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Mavs beat a D-league team tonight....now its time to sweep the 7 game homestand and be 15-8...a long way from 2-7
Our beloved Mavs blew out the Kings 101-78 to get back to .500. The win itself isn't a big deal as the Kings are horrible and were without the services of Kevin Martin, but going into a 7 game homestand having won 6 of 7 sure sounds better than going into a 7 game homestand with a 2 game losing streak.
The play of the night that stood out in my mind was when Dirk hustled to a loose ball before Salmons, leading to a George dunk. George played surprisingly well, but it was an anomaly.
As did everyone really. It's not that the Mavs played great basketball, the Kings were just horrible from behind the arc and had a slew of turnovers, including 4-5 traveling violations.
The only players who didn't play well albeit in limited minutes was Green/Wright.
So one ponders whether Terry, who was great yet again tonight, is playing well due to the absence of Howard. He has been consistent with his shot, penetrating and facilitating. I've felt the Mavs can be elite if Howard/Terry/Dirk play well in unison but they never seem capable of doing so (such as last years 2008 playoffs w/ Howard). I guess we'll see if Howard comes back and Terry comes back down to earth.
We will learn a lot about this team during the 7 game homestand IMO. Bobcats, Thunder, Clippers... that's 3 wins right there and a loss would be terrible. As for the good teams we got the Spurs, Hawks, Suns, and Nuggets. Anything less than 3-1 or 4-0 in that stretch would be very disappointing to me, as I've said for a week or so now. What say you guys?
Mavs beat a D-league team tonight....now its time to sweep the 7 game homestand and be 15-8...a long way from 2-7
I think Terry is benefiting from not having to share the ball with Smokey BallStopper
oh HOLY ING DOG WE BEAT THE ING KINGS!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE MAVS TRIED REAL HARD AND BEAT A TY TEAM, MY DREAM HAS FINALLY COME TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where is atxrocker, I want to talk some !
CRIPPLE FIGHT!!!!!!!!!
Nothing to take from this win.
Terry will come back to earth, no way he keeps scoring 20+ on more than 50% shooting.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - this is a better team without Josh Howard.
Howard for Kamen
We need a center, they need a wing.
One grievance about tonight is that the Mavs had a really piss poor sequence during the 2nd quarter where the offensive stagnated.
Are those the teams the Mavs are supposed to lose to anyways?
I'm not too sure about 3-1 against those teams.
No because the games are at home and none of them are better than the Lakers.
the Spurs are the only contender of the 4, and the jury is still out as to whether this is true.
The Hawks, Nuggets, and Suns are just good teams that aren't capable of winning a le.
So like I said, anything less than 3-1 or 4-0 will be disappointing.
I can certainly give you my impression of the Spurs, and we're not contenders right now. Now, barring any injury, I'm sure we will be around March... Then again, that's just how our team operates. I would say the Nuggets will probably give you a good measure of where you're at.
Man tonights games has convinced me even more that we should trade Howard for Kaman, I don't know what else would. They beat a decent team in the Heat w/o Kaman, and we've been playing good without J-ho for awhile now.
Just imagine, we would have a great scorer in the paint with good defense. Clippers would probably have J-ho start the SF spot and Al thornton could come off the bench as a 6th man.
It would be awesome for both teams, and I'm not sure what their contracts are like but they seem to get paid almost the same this year.
Fluke win. The Kings just missed some shots.
Tonight's game shouldn't convince anyone of anything. The Kings aren't a measuring stick.
I wouldn't MIND Howard for Kaman I guess, although I think it'll be a lateral move. Not sure if Green/Wright can replicate Howard's productivity, but it would certainly be interesting to see how the dynamics of this team would change with a back to the basket low post scorer for the first time in forever.
One vexing aspect of this will be how we spent the MLE on what would then be our 3rd center.
What isn't a lateral move to you? I mean, really. JHo is not EVER playing again the same he did in 2006 for your team. The quicker you acknowledge that, the faster you can see Kaman will spread the floor for people like Dirk and JET. Neither Dampier or Diop (or JHo for that matter) can do that.
I would say spares for a shooting guard or role player would be a non-lateral move. Trading a good player for a good player is lateral IMO.
That's why the Artest and Gasol deals were so good for the Rockets and Lakers... they didn't give up any part of their respective cores.
Not that the Mavs have young talent/draft picks to lure a player of their caliber.
The Mavs have Stack's expiring, Bass and Green to offer other teams. I don't know what that gets you, probably not the pieces you need to get on an equal footing with LA, Boston and Cleveland. But those are the only pieces I can see other teams wanting. I believe Terry and Damp's contracts run past 2010.
Yeah well if you've noticed we haven't been struggling to score without Jho, and Dirk has been rebounding much better with him out. Howards defense really isn't all to impressive to say thats something he does good. I think green/wright/singleton will all get better through out the year, and will contribute more in each area.
But our C position is for the most part usually terrible. Diop cant ing dunk the ball for his life, or make a layup. Damp doesn't have high rebouding games too often either. It just seems like if this team had a better C it could get through those tough droughts where we let people go on runs.
And its obvious that kidd wants to get our centers to score because of how often he throws it to them but its hardly ever effective. I think with Kaman that would open up scoring much more for other people with a threat at the center position, which K-man is.
The Mavs are 3rd in the league in 1st quarter margin and 27th in the league in 4th quarter margin. That's truly a mind boggling stat, and not surprising to all of us that have seen the game.
The question is why? My guess is the Mavs are pretty good at exploiting the "ho hum" at ude most defenses have in the first quarter, but the primary roster holes (slashing, paint scoring) get exposed when a defense clamps down and intensity rises.
Josh Howard is a big part of it as well. 1st in the league in 1st quarter points, on 55% shooting too.
It's not that there's anything wrong with playing well in the 1st quarter, but some type of sustainability of such play in the 4th would be quite nice.
From that standpoint, I suppose a player like Kaman could possibly slow down those ominous 2nd half runs the Mavs have given up multiple times this year.
The Lakers are 2nd in the league in 3rd quarter margin behind the Celtics, and 1st in the league in 4th quarter margin. They're 7th in the league in 1st quarter margin which shows they seem to have an "on off switch". The Celtics are -2 points per 4th quarter so far which is odd, but I guess attritutable to games having been secured by the 3rd quarter.
Last edited by Ghazi; 11-30-2008 at 05:59 AM.
With Josh..I think at this point in his career...that's not going to change much. Mental midget sets in once the 4th quarter begins.
It's just too bad Josh really ed up his trade value with his off court and in the Hornets series, Mavs could have fooled some teams into thinking he's an All-Star second option. Not that Cuban would be willing to trade a butt buddy away.
And aren't we all glad Mavs got Diop for the full MLE? Ask the FO, he was a highly wanted commodity. We should feel lucky he chose Dallas
Are you just finding this out?
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