“Too late is tomorrow’s life; live for today.”
-Anonymous
First of all, I apologize for just how late/non-existent everything has been around here this week. My spring break has been excellent, but visiting family and friends back home leaves me barely enough time to watch the games, much less keep up with these duties. Everything should be back to normal on Monday. Better than that, actually, as I’m hoping to develop a more regular schedule for recaps/grapevine/previews/etc. Thanks for bearing with me in the meantime.
Despite the fact that the Mavs won by a small margin to an inferior team yet again, this was a quality win. It’s easy to look at the Pacers and the final differential and deem it a moral loss, but that wouldn’t be doing justice to everything that went right in this game. The Mavs won on the road without Erick Dampier and Josh Howard. They won with a colder-than-ice shooting performance from Dirk Nowitzki in the 2nd half. And they won without Jason Terry or anyone else turning in a truly superhuman performance. Instead, the Mavs won with guts and resolve alone. The Pacers continued to have prayer (Jarrett Jack’s three to beat the shot clock) after prayer (Danny Granger’s bank-in jumper while double teamed at the shot clock buzzer) after prayer (T.J. Ford’s unlikely fadeaway three pointer with Wright in his face) answered, and the Mavs always had an answer. And get this: their answer wasn’t always on the offensive end. How about that?
Is it a terrific honor to play good defense against the Pacers, a team that plays forgettable, uninspired defense themselves and lacks a truly potent offensive? No. But, for these Mavs, any strong defensive performance is more significant, if for no other reason than you don’t know if it’s a trend or an aberration. Are the Mavs a bad defensive team that turns in a few good-to-great defensive games? Or are they a good defensive team that still fights through confusion and effort issues 70 (now 71) games into the season? One of those seems to be the more conclusive, and certainly supported more fully by game data, but anecdotally it could go either way.
Jason Kidd had one of those games that makes you thankful he’s a Maverick. He controlled the second half; he first jump-started the Mavs’ second-half offense by rebounding and igniting the fast break, and he followed up his own success by being ominpresent and omnipotent in the most crucial stretches of the fourth quarter. A steal there, a deflection there, a rushed short or pass everywhere. He guarded everyone from Jarrett Jack to Danny Granger, and he really wreaked havoc out there. Antoine Wright will rightfully claim most of the credit for limiting Granger, but no conversation of the Mavs’ defense would be complete without mention of Kidd’s exploits.
Jason Terry was effective but not overwhelming, scoring 17 points on 6-13 shooting to go with 4 assists and 3 steals. He actually started the game in place of J.J. Barea in place of Josh Howard, proof that after the loss to Atlanta the Mavs meant business. It was a perfectly understandable move by Carlisle; Barea had hit double-digits in scoring just once in his six starts, and though his playmaking has generally been fine, a starting shooting guard probably shouldn’t be shooting around 38% from the field in his starts. J.J.’s response was 7 points and 6 assists on 50% shooting, and, most importantly, 0 turnovers. Singleton (who had a double-double with 10 points and 11 boards) and Bass did their part in providing energy off the bench. It wasn’t always beautiful, but their efforts were commendable.
Gerald Green made an appearance early in the 2nd quarter, and immediately hit a baseline jumper and converted an alley-oop layup. But it wasn’t all quite that easy, and it never really is with Green; he missed his next three attempts and still looks homeless at times in the Mavs’ sets going both ways. Though, in his defense, the lineup he was put on the floor with (Kidd, Barea, Bass, and Singleton) is hardly the Mavs’ most potent offensively, and everyone seemed to be looking to get the ball to Green. I wasn’t displeased with his shot selection, but the results were less than spectacular.
Dirk’s poor shooting was as much a product of an ill-timed cold streak as it was the Pacers’ D. Brandon Rush and Danny Granger refused to surrender an inch when guarding him, Troy Murphy refused to bite on Dirk’s pump fakes, and Jeff Foster gave him a lot of trouble by stripping the ball at the waist. But that didn’t stop him from making two of the biggets shots of the game in the last minute and a half, including this one:
Incredible. Kudos to Jason Terry as well, for hitting a huge three with under a minute remaining that should have been the dagger. I don’t know what supernatural force T.J. Ford was in contact with or what he bartered in exchange for that make, but that is some sort of intervention, divine or otherwise.
