A Few Thoughts on Mavs 120, Hornets 123

[mavsluvr]

It is sad to watch a coach who has a ring and watched Dirk/JeT get a ton of close to the basket shots (along with long distance shots) now acting as if D'Antoni (who hasn't won a thing in his life) wrote the book on modern basketball.  This team struggles to hold leads late because we are not a great defensive team to begin with and in the half court (which is what most close games and playoff games come down to) we seem to have no clue what to run.  That is clearly on RC.

hakeem, I am a little confused by what you mean by failure to run half-court sets. If "half-court" is defined in its usual sense of non-transition offense, they run half-court sets all the time. Are you referring to offense based on shots inside the arc? Not seeming to know what to run seems to be largely a problem at the ends of close games. Are you suggesting it would be better if Rick called the plays in those situations rather than allowing Luka to do it?

Luka...I can't begin to say how lucky we are we have him. However he has certain bad habits.  The main thing is itching to look for his shot.  Yes the roster is not great, but the team won in Philly without him and nearly beat Boston. The roster is not dog meat either.  He takes too many bad shots for no reason at all.  That is on RC to correct and has to be corrected now before it is too late.  If he or the organization are scared of ruffling the feathers of modern day studs who are quick to demand trades, then that is not good either. 

From what we publicly know, it appears Rick is okay with allowing Luka to work through it. But it does appear to be a recurring issue. 


For an immediate fix, there is nothing.  Iggy might be too expensive.  The closest we have in terms of that size and length is Roby.  I know he is a rook and struggled in the pre season.  But we are still ahead in terms of our calender to return back to being a legit contender. I'd like the Mavs to throw him into the fire and see what we have there. 

I guess you mean after he has recovered from his foot injury?

It sounds like you think the Mavs should focus their offense on inside/mid-range shots, or at least have that constitute a bigger part of the plan? Or at least go to that in clutch situations, rather than have everyone jacking up long threes?