MAVS 103, RAPTORS 95

[Mavs2021]

Most noticeable in the game was that Kidd started to rely on the players from last year. He leaned heavily on the top 7 rotation from last season. Furthermore it seems that you can actually play defense, if you have size and effort. Overall Kidd will be a downgrade in the X´s and O´s department to Carlisle, but the players are not magically going to forget everything that Carlisle drilled into them for 2-3 years.

I loved that Kidd used his challenge in the middle of the 3rd quarter and the middle of Mavs momentum. Kidd also used the challenge to overturn an obvious error, which meant he would very likely win his challenge. Meanwhile Nurse did the usual "save the challenge for late in game"-routine and it was very obvious the chances to get that charge overturned were less than 10%, but he simply did it, cause he still had it. Mavs got two points and the first lead, they´d never give up again, while the Raptors got nothing.

I´m still not convinced this is a top 6 team in the West, more likely a play-in candidate, unless they can pull a play-maker/20 PPG scorer out of thin air that elevates the offense to another level, but this was an important win to take some pressure of Kidd and make the players trust the process.