GOLD STAR OF THE NIGHT: The Gold Star of the Night goes to Jason Kidd. 10 points (3-8 FG, 2-3 3FG), 9 rebounds, and 5 assists hardly makes me scream from the rooftops, but the way in which he converted most of those rebounds into immediate offensive sequences kept the Mavs in this thing and helped them build a small lead in the third. In a game that was eventually won by 2 points, I’m thankful for all the little things he did.
The Dallas Mavericks visit the Indiana Pacers
6:00 CST
It’s almost an irrelevant discussion by now, but as recently as a week ago, those with an eye to the Mavs pondered the perks of playoffs versus the lottery. This team almost certainly doesn’t have the chops of a championship contender (or if they have them stowed away in some secret compartment, I have yet to see them), so at best the playoffs are an extension to a season most view as an exercise in mediocrity. Sure, every team in the playoffs technically has a chance to win it all, but at what minute fraction of a fraction does it become more worth our while to try our luck at the lottery balls?
The Mavs are a veteran team, and that route isn’t exactly an appetizing one. Just making the playoffs is a bare bones accomplishment, but for a team of proud, veteran players, it could offer enough consolation to keep them from tossing and turning in bed every night for the next three months. And, of course, the financial incentives are well worth the Mavs’ while, especially when considering the team’s massive payroll and luxury tax payout.
Simply, the difference between potentially the 14th pick and the 20th pick or so isn’t worth the fuss. What the Mavs would gain in a (possibly) marginally more talented/productive player, they would almost certainly lose in whatever quantitative way there is to measure mental health. The hot line with the Mavs has always been that they lack the sort of fiery, on-court leader that forges championship mettle with his bear hands; if that’s as true as believed, then missing the playoffs with two future Hall-of-Famers, not to mention two players who fancy themselves borderline All-Stars, could be a stroke of death.
The Indiana Pacers find themselves in a similar discussion, but with a decidedly different outlook. For them, making the playoffs isn’t as much a testament to their longevity and a shallow fulfillment of their own personal expectations, but a fairly significant breakthrough for a roster that has been continually limited by circumstance. Danny Granger and Mike Dunleavy, the team’s two best players, have battled injury all season. Almost every other rotation player has missed at least a handful of games, sometimes leaving a cast of role players to accomplish what teams at full-strength often struggle to do: win games. At their best, they’re world-beaters, a potent offensive club that overcomes deficiencies with a sense of direction. Sometimes the compass may be pointing the wrong way, but at least their direction is conclusive.
What would making the playoffs mean to the Pacers? I’d wager an awful lot; Jarrett Jack, Troy Murphy and Mike Dunleavy (though he’s injured) have never even tasted the playoffs, and it goes without saying that rookies Roy Hibbert and Brandon Rush have yet to play their first postseason game. Something tells me that those players, Murph and Dunleavy in particular, might want to take a crack at the playoffs, even if it means nothing more than a beatdown at the hand of the Cavaliers. If it doesn’t happen this year, it would certainly be disappointing, but it’s also completely understandable given the myriad of injuries. The Pacers are in an oddly accomodating situation for a team on the playoff bubble; their injuries arm them with the perfect write-off, a playoff berth would bring a newfound sense of fulfillment and justification, and a draft pick in the lottery would only serve to help their cause next year with a healthy, matured roster.
That seems to be the theme with the Mavs in comparison to the rest of those on the fringes of relevance. These teams have been to the bottom, and they’ve seen just how dark it can get. Dallas, on the other hand, has glimpsed the summit. Though they’re stranded with no apparent means of reaching their goal, claims to fear their half-way camp much more than the fall. They could be in for a rude awakening when glorified visions of falling with style transform into the panic and fear of a freefall, but we’ll tackle that monster when we come to it. For now, the Mavs will do their best MacGyver, and try to fashion a pickaxe from dental floss, a tube sock, and a metal spork.
Recap coming a bit later, as soon as I can get around to it on my DVR.
