01-26-2021, 07:38 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-26-2021, 07:41 AM by DanSchwartzgan.)
Outsider's view (Hollinger) of what is going on here from a piece on teams that are under-performing expectations. BTW, in another piece, Seth Partnow has a graph showing Dallas with the 4th worst Weighted Average Accuracy on Open 3FGA%:
Dallas: As with Miami above, Dallas gets an asterisk because it has played with a skeleton crew on so many nights, except in Dallas’ case it’s a much more emphatic one. The Mavs have had Kristaps Porzingis for just six games, Dorian Finney-Smith for eight and Maxi Kleber for nine, leaving them with a gutted frontcourt on too many nights. Josh Richardson, Jalen Brunson and others have also missed time, as a COVID-19 outbreak temporarily sidelined a sizable chunk of the roster.
As a result, secondary and even tertiary players have become primary. Trey Burke, James Johnson and Willie Cauley-Stein are third, fourth and fifth on the team in minutes. Raw first-round pick Josh Green has been starting. These weren’t the guys they were supposed to be counting on.
The Mavs also still have the league’s most impressive win this season — a 51-point opening week beatdown of the Clippers. So why worry? Well, here’s the thing: This team is built to be a terror offensively, and so far it just isn’t. Dallas is 18th in offense, even with Luka Doncic playing 15 of its 16 games, and the shooting has been abysmal. The Mavs are at 33.1 percent from 3, the second-worst mark in the league, and Doncic (27.8 percent) has been a big part of it.
Getting the cavalry back will undoubtedly help, but is it enough to vault the Mavs back into the upper half of the West? Even at full strength, can they shoot enough to offset a middling defense? And while they wait, how much ground will they lose on the front-runners?
Dallas: As with Miami above, Dallas gets an asterisk because it has played with a skeleton crew on so many nights, except in Dallas’ case it’s a much more emphatic one. The Mavs have had Kristaps Porzingis for just six games, Dorian Finney-Smith for eight and Maxi Kleber for nine, leaving them with a gutted frontcourt on too many nights. Josh Richardson, Jalen Brunson and others have also missed time, as a COVID-19 outbreak temporarily sidelined a sizable chunk of the roster.
As a result, secondary and even tertiary players have become primary. Trey Burke, James Johnson and Willie Cauley-Stein are third, fourth and fifth on the team in minutes. Raw first-round pick Josh Green has been starting. These weren’t the guys they were supposed to be counting on.
The Mavs also still have the league’s most impressive win this season — a 51-point opening week beatdown of the Clippers. So why worry? Well, here’s the thing: This team is built to be a terror offensively, and so far it just isn’t. Dallas is 18th in offense, even with Luka Doncic playing 15 of its 16 games, and the shooting has been abysmal. The Mavs are at 33.1 percent from 3, the second-worst mark in the league, and Doncic (27.8 percent) has been a big part of it.
Getting the cavalry back will undoubtedly help, but is it enough to vault the Mavs back into the upper half of the West? Even at full strength, can they shoot enough to offset a middling defense? And while they wait, how much ground will they lose on the front-runners?