Post-Game Thread - vs Mavericks, Home

[bobheckler]

Well, that wasn't much fun, in the end.  You're not supposed to blow an 18 point lead.

We looked SO good in the beginning.  EVERYTHING was working.  A 31-16 first quarter.  Then, their energy level picked up.  They nibbled away at our lead because of the Dirk Factor.  Man, he is unstoppable.  So tall, so long and so unflappable.  He stepped back and bent over, picked up a loose ball around the frito line and, with the clock running out calmly reared up and hit a fadeaway.  Anybody else, except the truly gifted scorers like MJ and Kobe, and that's a 24-second shot clock turnover.

Nevertheless, we could have and should have won this game, Dirk or no Dirk.  All we had to do to do that was hit a few more fritos.  They took 11 more frito than us and hit a decent but not great percentage (71%).  We shot 75%, 18-24.  Amir 0-2, IT 4-6.  They hit just one more frito each and this is a different game in the final minutes.  Asking 59% frito shooter Amir Johnson to shoot 50% from the line and an 86% frito shooter like Thomas to shoot 5-6 (83%) isn't asking too much.

1.  Trick or Treat Thomas.  19 points on 7-16 isn't TOO bad, but 1-8 from 3?  His lack of conscience bothers me.  I know, I know, that's a shooter's mentality, the last shot doesn't matter (unless it went in and felt good) and the next one is always going in but 1-8?  The secret to their comeback is that they repeatedly iso'd Thomas with fill_in_the_blank.  I can understand that, in the world of the NBA he's an ankle-biter, but why didn't Brad throw a quick double-team to help Thomas and get the ball out of Deron's (or Matthews') hands quickly.  I'll give Thomas credit, he was working his ass off on defense but he isn't, to put it gently, Phil Pressey.  Phil would have found a way, Thomas' best effort was to work his ass off.  He managed to slap a few balls away but overall he was overwhelmed and I don't understand why Brad let that happen.  Dallas is also one of the few teams in the league that has a player that can match up pretty well on IT, and that's JJ Barea.  Another little waterbug, on offense and defense.

2.  Opposing the Big German was his untutored protege, Dirk Olynyk.  Nope, not there yet.  Kelly wasn't as aggressive on offense as we have seen him in the past few weeks.  He picked up some ticky tack fouls that made him even less aggressive too.  With a quarter winding down, Kelly had the ball and took his idol into the paint for a wrong-legged fadeaway.  It rimmed out, but throwing Dirk's move right in his face was cold.  And good.  Keep doing that Kelly.

"That was cold-blooded," Nowitzki said after the Mavericks' 106-102 win, via ESPN's Chris Forsberg. "I was a little fortunate there. I said, 'Don't give me my own move.'"

"That's something I like to get to," Olynyk said, via CelticsHub's Brian Robb. "I've been working on it a lot. I thought it was in!"



He also had a block, coming from holding his position and having the shooter bring the ball right up into him, and a steal.

Not one of Kelly's better games, like I said the whistles kneecapped him, but I like that he wasn't intimidated by defending a future HOFer and giving his own signature move back at him.  I am firmly convinced, based upon watching Kelly pretty carefully for a couple of years now, that his biggest weakness is his confidence.  His confidence is up this year, perhaps just due to this being his 3rd year, and so is the quality of his play.  Doing his Dirk 2.0 imitation TO DIRK is a good thing, even if it did rim out.  He fouled out.

3.  Bradley was a killer off the bench.  They rallied and made it close and then he scored the next 12 points.  He also had 4 steals.  This was vintage Bradley.  A pitbull on defense and hitting his open Js.  He fouled out too.  One or two of them was Bradley being a little overly aggressive, it's hard to fault that although one foul in particular wasn't very smart, but a lot of them were the refs.

4.  David Lee to the rescue!  Almost.  14 points by Lee on 4-7 AND 6-6 from the line.  He got tortured a bit on defense (so what else is new?) but he did his job, which is to fire up the offense, in his 15 minutes.

5.  Zaza is a punk.  He took a small, minor hit in the chest from Sully turning around and bring his elbows up to outlet pass and fell back.  And the refs called an offensive foul on Sully.  The crowd booed later when Williams forearmed Smart away from him and no whistle.  In fact, the crowd booed the refs pretty much all night for, what was perceived to be, an unfairly blown game. Yeah, a lot of good that did...

6.  Jae was trying to show off for his former team and did a good job of doing it.  It was stated repeatedly by the Dallas announcers (listening to them was right up there with getting a bamboo shoot manicure) how highly the Mavericks organization thinks of Crowder.  Yeah, especially since the big fish they got in that trade didn't work out for them.

7.  I think Brad got out-coached.  Flat out.  He was rotating players and leaving Dirk alone from 16'?  Really?  How many open 3s did Wesley Matthews get and take (the answer was 3-9, and I don't think more than one or two were contested).  Letting IT get tortured like that?  I'm usually quite supportive of Brad but last night I think he wasn't at his best or most creative.