Erick Dampier, the great basketball strategist (via Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News): “‘As a veteran team, we have to recognize when we keep missing shots, we’ve got to drive the ball and create something easy or get fouled,’ said center Erick Dampier, who watched the long-range assault from the bench with a sore knee…‘It’s hard for us to get back into games when we keep launching those shots, and they’re not going in and we’re not getting any easy buckets.’” Damp missed last night’s game, and is considered day-to-day.
Jim Reeves of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, showing some optimism: “…didn’t former coach Avery Johnson tell us that it was “a miracle” that last season’s team won that many games? Get ready for Miracle II. Get ready for the Mavs, over these final 14 games, to move up from the No. 8 seed and a first-round playoff matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers to at least seventh, maybe even sixth. Obviously the Mavs, ousted the last two years in the first round by Golden State and then New Orleans, don’t want the Lakers in the first round. But we’ve seen them play with the Spurs, and they could beat either Portland or a Tracy McGrady-less Houston in a first-round matchup. So as infuriating as the Mavs have been, as ragged as they’ve seemed at times in losing to inferior teams, in failing to show up against teams with two or three key players missing, this team might have a surprise or two left for us yet.”
Let’s play a little question and answer with our old pal Randy Galloway of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Why don’t you start us off, Randy?: “Beyond a cranky basketball knee in his playing days, this guy didn’t have a “disability.” What he had was a powerful addiction. An addiction to cocaine, booze and even McIlhenny Tabasco Sauce, which when used to excess caused Roy to miss games with a bad stomach. Frivolous lawsuits are nothing new in this country, but how can a stone-cold drug addict get a financial settlement 20 years later by hiding behind an otherwise important piece of legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act?” Because addiction is one of the disabilities protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act. You can argue if addiction is a disability all you like (I’m skeptical, myself, and as usual, context means everything), but there definitely seems to be legal precedent.
Brett LaGree of Hoopinion: “Now, it wasn’t strictly a case of Dallas* missing open shots. Atlanta did some good things defensively, none more important than frustrating Dirk Nowitzki with physical defense. Certainly, on a different night with a different officiating crew Nowitzki would have attempted more than four free throws. Last night, though, the Hawks figured out that they could bang with Nowitzki before and after he received the ball in the high post, and, to their credit, they took full advantage even gaining the benefit of three points on technical fouls drawn as a direct result of defense on Nowitzki that he and Rick Carlisle found unduly restrictive.
*It might have strictly been a case of Jason Terry missing open shots.“
Mike Fisher of DallasBasketball.com gushes about Ryan Hollins’ night: “I give you Ryan Hollins, forced into starting (for just the third time in his three-year career) and forced into playing 33 minutes (a career high) because Erick Dampier DNP’ed with a swollen knee. What did the 7-foot jumping jack do right? Pretty much everything, and I’m not exaggerating. He waved for the ball when he was open (and as his confidence grew, he waved for it when he wasn’t). He was an alley-oop/dunkin’ machine, scoring 13 points (yes, another career high). He challenged Atlanta drives and he was highly effective as a roaming perimeter trap defender. When he had five fouls, played smart to remain in the game for one more long stretch of minutes before finally fouling out.”
The Dallas Mavericks visit the Atlanta Hawks
6:00 CST
On what is likely the least-watched night in the entirety of the NBA regular season, the Mavs and the Hawks will throw down. Everyone, their mother, and their pet rock will have their thumb on the upset alert pulse, an eye on their bracket, and their backs clad with school colors. It’s madness.
Personally, I don’t really get into it, aside from watching buzzer-beaters and highlights, and generally bragging and boasting my way through bracket pools (what I lack in knowledge of college basketball, I make up for in sheer force of luck). As such, my natural inclination has been (and probably always will be) to watch the tournament as a final talent evaluation. Eye to the pros, y’know.
I’ll be watching tonight’s Hawks game (via DVR, late into the night…I may not be a college basketball nut, but I am a college student, and I do live in the United friggin’ States) with that same eye to the future. Not as a predictor of a potential yet to be actualized, but with a trained eye on a certain 2010 free agent: Joe Johnson.
