Mavs 93, Heat 83

[mavsluvr]

Carlisle continues to play around with his rotation.  Last night Luka played the entire first and 3rd quarter and the back half of the 2nd and 4th.  He got much more time with starters and less with the subs than he usually gets.  JRich was the first out (along with Powell) and came back to play with the subs in the late 1st/early 2nd.  In the 3rd Finney's foul trouble changed up what would have been the pattern, so we don't know what his plan was.  

Maxi and Burke have consistently been the first players in from the bench.  Powell has been consistently the first player out.  But, every night the first player besides Powell to leave has been slightly different.

I don't know that last night qualifies as a close finish, but the final 6:30 featured Luka, DFS, THJ, JRich and Maxi as the closing five.

Probably the biggest development in my mind was getting to see Powell/Maxi together with the starters for extended minutes for the first time.  This came courtesy of the aforementioned DFS foul trouble.  For the final 5:16 of the second quarter we saw Luka, JRich, THJ with Powell and Maxi and the team went on a 13-2 run and was +9 for the entire time.  We got the same thing again when DFS drew his fourth foul early in the 3rd.  The Mavs went on a 15-5 run and were +6 from 10:24-5:07 with Powell/Maxi playing with Luka/JRich and THJ.  These, were the two of the three most positive +/- segments of the game.

One of the biggest questions about what happens when KP comes back is who sits among what then amounts to six starters.  Most of the attention focuses around it being either Powell or DFS.  Powell sitting makes sense based on what the Mav's did after Powell's injury and how it "appears" that moment in time "allowed" KP a bigger role (a development that would have happened eventually anyway in my mind).  DFS sitting makes more sense because he's more effective as a three and the period of time when we had Powell as a starter with KP was the period where our historically efficient offence was actually at its best.  We have lots of experience seeing what DFS looks like with the starters and a single big.  We have very little recent experience seeing Powell with starters alongside another big.  Powell has never been suited to be a stand-alone big.  But last night was a good reminder of how good things were when he's with starters and another big.

Thanks for these careful and insightful observations, DS.