Pre Season Game 1 vs Houston Rockets | 7:00 AM CST | NBATV

[Chicagojk]

Some up and down, but I think Sergio looked solid. Not sure if he is the rotation to start the season when everyone is healthy, but his development will be important. Dallas needs connector types on the floor.

[Chicagojk]

I thought cisse was the worst mav by a considerable margin. He did have a sleeve on his knee. Last year he just had energy flowing non stop. Today he had none of that.

[dirkfansince1998]

What happened with Naji? Got paid and decided to mail it in? We used to argue about Luka's conditioning but Naji looked way worse.

[Chicagojk]

Chinese media on it…asking one of 5 questions to coach May to ask a Seth Lundy question. LOL

[michaeltex]

Liked what I saw in De Larrea. Good down court vision. Maybe a little strong on some lobs to Cisse, but no DAL replay highlights makes it hard to tell.

Didn't like Naji's effort; it felt like he didn't know what to do sometimes.

Cisse looked rawer than expected, and lost at times.

DAL seemed to play small. Gaff 8 minutes, Cisse 14 (ineffective) minutes, Powell 13 minutes. Powell is a big, but (IMO) plays small. When we can get Lively and Aldama back, that will help.

HOU played their starters deep into the game. With so much of the expected DAL rotation not playing, it was a one-sided affair. But HOU is going to be a good team this season, so this scrimmage was a good test.

IDK what the defensive goals were, but it seemed like HOU got a lot of wide open 3pt looks.

At least now there are points for improvement and film to watch. When Powell leads in assists you know it's a bad night. Didn't seem much in the way of an offensive game plan. I guess it's hard with so many players sitting.

[SwisherPrice]

8 assists...Point Powell is really going to make the roster isn't he 

[dirkfansince1998]

The way May hyped up Sasser in the interviews last week I really hope he can fix the point of attack defense because Risacher, Christie and Marshall really struggled today.

[Chicagojk]

May did say after the game that today they got to experiment with different lineups. Due to injuries they played lineups that have played very little with each other. Looked like it

[myconsumerclub]

Ugly game too be expected with it being the first preseason game but the team shows its great need for Kyrie to settle it down and get it to perform better.

Naji at PG is not something we need to see a lot of hopefully. DP gets way too much time when we have Morez needing development and maybe his position is PF since we have better options at the 5 but his 3 looks good if he can just improve his %.

Early critics of Morez are going to chime in I bet. I think he will be a great option at PF when he gets the 3 to fall more often but we have Cooper and Santi though coach may play Cooper at SF to get more minutes for the others at PF.

Rookies and scrubs versus vets created an expected loss.

Lawal and Sergio looked good on offense but the defense has to improve and interior defense should improve when we play Lively and Gafford more with our starting SF and PF.

Either Cisse needs to get the ball when he is passed to or we need to learn to pass it to him where he can get it, one or the other. He was being fouled a lot so hope his FT shooting has improved or he is a short timer.

Already for the team to limit minutes on the scrubs, especially when the other team has its starters in.

Lawal needs to not foul so much, 4 in 15 minutes is not good. Rookies will do that though his offense was nice and he is showing he is a keeper.

Howard looked ok for a 2 way. John P was less than impressive to me.

2 steals each for Lawal and Howard also Cisse.

Tarik looked like he was starting to get his confidence and hit the 3. That should improve. Should have been credited with another 3 that came off because of Lawal drawing an offensive foul.

We let Houston hit too many open un defended 3 pointers so perimeter defense needs to tighten up.

Max Tarik and Sergio all shot the 3 well enough to warrant using them on the we need a three pointer rotation. I expect to see some Kyrie playing with Sergio at the same time.

Risacher was a plus with him looking good next to Cooper and his 3 looked nice but his rebounding was the big surprise. Led everyone with 8 rebounds.

Scoring leader Cooper led with 19 as Max Naji Sergio and Lawal got into double figures. Risacher and Tarik got 9 each to knock on the door.

[RoyTarpleysGhost]

Any minutes where both Kyrie and Flagg are not on the floor together, I expect this team to be very very bad. There's just not enough offensive talent behind those two. I just don't see much progress with the roster in the last year.

[Smitty]

Any minutes where both Kyrie and Flagg are not on the floor together, I expect this team to be very very bad.  There's just not enough offensive talent behind those two.  I just don't see much progress with the roster in the last year.

I agree, but that’s true of just about every basketball team. If you take the top two players, offensive talents/engines off the team - you won’t be very good. 

For the last part there, I think it’s too early to tell. I think the FO did okay with what they had to work with. I would have done a few things differently, but their process and execution of an obvious plan seemed sound to me.

In the end, the Mavs will need their best players on the court this year. Every year after. Without them, it puts others in positions that they’re not capable of fulfilling. At least not consistently. It will also help with the evaluation of all the new guys. They’ll need to be in the proper role. They are all role players after all.

