MAVS 104, SPURS 99

[burekemde]

Defensive improvement is starting to show in the team stats (as the Atlanta game gets watered down by the three wins since).  Team is now 11th in D-Rating and 9th in Points Allowed (slow pace helps...25th in Pace).  Net Rating is a very disappointing 17th.

HOWEVER, if you start the season after the Atlanta game (for Dallas and all teams), we move to 8th in D-Rating and 5th in Net Rating.  Of course, it can be argued that we won't get to play Houston and San Antonio every night either.  BTW, Toronto has the second best Net Rating in the league if you start the season on 10/22...after the Atlanta game.  So, the Toronto win looks fairly good right now.

Brunson minutes so far:  25:40, 22:42, 28:20 and 30:06.  He's saving our bacon right now.  PER = 19.9 and WS/48 is .208.  Box +/- is 2.6.  All are easily career high.  Hollinger's money projection is looking pretty smart right now.  Brunson/Luka overlap minutes are +3.7.  Brunson/KP minutes are - 16.9 (KP is killing the numbers for everyone he plays with).  Brunson with everyone else looks double digit fantastic.

Recall that we are 17th in Net Rating.  It is 28th in the First Quarter and (fortunately) 8th in the 4th quarter (all games) at +14.7.

Defense is visibly better, this is very promising. The easy shots and layups and dunks from opponents, are more rare compared to what we are used to. They contest more and the players are better in staying in front of the opponents. Luka has really improved as a defender and is laterally staying better in front of opponents. At least if we can use this smaller sample size for this. I think its a trend already, but it will be interesting to see.

Brunson has been improving since he came. His curve is only pointing upwards. I hope we dont trade Brunson and keep him long term.