My crystal ball says the Spurs win in 5. I'd love to see Findog fight that with stats.
PWNT>
Spurs against +.500 teams:
20-23 Overall (.465), 11-9 Home (.550), 9-14 Road (.391)
+1.55 PD Overall, +4.25 Home, -0.78 Road, 5.03 Differential between home and road
Last two months:
8-6 Overall (.571), 3-1 Home (.750), 5-5 Road (.500)
+3.92 PD Overall, + 8.25 Home, + 2.3 Road, 5.95 Differential between home and road
If you're in the Mavs organization, suppose Duncan gets in foul trouble and Blair plays 25 minutes, you wouldn't be worried if Blair's averaging 30/30 per 48 minutes when he's in there? That could definitely swing a game. Think Leon Powe 2008 Finals. There was one game Powe had like 21 points in 15 minutes and the Celts won by 5 or 6. That's the only thing to take from that game really--always get a body on Blair when he's in there. Always. The game was 98% useless but ignoring that would be a big mistake.
It's not "your" theory. It's been pretty accepted for awhile now in most basketball circles that PD is a more accurate predictor of playoff success than wins and losses.
The Mavs put up a very good PD post-trade, not as good as San Antonio in the same stretch, but a lot better than before the trade. If the Spurs had HCA, I'd pick them to win this series because I feel these teams are evenly matched. I think both teams will win a game on the road. Dallas having HCA is why I'm picking the Mavs in 7.
We didn't learn anything new last night - Blair is a very good player, and against our team playing a very vanilla scheme, he beasted. If anything, it's good that he did, so we could a vivid demonstration of what he can do, thankfully in a game that ultimately is irrelevant to the upcoming series.
i'm going with 6, taking it 7 and giving me a heart attack.
What I'm saying is it's one thing to read a scouting report versus experiencing something first hand. Since Blair did dog in the first 3 games, Damp and Haywood def got lazy boxing out Blair a few times and they probably learned their lesson.
We can both agree though Findog, that the best part of this thread was when OV referred to paying more attention to point differential than win loss record was his theory. Best part hands down.
Yeah, that was hilarious. Like he had some sort of super-secret formula that nobody else knew about and he decided to finally unveil for the rest of us rubes. Thank you for the lesson, Daryl Morey!
The numbers do look awfully good for the Spurs the last couple of months, for what it's worth. My brain is telling me to pick the Spurs, but the Mav fan in me is taking Dallas in 7.
You can toss around all the numbers you want. To me, this series depends strictly on what Manu can do. If he plays the way he has played in the last few months, we take this series handily, if he doesn't we probably won't win it.
And I don't necessarily mean just scoring. He's the guy that can make RJ into a factor out there, and one of the few guys we have that will require extra attention for Dallas when he drives and will open up shots for perimeter guys.
I like where our team is, and this Dallas team really doesn't scare anybody. They're a good team, but nothing we can't match up with.
You can toss around numbers and matchups all you want, but for me this series depends strictly on Dallas being dialed in and giving a constant effort on defense. We will win a couple of games simply from hot shooting. We will lose a couple of games when we shoot 40-45%. When this team plays up to its potential on defense, it becomes pretty hard to beat. When it slacks off, that's when we end up getting run out of the gym by the Knicks and Hornets.
Of our seven losses since the trade, a good four of them are "lack of effort" losses - Knicks at home, Hornets on the road, Magic at home, Zombie Sonics at home. Defensively we were awful in those losses, whereas in the immediate aftermath of the trade, we were very good on defense.
In the playoffs, fatigue and motivation shouldn't be an issue. If this team can't play hard for all 48 minutes of a playoff game, then we don't deserve to move on. What I'm saying is that I think this comes down to more of what we do or don't do than what San Antonio does to us.
I would buy that if the difference between teams wouldn't be a mere 5 games over a 82 games season. I do think they're fairly even teams, and homecourt is definitely a plus for Dallas.
That said, Duncan has shown to be fairly fresh, and Manu specifically I know will be extra motivated after missing last year's playoffs. And to be honest, if Manu is Manu, I look at Dallas and I don't see anybody that can guard him. I also don't see any shotblockers. And that's exactly what I mean when I say that they don't scare anybody.
Dallas seems to have a better ability to lock down on people when it matters defensively than the Spurs.
Spurs seem much more likely to go on scoring droughts and either dig into a hole or cough up a lead.
The Spurs will have to play pretty flawless ball to win this series.
Really? Because I look at Manu, and even at his best, when given the choice, I prefer the ordeal of having to check him with a tag-team of Marion, Butler, Stevenson and Kidd...as opposed to being Popovich and having to throw McDyess, Bonner and Jefferson at Dirk and hope for the best. I still cannot believe after all these years the Spurs have not gone out and gotten somebody to check Dirk - a long three that can really bother him, a Shawn Marion type in other words.
I think the Mavs are more likely to survive Manu being Manu than the Spurs surviving Dirk being Dirk.
Manu is scaring me with his vintage 2005 play recently, but I think we have better options for checking him than the Spurs do for checking Dirk.
Of course, the Spurs will probably play Dirk straight up at times and at others they will trap and double him, or try to prevent him from getting to his preferred spots.
It's not really about that. It is about saying, ok, we are getting stops for the next few minutes. I feel the Mavs can do that better than the Spurs. That is huge in the playoffs.
I really can't agree. Sure, Dirk could potentially get any look he wants (I would argue that Dice actually plays him a lot better than the likes of Bonner). But for us, it's not just Manu scoring, but also opening the game for other guys.
When he's in that zone, he just commands way too much attention and opens things up for other guys.
I also believe Terry has been shooting pretty atrocious for the season, right? Which would work well for us doubling Dirk (although Donatello will probably get off his slump just for this series)...
and why are we still making threads about Hollinger?
They've been more consistant doing that. Although our starting unit has been doing great in that department in the last few weeks. It's our second unit that leaks like a sieve. Now, considering we don't need to rest our starters anymore, I would hope to see longer stretches of that for us too.
Yeah, I hope so. I just don't have a lot of faith that teams can all of the sudden become really good at that. The Spurs are who they are at this point. We will see. I am calm right now, but Saturday night, I will be so hyped.
I wish the game was on Saturday, so I could drink and not have to worry about work the next day
Did you not watch the series last year? Dirk doesn't operate in a vacuum. The Spurs for the most part did not play him straight up - they went with the defense utilized by Houston, Miami and Golden State before them, and it really didn't work. Dirk was the facilitator and you guys got burned by the open looks our other guys got. There was a time in his career when the doubles and traps really bothered him. Not anymore really.
Terry sucked ass against San Antonio last year in the playoffs. Even when he's not shooting well, you still have to respect him and can't sag off.
Dice wasn't in San Antonio last year, and honestly, I didn't think it was Dirk who hurt us, it was JHo playing like Jordan every time we played. Terry hitting every floater he threw on the run. Also scrub players like Barea and Bass outplaying our scrubs like Finley, Mason and Bonner...
Dirk is going to get his, and we should be more than comfortable to even that output with a tandem of Duncan and Parker... The question is how is everyone else going to play. And that's where Gino has had an impact in our team. When he's playing well, RJ plays well. Blair plays better. Bonner gets better looks.
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