Johnson is everything the Mavs should want and demand from their shooting guards. He’s a dead-eye shooter from midrange and from three. He handles the ball with ease, and provides playmaking from the 2. He’s a rugged defender, rebounds well for his position, and has good size. Really, what is there not to love? When I like awake at night, conjuring up plans to fix this team, my mind tends to wander to Wade and LeBron. Naturally. But right behind them, in my mind, is Joe Johnson. He is, for all intents and purposes, Jason Terry and Antoine Wright molded into one. I dare you to tell me that that type of player wouldn’t solve at least a few of the Mavs’ problems. It doesn’t help them guard Chris Paul and it doesn’t help to bolster their depth at center, but a dynamite shooting guard and a world-class scorer sounds awfully appetizing.
Shimmy on over to Jason Smith’s NBA Today Podcast at ESPN, where I talk Mavs, their playoff chances, and what the team needs to do going forward. I come in around the 19:25 mark, but it couldn’t hurt to listen to the full ‘cast (J.A. Adande and Smith discuss NBAers twittering, among other things).
And, in case you didn’t catch the link yesterday, take a looksie at my preview of tonight’s game with the Hawks’ official webiste.
Brandon Bass does his best Dirk impression, and I must say that it’s top notch.
Carlisle’s answer to the rebounding quandary: go big or go home. Damp, Bass, and Singleton are all candidates to play big minutes. From Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News: “Carlisle has watched the Mavericks’ poor rebounding in the last three games and knows the best chance to rectify it is to keep his strongest players on the floor whenever possible. ‘[Singleton] will be in there sometimes with Damp and Dirk [Nowitzki], and we’re very big,’ Carlisle said. ‘But whoever’s out there, we’re going to have to scramble to get rebounds because the discrepancy of possessions is going to get you after awhile.’”
I would definitely argue that the Mavs are better than the average (median, I guess) team, but it’s hard to argue that in terms of grouping, they fall in the middle of the pack. Apparently that makes Jean-Jacques Taylor of the Dallas Morning News a sad, sad panda: “These Mavs aren’t nearly good enough to turn it on whenever they feel like, which they should know by now, but apparently don’t. You can’t look at this team and find reasons for hope. No one really knows if or when Josh Howard is returning from his ankle injury. And we certainly don’t know if he’ll be effective when he does come back. Then there’s the Mavs’ current defensive woes, which have forced them to play considerably more zone than they did early in the season. While the zone has been an effective tool, they struggle to rebound when they use it. That’s because once the shot goes up, each player must find an opponent to box out, which takes effort. It’s among the reasons why Detroit had 27 second-chance points, while scoring 35 points in the fourth quarter. In its last three games, Dallas has been outrebounded by an average of nine a game. ‘We have to do it collectively,’ Rick Carlisle said. ‘It has to be part of a team’s consciousness to fight for the ball. We have to do better.’”
The Mavs’ zone really messed with the Lakers’ offense. So much so that they spent the majority of Monday’s two-hour practice working on how to attack it. That, my friends, is awesome, but also exactly why it won’t work in the playoffs.
It’s all about perspective. Mike Fisher of DallasBasketball.com looks at two teams with eerily similar records that just so happen to be playing each other tonight; one is on top of the world, and the other’s fan base is hanging their collective heads: Atlanta has 14 games to go. Eight of them are at home and six of them are on the road, and the Hawks are 40-28. Dallas has 14 games to go. Eight of them are at home and six of them are on the road, and the Mavs are 41-27. So why is Atlanta’s Josh Smith saying things like, ‘You see us out there playing with smiles on our faces and playing so hard. … Where we go this season is really up to us.’ And meanwhile, why are the Mavs having to apologize for barely beating the Pistons? Did you see what NO did last night, winning on a missed Minnesota jumper at the end? Did you see what Denver did last night, winning by the same sliver over Memphis? Well, almost no matter what the Hawks do from here, this will go down as arguably their best regular season in more than a decade. And the Mavs? The decade it littered with 50-win seasons. So some fans yawn.”
Enjoy the Madness today. My bracket already took a hit and a half with LSU beating Butler and Memphis almost losing to 15-seed Cal State Northridge. I kind of have Memphis beating UConn and going to the Final Four. Yikes.
These posts seem to be getting later and later. Sigh. My B, guys and gals.
