MAVS NEWS:

[mvossman]

Last year's version of DLo doesn't help the shooting, but it looks like that was an aberration compared to the rest of his career.

A few other thoughts:

Lively shooting 3's changes everything.  Is this the year that gets unleashed?

Flagg/AD PNR's will be unstoppable.  Then add in Lively in the dunker spot?  AD isn't your typical Powell/Gafford type player as the roll man.  He hesitates in the lane rather than going all the way to the basket.  At that point, he can go to work with all sorts of moves.  Either he or Flagg will have an advantage.  You can't help off of Lively or its a dunk and you probably can't help off of PJ or Klay in the corners.

BTW, they played some inverse of this last year where Lively was the roll man and AD was in the dunker spot.  Also deadly.  Lively doesn't have all of the moves that AD has, but he's so good as a short roll passer.  You don't need much space between those three in order to score.

If you watch offensive highlights of Flagg, they got him advantages in all sorts of ways besides a traditional PnR ball handler at the top of the key.  In fact, that was a small part of his offense.  He is similar to AD as a roll man in that if he gets the ball just inside the free throw line and has options.  Either he's a bucket or he flings it to Lively for the jam.  Duke set all sorts of picks or handoffs on the left side of the floor to get Flagg moving to his right with an advantage.  Once he's rolling downhill, he's really tough.  If we can put the other teams guard into the defensive action (probably by Klay setting a screen for either the ball handler or AD), then things get challenging for the defense pretty quickly.

All of this doesn't even mention the advantage we will have rebounding.  I do think AD and Klay are less than ideal as fast break players, but Lively and PJ fly down the court.  

I think bench shooting is actually a bigger problem than it is with the starters.  Maybe that's why a self-creator like DLo is needed.  No one from among Christie, Martin, Naji or Gafford is a plus shooter from distance.  Exum was.  Maybe that's why they have interest in him returning.

I think this is a top 3-5 defense and I think there are too many good players for it to be a bottom 10 offense.  What really matters is clutch scoring.  Can AD or Flagg create a shot for themselves (and hit it) late in the game with the clock running down.  No matter what your offensive and defensive ranks are, so many NBA games come down to getting a bucket when you absolutely have to have it (or getting the offensive rebound and putting it back up).  I think we will be able to do that well enough to be around .500 until Kyrie comes back.  At that point, Klay helps the shooting for the second unit and we are a much better offensive unit.

This will be a good regular season defense, but they are going to need to alter their rotations in the playoffs or they will have issues with teams that play with space.