, to capture switches, help defense, etc., which allows us to capture how much time a player spends defending each opposing defender (rather than 1 player per possession calculations you may find elsewhere).
Calculations look at the usage tier of players defended to derive a final difficulty value. Players are rewarded in this rating more for defending top caliber players, and that benefit decreases in a tiered fashion as players defend lower tier opponents.
The players who most clearly take on difficult assignments are Finney, Powell, Willie and JRich with grades above 80. League-wide the top of the Matchup Difficulty list is littered with guards and wings (since most high usage players are guards and wings). Powell and Willie stand out as oddities being among a fairly small number of bigs in the top 40 or so. Note, just because Maxi and KP don't take on the more difficult assignment, doesn't mean they are bad defenders. It could be a scheme decision where their ability as weakside shot blockers is part of the decision making around who guards the other team's most prominent screen setter.
Guarded Matchup
Player Team Usage Difficulty Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Tier 4 Tier 5 Tier 6
Dorian Finney-Smith DAL 20.8 90.9 23.5 17.4 16.8 16.2 4.5 21.7
Dwight Powell DAL 19.8 82.1 19.5 10.4 33.0 15.4 2.2 19.5
Willie Cauley-Stein DAL 20.9 96.7 16.6 23.5 16.1 14.6 6.4 22.8
Josh Richardson DAL 20.9 83.7 14.7 32.1 18.1 13.2 3.3 18.6
Maxi Kleber DAL 19.1 62.6 13.4 12.4 13.4 13.3 5.3 42.1
Wes Iwundu DAL 21.0 61.8 11.4 36.5 13.0 12.0 5.7 21.4
James Johnson DAL 19.3 63.3 10.5 17.0 7.1 21.2 9.3 34.9
Luka Doncic DAL 18.2 44.4 7.9 17.4 17.3 26.5 4.5 26.4
Tim Hardaway Jr. DAL 18.8 62.6 6.3 23.4 17.1 17.6 6.1 29.5
Josh Green DAL 18.7 51.4 3.7 19.5 18.3 9.7 7.1 41.8
Jalen Brunson DAL 18.1 45.8 3.5 18.9 22.1 15.8 7.1 32.8
Kristaps Porzingis DAL 17.3 34.1 3.2 11.9 20.4 32.1 5.4 27.1
Trey Burke DAL 18.8 54.4 3.1 25.8 13.3 14.5 7.7 35.6
The site also runs a Defensive Versatility Index. DFS is second in the league in terms of guarding multiple positions. Not surprisingly, the teams shortest and tallest players are among the least versatile. "Position" means the average position guarded. So, Luka is a "3". All of DFS, Luka, Maxi and Johnson are among the top 75 or so in the league in terms of versatility.
Position
Guarded Versatility
Dorian Finney-Smith DAL 2.7 87.7
Luka Doncic DAL 2.8 77.5
Maxi Kleber DAL 3.5 76.0
James Johnson DAL 3.4 73.8
Josh Green DAL 2.3 71.1
Tim Hardaway Jr. DAL 2.5 70.6
Jalen Brunson DAL 2.2 68.7
Kristaps Porzingis DAL 3.8 68.2
Wes Iwundu DAL 2.5 66.8
Josh Richardson DAL 2.2 66.5
Trey Burke DAL 2.0 59.8
Dwight Powell DAL 4.0 59.4
Willie Cauley-Stein DAL 4.0 58.8
Just more proof that the bashing Powell gets from some of the fans is unfair...he is asked to take on very tough assignments like guarding AD..then AD gets his usual and Powell gets featured the next day in trade machine ideas...
(01-23-2021, 09:40 AM)ClutchDirk Wrote: [ -> ]Just more proof that the bashing Powell gets from some of the fans is unfair...he is asked to take on very tough assignments like guarding AD..then AD gets his usual and Powell gets featured the next day in trade machine ideas...
To be fair, he's put in trades the day before, and the day of too!