Just to make matters worse on the Josh Howard front, arthroscopic ankle surgery now seems to be an inevitability. The question now is just how healthy he can be going into the playoffs. The gameplan for now is to go with cortisone injections, but at best we’re still looking at probably two weeks of no Howard. Ugh. Of course, the even darker cloud forming overhead is the long-term implications of Howard’s surgery. How do the Mavs plan to regroup and move forward if Howard is injured, limited, and basically untradeable? This certainly isn’t the last you’ll hear of Howard’s bum ankle, and it potentially changes the future of the entire team.
Mike Fisher of DallasBasketball.com speaking the truth: “‘We’re still a work-in-progress,’ said Antoine Wright, which is a sunny way of looking at a regular season with just 14 games remaining.”
For the first time in a long while, the Mavs are having serious troubles on the glass. Blame the zone, blame the small lineups, or blame whoever or whatever you want, but this is a problem that needs to be resolved quickly. If there’s one thing the Mavs really can’t afford it’s to surrender any of the defensive stops they’re currently getting. From Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News: “‘We’re just going to have to do it collectively,’ coach Rick Carlisle said of the Mavericks’ biggest problem du jour. ‘Five guys are going to have to get in there and dig it out. Sometimes, we play a little undersized, and in those situations where we don’t have the length in there, we’re going to have to do it with grit. Simple as that. There is really no other way.’ The Mavericks have gone to a zone defense more than half of the time during games, and it has been effective. But they say it makes rebounding more problematic as players have to find opponents to box out.”
Former Mav Roy Tarpley has just settled a lawsuit against the Mavs and the league for his drug “ban” from the NBA. Interesting, especially since Cuban wasn’t even remotely involved with Tarpley’s fall from grace. But, I guess when you buy a company, any company, you buy all the problems that come with it.
Rick Carlisle, via Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News: “Our margin for error isn’t great, especially when we’re fighting injuries,” Carlisle said. “We just have to find a way to gut these games out.”
Richie Whitt of Sportatorium: “To me, Antoine Wright is getting too many minutes. He’s a decent player, but he is not the answer at shooting guard. While he was on the floor during the four-game trip the Mavs had a minus-31 scoring margin. He was negative in every game. Against the more athletic Warriors I would’ve loved to have seen Gerald Green at least get a chance. Right?” Do Mavs fans exist that don’t like Gerald Green? I’m not convinced that they do. I’m penciling a pattern for a “I (Heart) GG” tattoo as we speak.
Carl Landry, who was shot very early this morning in what is reported to be a drive-by shooting, will miss just 1-2 weeks. If I were to be shot in the leg, I would milk it for at least a month off from doing anything, cry like a four-year-old girl, and claim that I’d never be able to walk again. That, again, is just a clarification of the difference between me and Carl Landry…in case you were curious.
Didn’t get a mention here yesterday (hard to mention something when I’m not posting), but the “Mavericks FAIL” movement rages on among Phoenix fans. From what I can tell, the movement centers mostly on rehashing old memories of the Mavs-Warriors series. Whatever you’re into, guys. My prediction is that it’s a noble effort, and as a fan you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do, but channeling all the negative energy the Suns have to offer (and trust me, that franchise is mired with it) won’t slow the Mavs down enough to slide out of the playoffs.
“Better late than never…right guys?”
-Roberticus Mahoney
The thing about establishing a goal and a corresponding brightline is that you need to be prepared to fall short of it. Obviously that’s not the preferred result, but even the most worthy competitors need to eventually brace themselves for the possibility of failure.
That may be what stings most about Sunday’s loss in Los Angeles. The Mavs no doubt realized that this was the toughest game on their four-game road trip, and if there was a spot to drop a loss, this would be it. Yet the Mavs hung around, enduring an inspired first half performance from Pau Gasol (or a lackluster performance from the Mavs’ defense, take your pick), and took the lead at the 8:49 mark in the 4th quarter.
The Mavs, those with flaws much deeper than their bench, overcame a 15 point deficit and had extended a lead of as much as 5 points. This could have been the season’s defining moment, a point at which everything the team hopes to accomplish and the often troublesome product they have fielded thus far come to a sharp divergence. This was a team on the brink of creating something beautiful on a Sunday afternoon on national television. But, as you know now, it wasn’t to be.
