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Thats if the real Duncan shows up.
We will have to wait for the playoffs to see if dallas is for real. During past regular seasons Dallas has been a good team but have not been able to climb the mountain. I do think when these 2 meet up the Mavs are still a perimeter team. A perimeter team that plays good team defense but lacks an inside presence. ...Hold it Mav fans please don't bring up benga and the 2nd best center in the NBA..neither has done jack in the playoffs so far... The series will becoms a half court game and we have the best inside player in the league.. I guarantee you the mavs are going to have fits guarding Duncan.. I can live with dirk shooting 17 ft fadeaways.. I like my chances with our guy down low.. with or without home court advantage.
Thats if the real Duncan shows up.
bowen did a pretty good job on dirk last time around. i also think diop will find playoff officiating a rude awakening. this seems like a mavs team better equipped for the postseason, but didn't you say josh howard is a slasher? now he is a low post presence?
Dallas is certainly better defensively, but I had to check the stats; this thread made them sound like the second coming of the '85 Bears.
Pop has long said he focussed on Opp Fg% as THE defensive stat which mattered. Dallas is currently 8th in the league in that category; certainly respectable, but not awe-inspiring (Detroit is 14th). Dallas's opponent assist #, however is very good, at 2nd in the league. Tells me they are playing very good team defense, that to score against them, you've got to create your own shot.
Tony, Manu & Tim are pretty good at that.
BTW: Spurs are #1 in BOTH categories.
Dallas does like to post-up Josh. He's strong, wiry, and sneaky around the boards and he's 2nd on the team behind Dampier in offensive rebounding.
You hold Howard down and you have a good chance of beating the Mavs. In the 8 losses Dallas has had when Josh was playing, he has only averaged 12 ppg and 4.9 reb. He has averaged 17.2 ppg and 7.5 rpg in their wins.
(stats from ESPN)
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/player...s?statsId=3732
i would think that stackhouse is more of a "low post presence" than howard. he does grab quite a few offensive boards, but i haven't noticed them posting him up regularly in the last few games i have seen (memphis, lake)
The Mavs have put some better parts around Dirk, but sadly Dirk is still Dirk. We all saw his brand of "leadership" last year, where he threw half of his team under the bus and got shut down by Ryan Bowen during the Rockets series. If the Mavs want to win it all they have to get consistent big numbers out of him during the playoffs and it seems to me they have yet to ever get that out of him.
And as far as the Josh Howard/Manu mismatch, Manu had to guard Tayshaun Prince in the finals last year and did a pretty respectable job of it despite giving up about 4 inches to Prince. Not only that but the Spurs play such good team D that they can usually adjust to limit the impact of any mismatches.
it was mcgrady who shut down dirk, ryan bowen did not.
My apologies. I didn't really watch to much of that series, but since I live in Houston I heard Jon Barry's sound bite referring to Ryan Bowen as "The Germanator" a million times. So either R. Bowen had to have been covering him at some point, or Jon Barry just wasn't paying attention. Regardless, defense isn't exactly the hallmark of TMac's game so if you're getting shut down by him then it's still pretty bad news.
True, on Stack liking to post-up. I don't think of Josh as a post-up player...he's a slasher to be sure, but I've noticed the Mavs do set him up there when the matchups are right. He's terrific around the basket and the Spurs would do well to keep him out of the lane. I see that as a key strategy in future games.
Me too. That's my only hesitation about this year's Mavs team... There's still a chance that the Mavs lose a game in the Playoffs and Dirk pisses off his teammates by throwing them under the bus. He'll have to back off a bit and let Avery be the vocal critic when they struggle.
You should hear the sports radio up here in Dallas. People are jumping on the bandwagon quickly. Talk of going on a 20 game win streak has already started to surface. Too bad it's February.
That said, I do think they are a MUCH better team than they have been in the past, but I think they need one or two years experience in the playoffs, playing their new style, to be able to go all the way.
My comment was meant to be a dig rather than a serious basketball analysis. I am already on record as saying that this will be the best playoff team Dallas has ever had.
I used to watch Dallas all the time.
I especially liked J.R.
God Bless America
I saw their game vs. Lakers last night. Nothing special. Same old mavs beating up teams in regular season, then sucking in playoffs.
Well, we don't know that yet do we? Defense wins in the playoffs, and AJ seems to be preaching it, and the Mavs seem to be listening.
I still think that come playoff time, the Spurs defense should be able to shut down the Mavs Offense more than the Dallas D can ours. If Mavs fans think that Dampier and Diop will be enough to shut down Timmy, they are sadly mistaken. Tony will own Jason Terry.
Josh Howard is a greater offensive threat than Prince. Also Dallas's offense stretches out other teams so it is hard to help out on defense. In particular Dirk and Terry do this.
No kiddin, Hatfield. Dallas sports radio is really lovin' their Mavs right now. And it's so easy for someone to say that this is the year the Mavs get to the Finals, but as long as SA is still as potentially good as they are, the Mavs won't get there. The Mavs are on a hot streak for sure, but again, it's so easy to jump on the MavWagon and proclaim this team as Finals material. I'll admit that SA has really yet put together a game where I could say, "That's why my Spurs are the champs." But knowing they'll get better in these final 35 games is reassuring. The Spurs can play much better basketball than they are playing right now, especially on the offensive side, that I don't think any team, including the Mavs or even Pistons at full strength, can beat in a 7 game series.
I do have much respect for AJ's coaching and what he's brought to that Mavs team. They will not be an easy win come playoff time for any team, including the Spurs. It goes to show you how influential the Spurs are in terms of coaching and preaching defense. Defense, thanks to Avery, can now be respectable in Dallas, if not, formidable.
mando
The problem I see with the Dallas Mavericks is that they are infiltrated by commie sleeper cells. First you have Dirk Nowitzki from Germany, which was once half communist, meaning that likewise, Dirk is half communist. And they are lead by Avery Johnson, who is clearly a communist. First he turns his back on an all American Naval hero like David Robinson, so if he's not a commie he's at least a traitor to his country. Second, he's from Louisiana, the state that gave us that notorious communist Hughie P. Long. And finally both he and Dirk spent a number of years playing with Steve Nash, who is the biggest commie in the NBA. Not only is he from Canada (a communist country hiding in a hockey jersey) but he leads the league in assists, and assists=sharing=communism. The commies lost the cold war and they will lose in their campaign for the Larry O'Brien trophy.
McCarthy, are you sick? You've lost all your color.
God Bless America
Politics and sports don't go together.
what about political sports?
more than a few politicians have capitalized on sports fame to gain seats in office - tom osbourne is one.
As well as Bill Bradley, Steve Largent, and Jack Kemp.
It is BS and not historically accurate to say for sure this is the best Mavs team the Spurs have ever faced!
Mavs had a frigginn all star team with Nash, Finely, Dirk, Van Exel (when he was a real threat) and Nellie could and did pull some tough combinations.
Time will tell but the Mavs had some strong teams before. I personally see the Mavs as nothing more than a hot team right now ready to crash soon. Their schedule also has a heck of lot of road games end of the year.
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