Game 60: DAL (31-29) vs. DEN (41-18) | 109-118 Loss

[ItsGoTime]

Green's performances since Luka came back are depressing. He was thriving prior to last 2 games. Hopefully it's unrelated, but it's possible it could be.

Unrelated. He was playing well with Luka before too.

[SleepingHero]

Green's performances since Luka came back are depressing. He was thriving prior to last 2 games. Hopefully it's unrelated, but it's possible it could be.

He's also been grimacing quite a bit during games. I wouldn't rule out he's been banged up and it's catching up to him.


Green's performed well next to Luka in the past. There's some vibes off with this team right now.

[LukaMVP]

ain't there someone like a former slovenian national team coach already in our coaching staff？kidd doesn't have much clue either how to get his colleagues involved imho.

[omahen]

There's some vibes off with this team right now.

I don't think so. It is just a simple fact, that this team is not any better than middle of the pack in the West. Luka was smiling whole game, talking to the young ones, instructing them,...

[ThisIStheYear]

Why does this team suck so bad despite having such a great lead player?  They were clearly the third best team in the NBA at the end of the season just a year ago.  This year, they’re disappointing, no matter what they do, even with a career year from Luka.  Then watching tonight’s game, it hit me.  Carlisle was a very good NBA coach. He has skins on the wall. He imposed a structure and discipline on the team. Those things held up, and Kidd maybe even added a little something, in the first year. But the further we get from Carlisle, the more the good practices break down and the lack of solid schemes moves to the forefront. In other words, as time goes by, the team loses more soundness in its schemes than Kidd can add as a “motivator”.  I think the Mavs just need a solid Xs and Os coach. This one dimensional just try harder on defense approach isn’t working. The team needs technical expertise from the head coach as well.  There’s really no way left to improve the roster without tanking next year, so it’s going to have to be the coaching staff. The Bucks got a lot better just by changing coaches. Maybe that’s the model.

[SleepingHero]

Luka was smiling whole game, talking to the young ones, instructing them,...

It's not Luka who I'm talking about.

Wood and Bullock are the main offenders right now in terms of being spacey on the court. Bullock gets a slight pass since he's dealing with an apparent illness but it's something I'm watching.

Hardy+Green aren't looking right the last 2 games for whatever reason. Just passive and making the wrong plays. McGee well...has turned back into the McGee of the entire season.

The vibes ain't vibing. The effort isn't there.

[LukaMVP]

kyrie's arrival gave a big boost to team's morale so everyone played so good, but they kinda used it up in the 2nd game of the b2b against the queens. they're now what they're realistically supposed to be.

[LukaMVP]

kidd might be a good coach on court when he was a player, but he ain't a good choice of a coach for a team set to contend imho. there ain't many examples of great players turning into great coaches and kidd ain't no exception. role players by contrast have bigger opportunities to become good coaches (vaughn, Monty, etc...). if cuban insists on having a former mav as coach, better give JJB a try.

[swaggerbox]

That's my other gut reaction.  Maybe the "need" for a defensive minded coach was the wrong direction to go.  You are only going to be so good in that area with Luka's obvious shortcomings.  No idea who the right person is for the job, but it is weird that both Carlisle (eventually) and Kidd just let Luka run this take-the-air-out-of-the-ball offense.  And it's not like Luka isn't coachable.

They had one in Igor Kokoskov. Maybe they should go with Mike D-Antoni. There are far better coaches like Quin Snyder, Frank Vogel, to name a few.

[Dundalis]

Why does this team suck so bad despite having such a great lead player?  They were clearly the third best team in the NBA at the end of the season just a year ago.  This year, they’re disappointing, no matter what they do, even with a career year from Luka.  Then watching tonight’s game, it hit me.  Carlisle was a very good NBA coach. He has skins on the wall. He imposed a structure and discipline on the team. Those things held up, and Kidd maybe even added a little something, in the first year. But the further we get from Carlisle, the more the good practices break down and the lack of solid schemes moves to the forefront. In other words, as time goes by, the team loses more soundness in its schemes than Kidd can add as a “motivator”.  I think the Mavs just need a solid Xs and Os coach. This one dimensional just try harder on defense approach isn’t working. The team needs technical expertise from the head coach as well.  There’s really no way left to improve the roster without tanking next year, so it’s going to have to be the coaching staff. The Bucks got a lot better just by changing coaches. Maybe that’s the model.

While I do partially agree, it was very very clear that last season we were implementing a swarming zone defense that I had never seen under Carlisle. And it was implemented so successfully that it made a team that had been perennially bad defensively into one of the better defenses in the league, with a roster that should never have been able to be that good defensively. I don't think that had anything to do with Carlisle, and it was more than just Kidd "motivating players". There was a clear defensive scheme in place. It's nowhere to be seen this season, or the players are doing a horrible job implementing it.