8.  Sully worked like a beast of burden last night but his numbers, 18 points on 7-19, 12 rebounds with 4 offensive, were padded because he kept blowing bunnies and then tipping in his own miss.  So, one offensive rebound and 50% shooting when he should have just needed 1 fga and 0 rebounds.  In general you say "so what?  It worked!" but with 1 minute left in the game and the score 100-95 Dallas, Kelly drove down the lane and slipped a beautiful interior pass to Sully who blew the bunny.  That time, however, Sully didn't get his own miss.  That would have made it a 1 possession game.  I'm not blaming the loss on Sully, I'm just pointing out that we still have problems finishing and that was one example.  Crowder stole an in bounds with :21 left and misses the gimme too.  He hit his fritos, but a fgm and ftm would have made it 102-101 instead of 102-100.  That's a big difference with only :21 left.  Brad preaches the importance of details and focusing on each possession.  There are 3 that would have made a big difference.

9.  Stat roundup:  They shot 51% for the game.  They took 35 ftas, with Matthews going 7-7.  We had 92 fgas vs only 72 for them.  Our 41% fg% is what killed us.  We supported our league leading 11.8 steals/game with 12.  BFD.  They had 12 fast break points to 5 for us.  That's something Brad needs to talk to them about.  The 3rd oldest team in the league should NOT be out running us.

We own Dallas' first round pick this year.  We want them to be in the lottery, but not TOO high up, and letting them win this and go 8-4 was not helpful.  At least Brooklyn, the gift that keeps on giving, lost.  I only wish it was Brooklyn Decker.

Our 3 game winning streak is over.  Time to start a new one.





bob



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[bobc33]

I wonder if IT will continue to start or will Bradley come back to the starting lineup?

Bradley has done well coming off the bench but I believe IT is best off the bench.

[bobheckler]

I watched the GSW-Clippers game last night from my usual perch at my local sushi bar.

The Clips were up 23 with 9 minutes left in the 2nd quarter.  The Warriors came back to win, with room to spare, by 7.  Curry with 40, 6-14 from 3.

My point, putting this on the Post-Game Mavericks thread?  I don't feel quite so bad about this loss now.  The Clips are a good team, perhaps better than their 6-5 record says they are (although Doc always preaches that you are your record).  They have an elite point guard.  They have the #1 pick in a draft in Blake Griffin.  They have one of the best rim protectors in the game in Jordan.  They have a closer in Paul Pierce.  JJ Redick was a DNP, but Jamal Crawford and Austin Rivers played well in his absence.  And yet...

The top rebounder in this game, either team, was Steph Curry with 11.  Jordan had 10 and Draymond Green had 9.  #1 draft pick Andrew Bogut had 1 rebound and 0 blocks in 20 minutes.  If our starting center had numbers like that some people, I don't want to mention any names (Cowens), would be going off on them.  Truthfully, Bogut did not look good.  He had the ball underneath, couldn't do anything with it, passed it out and got it back underneath on the reset and still couldn't do anything with it.

It's about having the right pieces, not just good or even great pieces.  The Clips have some great pieces too. It's about having championship heart and poise and not just bluster.  It's about execution and not just talent.  It's about having a good game plan, which might mean your bigs don't lead the team in rebounding, they just box out.  I might mean your bigs aren't defensive funnels because the other team isn't getting to the rim as much or as cleanly as they'd like. I like a lot of our pieces.  I love our coach (ok, not the Mav or Pacers game, but usually).  I like our style of play.

RJ needs to work on his ball handling.  It's not bad now but what makes Curry so freaking good is that his ball handling gets his defender's feet so tangled up he can get a drive or shot up almost no matter what.  A lot of players can shoot from distance, the question is "what if the defense gets up on them before they can launch?".  It doesn't matter with Curry because he will dazzle you with his dribbling. RJ Hunter is not Steph Curry and probably never will be. Curry's shooting makes him almost one of those "transcendental talents" GMs try so hard to get hold of and keep and to suggest that RJ might be that would be unfair. He could, however, become a poor man's transcendental talent and that's pretty frippin' good too.

31 assists on 38 fgm for GSW.  So, it wasn't just Curry one-on-one.
17-30 from 3 for GSW, 73 fgas.  So a crazy high % were 3s and almost half 14, were Curry's.
Curry with 7 of GSW's 19 TOs.  Only 10 TOs for Clips.

Jordan with 0 blocks.  5-8 from the line.  A strange boxscore for him.


Once again, the purpose of this post is to highlight that even good, talented, veteran teams like the Clips can implode.  And that RJ needs to work on his dribbling and, I believe, greatness could await him.  He has the shooting, BBIQ, court vision and passing skills already and he's working hard and doing surprisingly well with his defense.  Remember, Steph Curry wasn't STEPH CURRY in his rookie year, nor his sophomore year, neither.  He has grown, developed and worked his way into who he is now over years.


bob


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