Game 40: New Orleans Pelicans (23-16) vs. Dallas Mavericks (23-16)

[SwisherPrice]

Pelicans are just a bad matchup...even when they're missing a lot of players. Just another one of those teams with size from SF-PF-C and lots of switchable defenders to make things difficult for the Mavs.

[ThisIStheYear]

24pts on 8/10 shooting but it feels like DJJ is tanking the offense. Fourth game in a row where the opposing team simply isn't guarding him on the perimeter.

---

I hate that OMax is wasting away in the g-league when the Mavs are desperate for size and athleticism. There is no way that he is any worse than GWill in the same role.

You can’t do much more than that to punish a team for sagging off you.  DJJ was the Mavs best player tonight and the only reason they even had a chance. 

Agreed on Omax. If he’s not going to be traded, it’s time to let him play with the big club.

[Mavs2021]

I've tried to be a sunshine pumper for Grant, but the dude might be the worst player on the team. Even worse than Holmes.

He was brought in to shoot 3s, he's attempted less than 3 a game for the last month and is shooting a pitiful 26% on them.

He's made so many mistakes defensively rotation wise I'm shocked how he garnered a reputation on that end.

Perhaps it's the way Kidd is using him?

100%. If Kidd used him with White, Brown, Tatum and Horford, he´d look like an all world defender.  

1st round pick swap was a bad mistake. Celtics would not have matched the MLE and even if they did: whatever. Should have just signed him outright. 1st swap should have gone to Charlotte.

[omahen]

Bad loss. New Orleans seems to have an endless supply of long wings. Not sure what to say. On one hand I can understand that injuries are taking its toll and that you can't play at full energy every game. Mavs had no one stepping up from the bench as they collectively scored 16 points. Depleted NO bench scored 32.

Kidd is really not doing GW any favors. Playing him with 4 guards against a guy like JV doesn't seem to have a high probability to succeed. At least pair him with Maxi, if you want shooting to pull JV out of the paint?

NO defense on DJJ showed problems Mavs will be facing in playoffs. Even though DJJ was extremely efficient, NO didn't care and continued with their plan. DJJ scoring 20+ didn't offset all the problems rest of the offense had because playing 4 on 5. Not saying DJJ was the (sole) reason Mavs lost.

At the end of the day, this team just doesn't have enough talent to be more than a fringe playoff team.

[omahen]

NO had 7 players in double figures even with 4 of their rotation players out. Shows how bad Mavs defense was. Hawkins is usually a bench player and he scored 34 (10 ppg season average), Marshall is a bench player and scored 13 (8 ppg average), Daniels is a bench player and he scored 10 (6 ppg season average).

Mavs had only 3 players in double figures and only two of the rest were even close (Green with 9 and Hardy with 8).

While Powell dished some nice assists, NO really had an easy job defending, as no one was guarding Powell and they were daring DJJ to beat them. No way you can drive to the paint this way and your only chance is some hot shooting, which wasn't there.

[MrGoat]

Shame on Kidd for dog housing Holmes like he has. Powell got freakin' destroyed in the 4th quarter of that game like he usually does when things hit playoff intensity yet he'd still rather go ultra tiny with Grant than actually give Holmes a chance. And I don't blame Holmes at all for not being happy with his nonexistent role at this point. The reffing really sucked in that game, too.

[Mavs2021]

Shame on Kidd for dog housing Holmes like he has. Powell got freakin' destroyed in the 4th quarter of that game like he usually does when things hit playoff intensity yet he'd still rather go ultra tiny with Grant than actually give Holmes a chance. And I don't blame Holmes at all for not being happy with his nonexistent role at this point. The reffing really sucked in that game, too.

The biggest question is why Omax and Brown are inactive against all these physically strong teams with size?