With a little help from his friends, Antoine Wright actually smothered Kobe into an 0-4 first quarter. It was only fitting that Kobe put similar shackles on the hot-handed Jason Terry to effectively end the Mavs’ run in the fourth, shift the momentum considerably as the Mavs struggled to dribble the ball cleanly, much less score.
Still, one has to ask why exactly Jason Kidd is taking the biggest shots of the game, and why exactly our star point guard is committing silly ball-handling errors and careless turnovers on overambitious passes. The great points of the league can see the angles no one else can see, and make the passes no one else can make; part of that comes from pure ability, and the other part comes from the will to complete those types of passes. Kidd showed every bit of that will, but maybe he was a little too willing to attempt to thread the needle through three defenders on the break when a lob or kick-out would have done just fine.
The defense continues to be the problem. In the first half, the Mavs were getting good looks, but just failed to capitalize. Meanwhile on the other end, Pau Gasol was having his way, three point shooters were left wide open, and Kobe Bryant eventually remembered that he is, in fact, Kobe Bryant. The Mavs again show a complete inability to defend any player on the floor that could be described as ‘quick,’ and the man defense was sliced and diced on the way to a 66-point first half for L.A.. But there is a bright spot defensively: the zone continues to baffle opponents. It’s effectiveness would no doubt dwindle in a playoff series, in which coaching staffs (staves) can tech and teach specifically to counter it. In the regular season, on the other hand, it’s managed to slow down two of the league’s most potent offenses while only surrendering one key weakness against the Lakers: the lack of rebounding in the clutch. Lamar Odom turned excellent defensive possessions for the Mavs into entirely too many opportunities for the Lakers. Of course when the Mavs went away from the zone to secure more rebounds, the Lakers just beat them outright. Fun.
It’s also definitely worth noting that the zone is a vicegrip for opposing second units. The Mavs bench isn’t particularly skilled defensively, but what they lack in talent and fundamentals on that end they make up for in hustle. Barea, Singleton, and Bass, coupled with say Antoine Wright and Jason Terry, can smother opponents’ bench lineups that lack the sort of penetrating playmaker needed to make smart passes against the zone. We saw this in full effect against the Lakers sans Kobe, and equally so with the Blazers sans a healthy Brandon Roy.
Dirk played very poorly by his standards. His shot was off the entire night, and this may be the first game of the season where the Mavs came back to make things interesting in spite of him. Credit that to Jason Terry, who made an absolutely batty seven threes. Ultimately, it wasn’t enough, and this one stings more than a game that just slipped through our fingers.
The Dallas Mavericks visit the Los Angeles Lakers
2:30 CST
Abbreviated preview today, but let’s get this party started.
A win over the Lakers today wins the road trip. Period. Otherwise, we’ll be explaining away how the Mavs turned a 2-0 start into a 2-2 finish, especially when one game on the schedule seemed like a gimmie.
For the first time all season, there’s a real brightline. There’s no “well if x happens and y happens, then it’s still a moral victory.” The Mavs need to win today, or else their efforts in Phoenix and Portland have been invalidated. The Mavs don’t have the luxury of treading water against the West’s best; they need to make up some serious ground in terms of their victories against playoff teams, if not for seeding’s sake then for their own self-confidence and competence.
Two wins over two playoff-ish teams is great. Sweet. Cool. But with a win over the Lakers, this road trip could become a starting block for the Mavs’ mini-season. Not to mention a reference point if the Mavs and Lakers happen to meet in the first round of the playoffs.
I guess what I’m saying is, if you couldn’t tell, today’s game is kind of important.
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Photo by AP Photo/Darron Cummings.
GOLD STAR OF THE NIGHT: The Gold Star of the Night goes to Jason Kidd. 10 points (3-8 FG, 2-3 3FG), 9 rebounds, and 5 assists hardly makes me scream from the rooftops, but the way in which he converted most of those rebounds into immediate offensive sequences kept the Mavs in this thing and helped them build a small lead in the third. In a game that was eventually won by 2 points, I’m thankful for all the little things he did.
