Jason Kidd exemplifies longevity. His athleticism and strength have slowly dissipated, but even at age 38, his value remains. His game has matured superbly, and at this stage in his career, Kidd is the picture of adjustment.
He may no longer look to attack the basket (his at-the-rim field goal attempts slowly dwindled to last season’s measly 0.6 attempts per game), but Kidd has managed to find strength in weakness; his reduced foot speed has led to greater focus on competent three-point shooting and facilitation from the perimeer. In both of these facets, Kidd excels, and he contributes through made threes, crisp passing, exemplary rebounding, and timely defense.
But so far this season, Kidd has struggled to continue his helpful – if declining – play. His utter inability to make three-pointers (25.8% 3PT) has rendered his already minimal scoring almost completely nonexistent. 66 of Kidd’s 78 field goal attempts have been three-pointers, meaning that his failure to capitalize on these shots has led directly to his general scoring ineffectiveness.
You know the drill. The Difference is a reflection on the game that was, with one bullet for every point in the final margin.
Ricky Rubio (17 points, 12 assists, seven rebounds, four steals, seven turnovers) did a terrific job of getting the Wolves good looks both inside and out, be he hardly did all the work. Minnesota’s bigs fought hard to get good interior position and create contact once they received the entry pass, and the perimeter players worked diligently for a slice of open floor. The Wolves’ offensive success was hardly constant, but they at least seemed to know what worked and what didn’t, and sought to capitalize on their in-game strengths. Dallas, despite being a team of mismatch creation and utilization, didn’t quite share in that approach.
That said, there was a time in this game when the Mavs were pushing the pace not only as a means of getting easy transition buckets, but also forcing opponents to scramble into mismatches. On one particular first-quarter possession, Rubio was mismatched on Lamar Odom, giving Delonte West a chance to pull the ball out for a fake entry look before darting a pass to a wide open Brendan Haywood for an easy dunk. Haywood’s defender had snuck away to help on Odom, and West had correctly identified not only the mismatch, but its ripple effect.
The most succinct explanation possible for why the Mavs withered away on offense: they settled. Rarely is it so simple, but Minnesota applied defensive pressure, and Dallas recoiled. No rally. No response. There were simply too many pull-up threes and too many lazy sets. The Mavs tried to speed up their futile comeback attempt with quick jumpers early in the shot clock, but bricked pretty much every “momentum-changing” shot they attempted. I guess they did speed things up in a sense, merely not in the direction that they intended.
Every NBA offense begins with the same purpose - put the ball in the basket, preferably repeatedly and in a manner that’s not too straining. The pieces and approaches that are chosen to strive for that goal take an infinite number of forms. Through 18 games, the Mavericks’ offensive form has shape-shifted through a variety of ghastly and ghoulish looks.
This season, the Mavericks have scored 100.3 points per 100 possessions — the league’s 22nd most efficient offense. That’s a drop of 9.4 points per 100 possessions from last season, when they scored 109.7 points per 100 and registered the eighth most efficient offense in the league. The offense has regressed, significantly, in almost every area:
2011-2012
2010-2011
eFG%
47.3%
52.5%
TO%
14.4%
13.6%
ORB%
23.6%
24.1%
FT/FGA
0.224
0.222
Taking a look at the four factors, we see a team that’s getting to the line at roughly the same rate (still way below the league average), while shooting less accurately, turning the ball over more often and recovering fewer of their own missed shots. The fact that they’ve been able to start the season by winning 11 of 18 games is a testament to how much defensive compensation they’ve done.
You know the drill. The Difference is a reflection on the game that was, with one bullet for every point in the final margin.
This was certainly more of a defensive win than an offensive win, though Dallas had a way of playing to the extremes on D. The Mavs did a good job of pressuring shots, clogging passing lanes, and preventing penetration in a general sense, but were periodically victimized by Steve Nash’s (eight points, 2-9 FG, 12 assists, three turnovers) typical pick-and-roll brilliance. The defensive execution on those high screen-and-rolls improved as the game went on, but as late in the third and fourth quarters we still saw the occasional breakdown in coverage that led to a wide open attempt for Marcin Gortat within five feet of the basket, or an open three-point look for a Suns shooter without so much as a mild contest. Dallas’ final defensive numbers were pretty solid, but it would be reassuring to see some steadiness in their execution. It’s easy to settle for improved effort and play in the second half en route to a win, but when a team is posting elite defensive marks for the season, they deserve a bit more scrutiny than an “all’s well that ends well” outlook would typically provide. Bravo for the rebound, but those first-half quirks can’t become too common.
Although Dallas struggled offensively overall (45.7% eFG%; 99.9 points per 100 possessions), this was an oddly dominant performance by the Maverick bigs. Brendan Haywood (5-10 FG) scored Dallas’ first two buckets and finished with 10 on some pretty aggressive moves to the rim, Ian Mahinmi (4-7 FG, 9-12 FT) scored 17 points on just seven shots, and Brandan Wright came off the bench in the first half to play some productive minutes alongside Mahinmi rather than behind him. There was a stretch in the second quarter when every positive play on the floor seemed to be due to either Mahinmi or Wright, and their energy on both ends was crucial as Dallas figured out how to adjust their defensive coverage.