[Moviemavguy]

We'd be a 50 win team if Naji could hit threes.

[OldMavsFan]

My first comment will be that Sunday's game will be the opposite of the game today, the Rockets rest most if not all their starters and the Mavs roll out Kia, PJW, Gaff, One of the two 2's and Coop for 20 minutes plus and the offense and defense will really look like the Rockets will have no hope this season.  I sure don't like hearing PJW has another sprained ankle, but hoping it is just an excuse to run out the new guys, plus hope Sasser is ready to go.

It is hard to take too much from a game like that, but most of the new guys for the most part started to get more comfortable as the game went on, though as a group they didn't play like they had ever played with the others on the court.  They got killed inside, hope it is that they were going against the best rebounding team in the league last year.

I know it has been brought up a number of times but Cisse was horrible on both ends of the court.  I thought he was bad on the offensive end last year and could not see why many though he was a must keep as a roster player, but to me he needs 2 or 3 more years to be in the a rotation, but what I saw on the defensive, rebounding and defending was a huge drop off from last year and I hope it was just for that game, but if not, the Mavs better hope the other teams didn't watch the game and will pick him up when waved or they can trade him for a pick.  Now this isn't to say JP is much of an answer, no one guards him and he is just to small to play at the 5 and never looks to see if the rim is still there, let alone to even look like he might shoot.

Larry had at least 2 lobs to Cisse that just went over his head and he just didn't even seem to look for the ball. I didn't like there didn't seem to be a offense to run or was it there wasn't anyone on the court who could, since most seem to be playing like it was a summer league game and needed to get their shots off in a hurry.

[Chicagojk]

My first comment will be that Sunday's game will be the opposite of the game today, the Rockets rest most if not all their starters and the Mavs roll out Kia, PJW, Gaff, One of the two 2's and Coop for 20 minutes plus and the offense and defense will really look like the Rockets will have no hope this season.  I sure don't like hearing PJW has another sprained ankle, but hoping it is just an excuse to run out the new guys, plus hope Sasser is ready to go.

It is hard to take too much from a game like that, but most of the new guys for the most part started to get more comfortable as the game went on, though as a group they didn't play like they had ever played with the others on the court.  They got killed inside, hope it is that they were going against the best rebounding team in the league last year.

I know it has been brought up a number of times but Cisse was horrible on both ends of the court.  I thought he was bad on the offensive end last year and could not see why many though he was a must keep as a roster player, but to me he needs 2 or 3 more years to be in the a rotation, but what I saw on the defensive, rebounding and defending was a huge drop off from last year and I hope it was just for that game, but if not, the Mavs better hope the other teams didn't watch the game and will pick him up when waved or they can trade him for a pick.  Now this isn't to say JP is much of an answer, no one guards him and he is just to small to play at the 5 and never looks to see if the rim is still there, let alone to even look like he might shoot.

Larry had at least 2 lobs to Cisse that just went over his head and he just didn't even seem to look for the ball. I didn't like there didn't seem to be a offense to run or was it there wasn't anyone on the court who could, since most seem to be playing like it was a summer league game and needed to get their shots off in a hurry.

Cisse was such a breath of fresh air last year.   He was really raw, but he played so hard and his alteticism was so good that he showed upside.   Now we only saw him for small runs today, but he didn't look to have that energy and really looked lost on the court.   With Lively injured and Gafford supposedly on the trade block, it does make sense now why they brought Powell to camp.   I think it may be a legit battle for that last center spot.   Powell got run ahead of Cisse too.   Just something to watch.

[CooPerFan]

Morez looked bad

[CooPerFan]

Any minutes where both Kyrie and Flagg are not on the floor together, I expect this team to be very very bad.  There's just not enough offensive talent behind those two.  I just don't see much progress with the roster in the last year.

Well we just have to hope cooper make a huge leap offensively. Like 27ppg

[Knutsen]

We'd be a 50 win team if Naji could hit threes.

This dream died fast, didn’t it? 

Terrible form, he should sue that shooting guru!

[KillerLeft]

I wasn't able to watch this one - just caught the highlights.

Tough to tell from such a one-sided use of screen time, but it didn't seem like the Mavs defended particularly well (any of them), and I got the sense that their conditioning is inferior to the Rockets.

[windjc]

Last year this time people in this board were declaring Cooper to be a role player at best. Lolololololololololololololoolllllloool

Morez looked bad

[CooPerFan]

Last year this time people in this board were declaring Cooper to be a role player at best. Lolololololololololololololoolllllloool

Well cooper was a 1st overall pick and 18 years of age when he was drafted. Its a given that his offensive output will be subpar at his age. Let see what his going to ahow us this season( sophomore year).