DieMrBond
02-10-2006, 01:12 AM
Mavs show flashes of brilliance on both ends
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/5316930
Charley Rosen / FOXSports.com
Posted: 38 minutes ago
In the past, the Dallas Mavericks have always been just good enough to break the hearts of their loyal fans. But could this year's team possibly be for real?
Riding the crest of a 13-game winning streak, Dallas has come out of nowhere to challenge the defending champion Spurs for the best record in the Western Conference. In some quarters, Dallas has even supplanted Detroit as the NBA's top-rated team.
Should the Mavs ultimately overcome San Antonio, they will gain the top seed in the playoffs as well as the home-court advantage at least until the final round. Should the Spurs finish atop the Southwest Division, then the Mavs will drop to the fourth seed and most likely enjoy the home-town edge only for the opening series. This set of circumstances makes every game that Dallas plays critically important.
Dallas showed signs of improvement on the defensive end Thursday night. (Tony Gutierrez / Associated Press)
However, are these your father's Mavs? A high-scoring bunch who can't muster the defense, the guts, or the discipline to compete with the NBA's elite come the money season? Or has Avery Johnson's emphasis on defense truly altered the Mavs' historical gestalt?
Let's take a look at their overwhelming 112-76 win over Miami at home Wednesday and see what's what with the Mavs.
Offense
A huge improvement here. Lots of swing passes, weak-side action, unselfishness, patience, poise, control, as well as perpetual ball- and player-movement. For the entire game, the Mavs only forced a single shot — a missed jumper by Dirk Nowitzki in the third quarter. They only went to iso situations when the matchups were grossly tilted in their favor — seven for Nowtizki, six for Jerry Stackhouse, four for Josh Howard, three (in garbage time) for Didier Ilunga-Mbenga, and one each for Keith Van Horn, Erick Dampier and Marquis Daniels.
Most important, the Mavs set a continuous series of screens and combo-screens; high, low, double, staggered, weak-side, strong-side, screens and re-screens. (Dampier even did a nice job of slipping a high screen and hustling himself into a dunk.) Here a screen, there a screen, everywhere a screen, screen. Challenging the Heat players to concentrate and to stay aggressive — challenges that the somnambulant visitors failed early and often.
If the Mavs' guards could get into the paint at will against the comatose Miami defense, they all showed tremendous restraint and awareness once they got there. Drive-and-dish was the order of the day, and the Mavs' took full advantage of the wide-open perimeter shots thusly generated (making 11 of 16 from beyond the arc, and shooting 56.3 percent overall.)
The Mavs also ran when running was in order — usually after Miami turnovers. They also assaulted the offensive boards.
Did they make any mistakes on offense? The only significant ones were the two times that Devin Harris left his feet to make passes.
The only meaningful weapon missing from Dallas's arsenal was a legitimate post-up game. Both Nowitzki and Stackhouse set up shop in mid-post spots. Dampier scored on his only pivotal play. And Mbenga was 3-for-3 from the left box in the closing minutes. This is a deficiency that could be important in the playoffs as it limits the opportunities of getting an opponents' bigs into foul trouble.
All in all, however, their offense was superb.
Defense
Johnson's game plan at this end of the court was picture-perfect: Have the bigs make timely shows on all screen-and-rolls while behind them, their teammates rotated to protect the middle. Cluster around any ball penetration. Contest wing passes to disrupt the timing and spacing that the Heat required in order to initiate their half-court sets. Poach the passing lanes. Mix up the defense against Shaq — front him, sandwich him, double him on the move (usually with a guard), double him on the catch (ditto), and play him straight up. Judiciously pressure Miami's guards in the backcourt. Push Dwyane Wade into the middle and jump him there. And make the Heat shoot over the Mavs' collapsing defense.
The defensive scheme was perfectly tailored to trump the Heats' shortcomings, i.e., their erratic perimeter shooting. Wade only hit one jumper. Antoine Walker, who was virtually ignored and thereby encouraged to fire away, failed to bag a jumper. James Posey had the dreaded donut, as did another erstwhile sharpshooter, Jason Kapono.
One troubling aspect of the Mavs' collapsing defense was that the Heat did manage to launch numerous undefended shots. (If they were only 2-for-9 from the outskirts, they did shoot 47 percent overall.) Come the playoffs, the Mavs could easily get burned to a crisp by the outside shooting of teams like the Spurs, the Clippers, and the Suns.
Another red flag was raised by the awareness that, besides Dampier, Dallas has no real power defender. While Stackhouse is incredibly strong for a wingman, his defense is infamously weak. And while Nowitzki's rotations cover a lot of space, he's still a swiper and not a banger. Even the swiftest, smartest, and most relentless finesse defenses are at risk when push comes to shove in the playoffs.
But here's the best thing about the Mavs' defense against the Heat: In truth, Dallas has only one authentic shot-blocker in DeSagana Diop, and only one lock-down man-to-man defender in Adrian Griffin. The beauty of the defense devised by Johnson (and ably assisted by Del Harris) was that the rest of the Mavs' ordinary and/or subpar defenders were rarely put in situations where they had to defend somebody one-on-one. Help was usually close at hand or else on the way.
So, then, what are we left with?
The Mavs are indeed a serious contender, but their offensive prowess is still their strongest suit. And, even with the home-court advantage, they lack the muscle and the individual defense to overcome San Antonio in a 7-game series. Should they drop into the No. 4 seed, Dallas' season will end in early May.
The Big D in Dallas is bigger than ever before, but it's not big enough to knock the Spurs out of the saddle.
Charley Rosen is FOXSports.com's NBA analyst and author of 13 books about hoops, the current one being "The pivotal season — How the 1971-72 L.A. Lakers changed the NBA."
