I really like the player who crawled into KP's body last night.
What really jumped out at me was the speed and decisiveness of his moves. When he faced up, even his swipe-through was hard. Earlier in the year defenders were getting a hand on the ball and forcing a turnover. His drives were hard. He actually drew contact and still got a shot up.
I remember Dirk would go through stretches when -- it's hard to describe -- Dirk looked floppy at times. Just not hard.
There were other times, particularly in the Mavs championship run, but really anytime he got into a groove, when he was simply unstoppable.
KP looked like he was in that kind of groove last night. To borrow a phrase from Carlisle, I saw KP playing with some force on the offensive end, really for the first time all year. He's still not shooting it very well but it was super exciting to see.
What really jumped out at me was the speed and decisiveness of his moves. When he faced up, even his swipe-through was hard. Earlier in the year defenders were getting a hand on the ball and forcing a turnover. His drives were hard. He actually drew contact and still got a shot up.
I remember Dirk would go through stretches when -- it's hard to describe -- Dirk looked floppy at times. Just not hard.
There were other times, particularly in the Mavs championship run, but really anytime he got into a groove, when he was simply unstoppable.
KP looked like he was in that kind of groove last night. To borrow a phrase from Carlisle, I saw KP playing with some force on the offensive end, really for the first time all year. He's still not shooting it very well but it was super exciting to see.