Ultimately as Omahen says this team still lack in talent on both ends. They still have nobody in the front court that can put it on the floor. Grant Williams was a poor choice, not only for being a position-less player (in a negative sense), but also because he´s another one-dimensional front-court player. Powell/Lively can only roll. Williams/Kleber can only shoot 3pters. Going after somebody like Washington would have been a much smarter choice. We need a big that can create with some versatility and put a little fear in the defense. New Orleans knew that Powell, Kleber and Williams can´t attack the rim with dribble penetration, so that means all they had to do was stop the dribble penetration of our smaller guards with their wings. I mean it´s a compliment to him and an insult to our squad depth at the same time that whenever Kyrie was not in the game, the Pelicans put Jones on Hardy as priority #1.

Also Jonas was drafted in 2011. The last big on our team that didn´t get abused by him was Brendan Hayward. How in the f´n world can you go 13 years without a single big that has some physicality and strength.It´s always skinny length, undersized bulk. GOGA was there in May. FREE of charge for the minimum, but this front office.....It´s so frustrating how we have this weakness of size, rebounding and strength for a whole decade now.

Oh 12 pts, 20 (7 off) rebs,  2 asts with 2stls and 4 blks. What that is? Hartenstein´s boxscore against Memphis last night. Good lord. How difficult can this be, really?  Every summer these bigs are available.

Rebounds per 36 this season:

#1 Drummond
#18 Hartenstein
#24 Goga
#31 Reed
#40 Collins
#43 Saric
#46 Biyombo
#49 Randle (the guy that kept the Mavs begging to sign him for anything from 9-18/year multiple times)

and how bad this all would look, if not for Lively, who is #29 on the list AND to show how much of an outlier that is. The next teenager on the list is Coulibaly at #129. Wembanyama, Kessler and Sharpe are the only other guys under 24 in the top 30.

[Jason Terry]

Hardy
Williams
Green
Powell
Hardaway
Holmes
Curry
Morris

We need to move on from as many of these players as possible. Kidd said it himself. He’s just sitting there watching these tiny players get destroyed night by night. Nico needs to make them disappear so they are no longer options

New Orleans had an endless supply of big wings. Even with their top 4 players out. We need that type of depth 3-5

Why are we not playing Omax? I don’t care if he looks like the most unpolished player in the NBA and bricks air ball 3’s all game long. We must have some kind of hope out there that we have a future that includes the type of players needed to win in 2024

Every time these rookies like Hawkins. Good players like Bane. End of bench guys like Marshall. DFA scraps like Vince Williams. Doesn’t matter. They all feast against or tiny team. They drive at will because of their size. They lock us down because of their size. We can do nothing about it except when all our guys have a night when they shoot like Ray Allen. This all must change

[omahen]

Good points by Iztok, as usual. I especially like this one (paraphrased a little bit): "playing small is a choice". Kidd complains about being small, but he is not playing some of the bigger guys he has available (Holmes, Omax). Iztok also points out lack of creation

https://twitter.com/iztok_franko/status/...wcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbleacherreport.com%2Fdallas-mavericks

[MrGoat]

Hardy
Williams
Green
Powell
Hardaway
Holmes
Curry
Morris

We need to move on from as many of these players as possible. Kidd said it himself. He’s just sitting there watching these tiny players get destroyed night by night. Nico needs to make them disappear so they are no longer options

New Orleans had an endless supply of big wings. Even with their top 4 players out. We need that type of depth 3-5

Why are we not playing Omax? I don’t care if he looks like the most unpolished player in the NBA and bricks air ball 3’s all game long. We must have some kind of hope out there that we have a future that includes the type of players needed to win in 2024

Every time these rookies like Hawkins. Good players like Bane. End of bench guys like Marshall. DFA scraps like Vince Williams. Doesn’t matter. They all feast against or tiny team. They drive at will because of their size. They lock us down because of their size. We can do nothing about it except when all our guys have a night when they shoot like Ray Allen. This all must change

Green can be useful for chasing guards around. Kleber might be one to add to the move on from list at this point. We actually might have benefitted from a little bit of Morris thug energy last night (though he's only here to keep Kyrie happy). Make no mistake, it's no coincidence we're 4-7 without Dereck Lively, and it would be worse than that without a couple of brilliant performances from Kyrie. It's embarrassing now but there's a reason I was actually happy we signed JaVale McGee the year before because of how pitiful our big rotation is and was hoping his size would help more than his suckitude would hurt