GAME 36: CHI (13-24) @ DAL (23-13) | 118-110 win

[dmavs4life03]

MAXI!!
 And damn Lavine!! that alley oop play looked too fluid like outta 2k.

[Hypermav]

1 more assist.  Maxi owes Luka a make.

[BigDirk41]

Triple double baby!!!

[mtrot]

Luka is so deadly with that floater!

[dmavs4life03]

there we go dorian. thats what i wanna see

[BigDirk41]

Come on Luka, get 2 more for the 40 point triple double

---

Terrible possession by Wright there

[mtrot]

Dang, the crowd put the kibosh on Luka's FTs shouting MVP!

[dmavs4life03]

there we go panicking again vs the press. ATTACK THE PAINT DAMMIT. Pass the ball then drive hard while the defenders are running at you. pls dont blow it.

[BigDirk41]

Nice win Mavs. Good close out too.

[Scott41theMavs]

Need KP back next game.

[omahen]

Nice win. When the three falls, they don't have a problem. Luckily, it falls on some 66 % of nights  I hope THJ didn't reinjure himself, as he will be badly needed in upcoming three games.

[BolsDamols]

If Im not mistaken, Lukas now has more 30 pt triple doubles than the entire league combined - not that anyone’s counting 

[mtrot]

Jokic ran amok tonight with 40 points, so maybe our Bond villain will get some minutes against the Nuggz.

[donzingis38]

Man, if you look at the stats, mavs couldve easily lost this game.

-Allowed 72 points in the paint (most this season)
-14 turnovers
-bulls had more second chance pts and also fastbreak pts as they had 10 steals.

Still would take the W, obviously. But we need KP next game soooo baaaaad.

[omahen]

Man, if you look at the stats, mavs couldve easily lost this game.

1. Mavs had a good 3 point percentage which lead to a win. Live and die by a three. 
2. Luka was absolutely phenomenal.
3. Defense was more or less non-existing for large parts of the game. We allowed 110 points from offensively very limited team. This is my observation and perhaps someone else can look up the stats to see if it can confirm it, but it seemed to me that defense was especially bad with the line-up including both Wright and Maxi in the third quarter. I dare to say Powell was considerably better defender than Maxi yesterday. Wright was a dissapointment to me. He did score 9 points on only 3 shots, but wasn't really capable of leading a team when Luka was resting. 
4. We were too small for most of the game, as Maxi and Powell were rarely on the court together and we didn't see Boban. This lead to the fact that DFS and JJ were pushed to power forward and were too small to fight with stronger (Young) and much taller (Markannen) Chicago power forwards.
5. Curry-Brunson-Wright line-up just doesn't work for me. Looks to me that roles are not defined in this set up as they are all coming to the ball to facilitate, a lot of time at the same time.

[DanSchwartzgan]

Man, if you look at the stats, mavs couldve easily lost this game.

 
3. Defense was more or less non-existing for large parts of the game. We allowed 110 points from offensively very limited team. This is my observation and perhaps someone else can look up the stats to see if it can confirm it, but it seemed to me that defense was especially bad with the line-up including both Wright and Maxi in the third quarter. I dare to say Powell was considerably better defender than Maxi yesterday.  

4. We were too small for most of the game, as Maxi and Powell were rarely on the court together and we didn't see Boban. This lead to the fact that DFS and JJ were pushed to power forward and were too small to fight with stronger (Young) and much taller (Markannen) Chicago power forwards.

5. Curry-Brunson-Wright line-up just doesn't work for me. Looks to me that roles are not defined in this set up as they are all coming to the ball to facilitate, a lot of time at the same time.

It is hard to tell from the game flow which lineups were good and which were bad defensively.  The Bulls shot 54% in the fourth quarter, but didn't hit their 3's.  Quarter splits for Chicago were very consistent 27, 28, 27, 28.

The Curry-Brunson-Wright combo were -5 in the first half and +5 in the second half (start of 4th quarter).  Wright was invisible in the first half, but his three buckets in the second half were all really big.  I actually thought most of the ball handling clumsiness came with Barea in the lineup next to Luka.  JJ had 3 TO's and it just seemed like they weren't on the same page in the 3rd quarter.  BTW, I see comments asking why Carlisle is starting Barea and Jackson.  He's basically trying to keep his bench rotation in tact while people are out.  His theory is to not disturb both the starters and the bench rotation, so he draws from the third line to fill in holes in the first line.

If Powell is going to get crapped on incessantly, he should also get praised for good games.  16 (second highest points) and 7 (second highest rebounds) on a perfect 6/6 from the field is a nice night.  Of course, some yahoo stat geek will probably point out that for all of that the team was only +2 while he was in and was +15 with Maxi.  Therefore Maxi, even with a weaker than usual line for him, was the more valuable player.  To your point, the team was +9 in the second quarter in the Powell/Maxi overlap minutes and +0 in the fourth quarter in the overlap minutes.  The game was actually won late third and early 4th when a lineup with Maxi, Seth and Wright (and various others) went +11.

[aguiar95]

If Powell is going to get crapped on incessantly, he should also get praised for good games.  16 (second highest points) and 7 (second highest rebounds) on a perfect 6/6 from the field is a nice night.  Of course, some yahoo stat geek will probably point out that for all of that the team was only +2 while he was in and was +15 with Maxi.  Therefore Maxi, even with a weaker than usual line for him, was the more valuable player.  To your point, the team was +9 in the second quarter in the Powell/Maxi overlap minutes and +0 in the fourth quarter in the overlap minutes.  The game was actually won late third and early 4th when a lineup with Maxi, Seth and Wright (and various others) went +11.

Great game by him. I liked Powell's agressiveness this game. Some games without Luka on the court he receives the ball on the paint and doesn't attack, being OK with a pass to a contested 3. Yesterday he went to the rim a couple times, got to the line. That's what I like to see. He was one of the tallest dudes on the court and finishes well at the rim, should take advantage of that. His rebounding ability has to get better. Most people don't like him because of his contract. But to me he's at least a 6M/year guy (So not that big of an overpay). Not a starting center on a championship team, but a good guy to have on your big man rotation.

YOU ARE TALL MY MAN, DON'T TIP THE BALL SOMEWHERE. IF YOU WANT TO BE THE STARTER, GO UP AND GRAB THE BOARD LIKE IT'S YOURS. DON'T GET BULLIED ON D AND GIVE US SOME EFFORT IN THE OFFENSIVE BOARDS.