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/5316930
Charley Rosen / FOXSports.com
Posted: 38 minutes ago
In the past, the Dallas Mavericks have always been just good enough to break the hearts of their loyal fans. But could this year's team possibly be for real?
Riding the crest of a 13-game winning streak, Dallas has come out of nowhere to challenge the defending champion Spurs for the best record in the Western Conference. In some quarters, Dallas has even supplanted Detroit as the NBA's top-rated team.
Should the Mavs ultimately overcome San Antonio, they will gain the top seed in the playoffs as well as the home-court advantage at least until the final round. Should the Spurs finish atop the Southwest Division, then the Mavs will drop to the fourth seed and most likely enjoy the home-town edge only for the opening series. This set of circumstances makes every game that Dallas plays critically important.
Dallas showed signs of improvement on the defensive end Thursday night. (Tony Gutierrez / Associated Press)
However, are these your father's Mavs? A high-scoring bunch who can't muster the defense, the guts, or the discipline to compete with the NBA's elite come the money season? Or has Avery Johnson's emphasis on defense truly altered the Mavs' historical gestalt?
Let's take a look at their overwhelming 112-76 win over Miami at home Wednesday and see what's what with the Mavs.
Offense
A huge improvement here. Lots of swing passes, weak-side action, unselfishness, patience, poise, control, as well as perpetual ball- and player-movement. For the entire game, the Mavs only forced a single shot — a missed jumper by Dirk Nowitzki in the third quarter. They only went to iso situations when the matchups were grossly tilted in their favor — seven for Nowtizki, six for Jerry Stackhouse, four for Josh Howard, three (in garbage time) for Didier Ilunga-Mbenga, and one each for Keith Van Horn, Erick Dampier and Marquis Daniels.
Most important, the Mavs set a continuous series of screens and combo-screens; high, low, double, staggered, weak-side, strong-side, screens and re-screens. (Dampier even did a nice job of slipping a high screen and hustling himself into a dunk.) Here a screen, there a screen, everywhere a screen, screen. Challenging the Heat players to concentrate and to stay aggressive — challenges that the somnambulant visitors failed early and often.
If the Mavs' guards could get into the paint at will against the comatose Miami defense, they all showed tremendous restraint and awareness once they got there. Drive-and-dish was the order of the day, and the Mavs' took full advantage of the wide-open perimeter shots thusly generated (making 11 of 16 from beyond the arc, and shooting 56.3 percent overall.)
The Mavs also ran when running was in order — usually after Miami turnovers. They also assaulted the offensive boards.
Did they make any mistakes on offense? The only significant ones were the two times that Devin Harris left his feet to make passes.
The only meaningful weapon missing from Dallas's arsenal was a legitimate post-up game. Both Nowitzki and Stackhouse set up shop in mid-post spots. Dampier scored on his only pivotal play. And Mbenga was 3-for-3 from the left box in the closing minutes. This is a deficiency that could be important in the playoffs as it limits the opportunities of getting an opponents' bigs into foul trouble.
All in all, however, their offense was superb.
Defense
Johnson's game plan at this end of the court was picture-perfect: Have the bigs make timely shows on all screen-and-rolls while behind them, their teammates rotated to protect the middle. Cluster around any ball penetration. Contest wing passes to disrupt the timing and spacing that the Heat required in order to initiate their half-court sets. Poach the passing lanes. Mix up the defense against Shaq — front him, sandwich him, double him on the move (usually with a guard), double him on the catch (ditto), and play him straight up. Judiciously pressure Miami's guards in the backcourt. Push Dwyane Wade into the middle and jump him there. And make the Heat shoot over the Mavs' collapsing defense.
The defensive scheme was perfectly tailored to trump the Heats' shortcomings, i.e., their erratic perimeter shooting. Wade only hit one jumper. Antoine Walker, who was virtually ignored and thereby encouraged to fire away, failed to bag a jumper. James Posey had the dreaded donut, as did another erstwhile sharpshooter, Jason Kapono.
One troubling aspect of the Mavs' collapsing defense was that the Heat did manage to launch numerous undefended shots. (If they were only 2-for-9 from the outskirts, they did shoot 47 percent overall.) Come the playoffs, the Mavs could easily get burned to a crisp by the outside shooting of teams like the Spurs, the Clippers, and the Suns.
Another red flag was raised by the awareness that, besides Dampier, Dallas has no real power defender. While Stackhouse is incredibly strong for a wingman, his defense is infamously weak. And while Nowitzki's rotations cover a lot of space, he's still a swiper and not a banger. Even the swiftest, smartest, and most relentless finesse defenses are at risk when push comes to shove in the playoffs.
But here's the best thing about the Mavs' defense against the Heat: In truth, Dallas has only one authentic shot-blocker in DeSagana Diop, and only one lock-down man-to-man defender in Adrian Griffin. The beauty of the defense devised by Johnson (and ably assisted by Del Harris) was that the rest of the Mavs' ordinary and/or subpar defenders were rarely put in situations where they had to defend somebody one-on-one. Help was usually close at hand or else on the way.
So, then, what are we left with?
The Mavs are indeed a serious contender, but their offensive prowess is still their strongest suit. And, even with the home-court advantage, they lack the muscle and the individual defense to overcome San Antonio in a 7-game series. Should they drop into the No. 4 seed, Dallas' season will end in early May.
The Big D in Dallas is bigger than ever before, but it's not big enough to knock the Spurs out of the saddle.
Charley Rosen is FOXSports.com's NBA analyst and author of 13 books about hoops, the current one being "The pivotal season — How the 1971-72 L.A. Lakers changed the NBA."