Game 10: Dallas Mavericks (5-4) vs. Denver Nuggets (6-3)

[Mavs2021]

Right now Naji isn't the shooter that DJJ was last year which isn't a very hard bar to pass.  Denver was leaving him to double Luka last night and even when Luka found him he didn't even really look at the rim when he was open.  He's currently on pace to shoot 90 less threes than DJJ did last year which is a pretty wide gap, he needs to show more willingness to shoot.  DJJ shot well enough to make defenses pay for leaving him, Naji hasn't shown that yet.

Before the season I assumed that if Klay struggled that everyone would be asking for Grimes to start because of the way he would address last year's concerns of not having enough shooting alongside Luka and Kyrie in the starting lineup paired up with point of attach defense that we've lost since DJJ left which makes him being in the doghouse even more frustrating.  He could potentially help with bench scoring or with starting lineup defense without completely losing the outside shooting threat when moving Klay to the bench.  He is currently out best bet at shaking up the rotations (that and just getting frickin healthy).

I really like Naji but Naji/PJ are combining for like 6 threes a game at around 20%.  I hope they turn it around because I love that pairing defensively but I want to see it first.

We have lost 8 of the 10 first quarters this season. Only led against Utah and Chicago. This current set-up is clearly not working either and I largely blame Luka for it. Somebody needs to keep him in check. I think Kidd is not it. He just keeps Luka and Kyrie happy, and they win enough games to keep him in a job. 

We should be a 60 win team with a proper run offense. We need somebody to hold Luka accountable. People made fun of Vlade saying he is not taking Luka, cause he´s concerned of his father´s lifestyle tendencies rubbing off on Luka. Maybe this is it. His mom is not visible anymore, but his dad is.

Our offense looks like complete garbage, literally bottom of the league sh*t. If the bottom ten 10 teams in terms of talent ran offense like we do, they´d go 8-74 with -15 pt. differential. It´s unwatchable.