Kidd might not be much of an x and o's coach at least offensively, but he/his coaching staff def brought something clear and solid defensively scheme wise that was the primary reason we were able to progress further than we had with Rick. No idea where that's gone this season.

[loki]

Denver was 25/26 at the rim. Maybe it's time to bring in that traditional rim protector?

[Branduil]

I can only hope that when we lose horribly in the first round, Kidd is immediately fired.

Obviously no hope of Cuban finally firing himself.

[Nowitzki Way]

Last night's game was terrible. 40 years as a Mavs fan and i'm not sure i've ever been that disgusted. Thats saying something with the crap we dealt with in the 90s. 

That team had no life. No fight.

Seeing Luka out there with random scrubs like Frankie, Pinson, Lawson, McGee, Wright. That was horrendous. 

This franchise is doomed. We've made nothing but mistake after mistake with this roster. We can go back to the off season after the championship team, but lets just start since we've drafted Luka. The Barnes trade. The first Porzingis trade. Delon Wright.  The Porzingis contract. The Curry for Richardson Trade. Tyrell Terry, J.J. Reddick trade, THJ contract, 2nd Porzingis trade, Losing Brunson.

What have we done right since drafting Luka?

The Wood trade is starting to look like a wash, and anything can happen with this Irving trade.

This is bad folks. Real bad.

[SleepingHero]

https://twitter.com/townbrad/status/1626049063836651520


Kind of speaks to what I was saying earlier, how does Kidd not continue to run the motion offense that we've been doing with Kyrie?

It's like there is no plan nor identity with this team. It literally is just give Luka the ball and let him win. The insane thing is that Luka is good enough to just score 96% of points and win a game, but it's just poor coaching.

[SleepingHero]

https://twitter.com/iztok_franko/status/...7097029635


Also this.

[mvossman]

Last night's game was terrible. 40 years as a Mavs fan and i'm not sure i've ever been that disgusted. Thats saying something with the crap we dealt with in the 90s. 

That team had no life. No fight.

Seeing Luka out there with random scrubs like Frankie, Pinson, Lawson, McGee, Wright. That was horrendous. 

This franchise is doomed. We've made nothing but mistake after mistake with this roster. We can go back to the off season after the championship team, but lets just start since we've drafted Luka. The Barnes trade. The first Porzingis trade. Delon Wright.  The Porzingis contract. The Curry for Richardson Trade. Tyrell Terry, J.J. Reddick trade, THJ contract, 2nd Porzingis trade, Losing Brunson.

What have we done right since drafting Luka?

The Wood trade is starting to look like a wash, and anything can happen with this Irving trade.

This is bad folks. Real bad.

There have been a ton of mistakes.  There has been some good:

The Luka trade from the 5 spot was the best move by an NBA team in the last 10 years.  I think folks tend to right this off as luck.  It was more than that.
The Brunson pick turned out to be huge value.  Its a shame they blew it
The first Maxi extension was definitely a value contract
The first Dorian extension turned out to be one of the better non rookie contracts in the league
The second Dorian extension turned out to also be valuable as he apparently was a big part of landing Kyrie
The Green pick is looking better and better
The Hardy pick is looking very good for a second rounder

The list of mistakes is at least as long and more egregious after the Luka trade, but its not been all bad.

[Chicagojk]

Oddly looks like the Chiefs scrambled offensive play.  Ha ha

I bet the Nuggets were surprised when Wood wound up guarding Jokic.  

https://twitter.com/mavsdraft/status/162...86784?s=46&t=WoufSnfTFc1cH0yhCa_sWA

[cow]

Why does this team suck so bad despite having such a great lead player?  They were clearly the third best team in the NBA at the end of the season just a year ago.

Not so sure about clearly being the third best but I guess that comes down to how dysfunctional you view Utah and Phoenix.  To the first question, this organization is bad at team building.  Add in the fact that the transcendent players we've tried to build around are really flawed on the defensive end so you are always playing with one hand behind your back in that regard.  Luka might be an even tougher needle to thread from a team building standpoint because of his ball dominance. I'm not even sure the MBT know what the right type of player is to put around Luka.

[Chicagojk]

Denver is really good and a deep team.  
They were without two starters and their best defender, who is having a great season. I just wonder if there defense will hold up in a playoff series.  It feels like teams have no fear going at the basket against them.  I wonder if that bites them in a conference finals or finals?

[omahen]

Denver is really good and a deep team.  
They were without two starters and their best defender, who is having a great season. I just wonder if there defense will hold up in a playoff series.  It feels like teams have no fear going at the basket against them.  I wonder if that bites them in a conference finals or finals?

I think Denver is a regular season team. I think healthy Clippers and Suns are better prepared for playoffs.