Mavs 108, Rockets 133

[dirkfansince1998]

Yeah WCS was really bad this last game, and despite a good flurry at the beginning was not very good the game before either. By far his two worst games this year. 

I think you are right to partially attribute it to being the lone big. I would personally argue that NONE of the Mavs bigs are good alone. KP is probably the best because his O is good as the lone big, but ALL of the Mavs bigs are terrible defensively when they play alone. The smaller RC has gone the worse the team has looked defensively. And without KP, bad offensively as well.

Offense looks a lot better when they go small. Even against the Rockets. They couldn´t hit a shot and still scored 108pts on 53.7% TS. Only 10 tov. And that includes the last few minutes of rookie chucking. KP obviously is important but I don´t think his size is important for the offense. More about him being one of 3-4 guys that can hit a jumpshot.
The two big lineups obviously are a lot better on defense but against the Pacers and Spurs the Mavs finally looked like the team that I watched last season. Ball movement. Penetration and kick out passes leading to easy scoring opportunities in the paint and from 3.
The spacing is simply way better and KP is more involved on offense. He actually did a really good job as the roll man in both games. A lot better than WCS in the last few games. Even more important than the spacing is the ability to attack of the catch. With KP at center and 4 wings/guards around him every single player on the floor can at least somewhat shoot and attack of the catch. That´s what RC needs to run his flow offense.

Now the Mavs need to find a way to get the best of both worlds. The improved defense that we saw earlier in the season and the free flowing offense of the Spurs and Pacers game. Don´t think KP-WCS is the solution and we have a big sample size of DFS-KP with a negative +/-. Right now I would probably try Kleber/KP and if that isn´t working I would go back to KP/Powell.
Wouldn´t be suprised if the solution isn´t on the roster right now. The Mavs still have some time to make a trade.
Right now I would probably