Monday night will mark Dirk Nowitzki’s second missed contest as the team withholds him from game action, though in the backwards spirit of the lockout season, Nowitzki’s injury-related absence isn’t exactly what it seems. From Jeff Caplan of ESPN Dallas:
Carlisle said Nowitzki needs “an uninterrupted eight days of work to resolve some physical issues and conditioning issues.” He emphasized that the break is designed to help Nowitzki, who is expected to return Jan. 29 against San Antonio, get into better game shape.
The Mavs coach said Nowitzki would prefer to keep playing but coaches and training staff decided it would be better for the team if he is restricted from game activity for the next week. Carlisle stressed that “this is not a rest situation” but “quite the opposite.”
Every rehabilitation effort requires an intense workload, but seeing a star player miss games to work out some minor injuries and improve their conditioning isn’t exactly a common occurrence in the NBA. That said, the Mavs deserve a lot of credit for playing the long game, and for not overreacting to their underwhelming record with a desperate grab for wins. This team is nothing without Nowitzki, and as much as the team’s offensive struggles can be pinned to the poor performance of Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Lamar Odom, or the rust of the team in general, all of those problems function as a half-truthed red herring. Clearly those other individual factors have played a role in Dallas’ offensive failures, but no single element has made a more profound impact than the lapse in offensive relevance for Dirk Nowitzki.
Ian Mahinmi doesn’t always make the best decisions in rotation as a team defender, but he was ever courteous in pulling out Chris Kaman’s chair for him on Saturday night.
You know the drill. The Difference is a reflection on the game that was, with one bullet for every point in the final margin.
Dirk Nowitzki sat out his first of what will be four games played in absentia, and we got our first glimpse of how the Mavericks might operate with their best player wearing a suit as casually as humanly possible. If this first outing against the Hornets is any indication, we’re due for a familiar look: Shawn Marion (14 points, 6-11 FG, 12 rebounds) quietly continuing his terrific season on both ends of the court, Delonte West (16 points, 6-10 FG, six assists, five rebounds) playing like he’s been a part of the Mavericks’ system for a decade, understated defensive play from Brendan Haywood (six points, 10 rebounds, two blocks), extended struggles from Jasons Kidd (zero points, 0-6 FG, five assists, nine boards) and Terry (12 points, 3-16 FG), and Lamar Odom as a complete wild card. Odom’s opportunities for playing time and production won’t be any more ripe than those he’ll see in the coming week; Dallas will need his scoring pretty badly while JET continues to struggle from the field, and thus Rick Carlisle may be more willing to allow Odom to play through his mistakes in the hopes of later seeing glimpses of the old Odom. We saw plenty of said mistakes on Saturday night, as Odom put on an absurd, one-man showcase of jump passes and curious decisions. Crossovers and fakes in isolation before throwing a cross-court pass to Shawn Marion? Managing five three-point attempts against a slew of opponents who have no hope of stopping him off the dribble or in the post? Odom’s judgment with the ball still isn’t where it needs to be, but it’s a credit to his talent and effort that he was able to contribute 16 points and four boards in 26 minutes of action nonetheless. The space cadet performances are part and parcel with Odom, but hopefully he can manage a more level game on Monday night.
You know the drill. The Difference is a reflection on the game that was, with one bullet for every point in the final margin.
Dallas has long been a team that systematically creates and exploits mismatches, but the most crucial possessions of Thursday’s game didn’t go to Dirk Nowitzki (12 points, 5-12 FG, five rebounds) as he backed down a hapless defender, nor to Jason Terry (10 points, 3-14 FG) as he sized up a big man on the perimeter. Shawn Marion — a walking mismatch if there ever was one — acted as the stabilizer for Dallas’ offense in the second half, even after also doing much of the heavy lifting with smart cuts and creative finishes in the game’s first two quarters. Terry or Jason Kidd fed Marion (22 points, 10-17 FG, seven rebounds, four turnovers) on the left block, let him go to work against C.J. Miles, and benefited when Marion either hooked his way into a score or kicked the ball out to create an open look on the perimeter. That sequence may not have the same magnetism of an impossible Nowitzki fadeaway, but Marion’s post work was effective enough to anchor the Mavs’ late-game offense. That said, I’m curious why we didn’t see Dallas work through Lamar Odom — who had generated some good possessions from the right block in similar mismatches — prior to Marion’s takeover. With Nowitzki clearly unable to bear his customary fourth-quarter scoring load and Terry having a rough night with both his shooting and decision making, why not utilize Odom’s (11 points, 4-5 FG) post-ups as the mirror and counterpoint to Marion’s work on the block?
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