02-26-2021, 04:55 PM
(02-26-2021, 04:47 PM)omahen Wrote: DFS and Kleber have zero creation. They are catch and shoot guys. When KP is playing, Luka is giving him ball all the time, when he is posting up. THJ and JRich get the ball to create. The origin of the problem is that offense is totally static. No matter who is "pounding the ball". This is not on Luka, it is the system. Looks like Mavs believe this is good offense. And to be honest, it was last season and also this season, those couple of games everyone was available. Utah offense is basically the same. Guy running a PnR and exploit mismatches or four on three situations when defense helps. Difference is that Utah shooters are great and Gobert actually is good at rolling this season. None of the Mavs is.
I agree with this. The Mavs' offense (currently) revolves around pick and roll. Last year, the Luka/Powell pick and roll was UNBELIEVABLY lethal, and the spot up guys made the defense pay for helping off of them. This year, there is no Powell, so no pick and roll. Fewer wide-open, in-rhtyhm, predictable (the rhythm and predictable parts being key) shots for guys to get comfortable.
Now, what confuses some people is that this offense is NOT like Carlisle offenses during other good Mavs runs. There is always an element of pick and roll involved, but he has never leaned so heavily into it in the past. I'll say this again, only differently: be careful not to assume the reasons for this. I believe it's partly about trends, partly about the quality of the roster, and partly about Luka being a work in progress in some areas. I don't think Carlisle wants to be the Houston Rockets. I really, really don't. I DO think he's trying to win now as he teaches Luka long term, which might involve playing into some bad habits, back to Hakeem's original point. When the wins don't come, it's easy to look for some part of this topic to second guess.