A Few Thoughts on Mavs 106, Nuggets 107

[Dahlsim]

Mavs Let Another One Slip Away

Aargh. What a gut punch. Mavs lead the West's #2 team for most of the game, but surrender the match with another poor performance in the clutch. 

Game Story
…. 

The last two plays pretty much encapsulated the struggle. The Mavs were up 1 with 23 seconds left. Denver had the ball. Powell and DFS switched early, and through either miscommunication or Powell being unable to get through a screen, they failed to re-switch, and DFS was mismatched against Jokic. Jokic backed DFS down for several seconds, and no one came to help, with the other Mavs sticking to their men. Eventually, Jokic put the ball in over the way overmatched Finney-Smith, and Denver was up one with 7 seconds left. 
….. 
Analytics

...
Powell (27 min) was a bright spot on the offensive end, being the second-leading scorer with 16 points and rebounder with 8 boards. He actually did respectable defensive work, drawing much of the duty against Jokic. He made Jokic work for his points, but in the end, was just too undersized to slow down the Denver big man's explosion in the second half. Part of the clutch-time debacle involved his suddenly freezing and looking around in the middle of a play, as if he had heard a whistle, and then having to continue after the defense had collected itself. 

Curry (24 min) provided a scoring punch off the bench with 14 points on 6-10 shooting. Maxi (23 min) had 13 points and 7 rebounds, but was 1-6 from beyond the arc. He shared some of the defensive duties on Jokic with Powell. 

Nuggets. Jokic torched the Mavs with 33 points on 12-20 shooting, including 4 threes, and 26 points in the second half. Dallas didn't have much of an answer for him, other than trying to counter with spectacular offense from Luka. Jerami Grant and Mason Plumlee combined for 25 points. The boys in blue struggled trying to keep Denver's burly bigs out of the paint. Could have used Porzee. 


Remarks

….  … 
Nick and Isaac observed that one of the Mavs' weaknesses is being able to defend the league's prime big men, such as AD, Embiid, and Jokic. They don't have anyone who can take these guys on one-on-one, especially without KP on the floor. They viewed this as a hole in the Mavericks' defensive system, and were not sure whether it can be solved schematically, through internal improvement, or must be resolved by beefing up the squad. 

…. 

My impressions. It is no shame to come within a couple of points of beating the Nuggets, who are one of the West's …. 
Before the game, I thought Denver was going to be a very tough out for the Mavs, with their complement of powerful bigs and KP being out. Although the Mavericks were not crisp during the game, they competed better than I feared they would. I suppose the sunny side is that they managed to punch above their weight for the majority of the game..... 


Next.  Lakers, at the AAC on Friday night. Should be a fun match. 

Its almost funny.  Both commentary like this and the Coach's own approach would make you think this guy isn't even on the team?  
Did I miss a trade transaction or something? 


Interestingly enough, the Sixers went out and tried to get a better backup for Embiid in Kyle O' Quinn and now almost universally they feel they had a better backup, even as a 3rd big, with Boban.  

Not sure why Dallas picked him up, I never thought he would fit well in a Carlisle system. 
Anyway, he's the answer to those points above, but they should really test the trade market for him given the poor fit in Dallas and low minutes even compared to normal for him.