(01-18-2020, 10:49 AM)mavsluvr Wrote: Mavs Top Blazers in Fourth Straight Win
The Mavericks took care of business in front of their home fans in what turned out to be the Luka v Lillard show.
Game Story
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Analytics
Three-point shooting was the name of the game for the Mavs. They took 17 more long-range attempts than Portland, and hit 20 of those for a 43% pyrotechnical display. The match was a little choppy, with 50 fouls called, but the Mavs responded by shooting 79% from the line. The Mavericks' overall game plan with KP out appeared to be trading threes for twos, as they repeatedly funneled the Blazers into the paint, and provided little to no resistance at the rim. It worked, after a fashion, and the blue and silver ended up +33 on points from threes, +7 on made free throws, and -32 on points from twos.
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Next. The Mavs will get another run at the Clippers on Tuesday. Hopefully, they will benefit from the rest between now and then.
Go Mavs!
Nice work by the Mavs and by ML here on the summary.
There are some real signs of this team maturing in recent games. There's some progress, slowly but surely, in the way the young guys and the team in general is closing games and handling runs. Still a problem but the signs of progress are also clear.
I like the make up of this roster a lot but if I looked to to add anything this season it would be some more rim protection.
Particularly given that KP's health for the season looks dicey, the need for another impediment at the rim to at least slow people down inside is glaring.
The trick is to get the type of inside force that will get minutes trusted to them in the Carlisle system. A lot of centers don't fit in some way, like we saw for example recently with Salah Mejri and before that Javale McGee. The result is a big man that is on the roster but can't seem to get on the floor even when they have good games most of the time in the minutes they do get.
Since its so 'matchup based' the inside help and rim protection doesn't get into the rotation enough to be a consistent help inside, just spot minutes that help a game here and there. I wish I could say Boban could help here but the gentle Giant has always been too gentle to be the type of force at the rim on defense he should be in the limited minutes he plays (although his rebounding presence helps on both sides).
Maybe if they could coach Marjanovic up on his rim defense, with his obvious impact on the offense he'd be an answer behind KP, next to a Kleber or Powell when Mavs need inside force and rim protection. Because of his limited minutes Boban is never really in foul trouble so he should aggressively go after blocks at the rim with little fear of laying the body wood and putting people on the floor. Just make the same sort of shot blocking effort that Kleber does so well. Make them at least think about paying a price for attacking the Dallas rim. Generally though, that instinct doesn't seem to be there.
Go get another rim enforcer behind KP or coach up Boban's rim defense. Let him take a couple more hard fouls in his backup role, while going only after the ball of course.
