Feeling So Fly

Posted by Rob Mahoney on December 6, 2010 under xOther | View Comments

Just for fun:

Conceptual hat-tip credit to Evan Dunlap.

The Difference: Dallas Mavericks 105, Sacramento Kings 103

Posted by Rob Mahoney on December 5, 2010 under Recaps | View Comments

Box Score — Play-by-Play — Shot Chart — GameFlow

Team	Pace	Off. Eff.	eFG%	FT/FG	ORB%	TOR
Dallas	92.0	114.1	53.3	31.6	16.2	12.0
Sacramento		112.0	54.8	14.5	16.7	12.0

You know the drill. The Difference is a quick-hitting (or in this case, day after) reflection on the game that was, with one bullet for every point in the final margin.

• Last night we witnessed something spectacular, and oddly enough, it happened almost completely independent of the Mavericks’ performance. Dallas was present for the first 12 minutes of this game, but they may as well not have been; Sacramento put on a supernatural shooting display in the first quarter, a phenomenal happening given both the magnitude of the Kings’ explosion and how typically miserable the Kings are on every other day of the season. They currently rank 29th in the league in offensive efficiency, but after Tyreke Evans, DeMarcus Cousins, and Donté Greene modified the limits of reason for their benefit, Sacramento scored at a rate of 160.9 points per 100 possessions. Unfathomable. Poor defense certainly played a role, but the Kings had reached a higher state of existence. Evans had a visible aura. Cousins was enlightened, swapping his usually questionable decision-making and fouling for efficient scoring and tough offensive rebounding. Greene clicked from inside and out, as his game finally centered itself.It’s pretty amazing that the Mavs were able to weather such a significant run at all, much less come sneak away with a victory. I know the Kings are still the Kings (and that the Kings who are still the Kings happen to be kings of abject failure this season), but this is a quality win.
• Dallas was just relentless. After a spirited win against the Jazz on Friday night, it would have been relatively simple for the Mavs to call it a night after enduring that kind of first quarter resistance on the second night of a back-to-back. They endured, and once Sacramento’s offense came back down to earth (though it never quite regressed to the mean; overall, Dallas’ defensive performance was still very much subpar), the better team found themselves in position to make this thing a game. The threes weren’t falling (Jason Kidd’s shooting was particularly hideous), but the Mavs drove, worked inside against a soft Kings defense, and got to the free throw line. Sacramento (11) may have doubled the Dallas (5) in three-point makes, but the Mavs were similarly dominant over their opponents in terms of free throw makes. Dallas finished with 24 made free throws in their 29 attempts, good for a 31.6 free throw rate — far above their season average. Dirk Nowitzki (25 points, 11-15 FG, five rebounds, five assists) was indomitable, but he wasn’t forced to be a go-to scorer (Jason Terry contributed 23 points on 7-of-14 shooting, and the Mavs’ late-game offense didn’t need too many Dirk isolations). The Dallas offense just clicked throughout, and though it would never come close to matching the brilliance of Sacramento’s first quarter, sustained offensive effort and execution came out just two points better than the Kings’ peaks and valleys.Plus, for all of the defense’s troubles throughout the game, the Mavs really locked down in the fourth. They allowed just four points in the game’s final 5:24 seconds, and Tyson Chandler’s (10 points, seven rebounds) interior defense was particularly impressive down the stretch.Check out this beauty:

  Rick Carlisle won’t be asking for seconds of an outing like this one, but Dallas got away with a win. We’ve seen Dallas beat good teams and bad, and both convincingly. Games like this happen, and though it would have been nice to see the Mavs play better defensively, take the W and move on.

The Difference: Dallas Mavericks 93, Utah Jazz 81

Posted by Rob Mahoney on December 4, 2010 under Recaps | View Comments

Box Score — Play-By-Play — Shot Chart — GameFlow

You know the drill. The Difference is a quick-hitting (or in this case, day after) reflection on the game that was, with one bullet for every point in the final margin.

• If there was any doubt: the Dallas Mavericks are now the hottest team in the league. It won’t last forever, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. I’m not sure how much long-term value can be derived from an early season surge, but stepping to the top of the hill –without a key rotation player, mind you –means quite a bit for this team and its fans. It’s a winning streak, but more importantly, it’s hard validation and a thumbs up toward the Dallas mission statement.
• The Utah Jazz are a terrific team, and the fact that the Mavs bested them through a systematic defensive approach is far more important than Dallas’ active streak. The number of consecutive wins continues to grow, but chances to go to work against a quality opponent like the Jazz are far more telling than an n-game trend.
• Dallas’ second-half defense was nothing short of tremendous. The paint was treated as sacred ground, and each layup or Jazzian interior pass was an active defiling of all that the Mavs held dear. Penetrators were swarmed, jumpers were challenged, and Utah’s possessions were attacked at their weakest points. An active zone front made cross-court passes a nightmare. Deron Williams was denied the ball whenever possible. It was a damn near surreal vision of defensive elements sliding into place and combining in ways I wasn’t sure were possible, and the typically smooth Jazz offense looked positively flummoxed.
• Tyson Chandler, brilliant though he may be, sure knows how to take himself out of a game with foolish fouls. Chandler picked up his second whistle at the 8:40-mark of the first quarter with a completely unnecessary shove while setting a screen, a pesky internal mechanism for keeping the Maverick center grounded. He only saw the court for 17 minutes while dodging foul calls and trying to establish his rhythm, but the early hook did Tyson no favors. It almost feels uncomfortable typing this due to how he’s played this season, but Chandler’s influence was negligible.
• Jason Terry (12 points, five assists, five steals, three turnovers) gave the Mavs an early and much-needed spark. Dallas has a habit of going away from Dirk as much as possible in the first quarter (a strategy which makes sense for a number of reasons), and when the supporting cast came out just a bit cold, JET was brought in to dial things up. From the moment he came into the game, Terry was in motion. He started by cutting to the basket for a layup. On his next possession, JET attacked the basket again to draw a foul. Soon after, he grabbed a defensive rebound and fed Jason Kidd for a bucket, only to get a steal and trigger another fast break at next opportunity. JET didn’t keep up that offensive pace for the entire evening, but he was active and effective all night, even if his point total underwhelmed.
• Caron Butler is shooting 42.3% from three so far this season, which is far more comforting than Butler’s career mark (31.5%). Ground control to Major Caron: commencing countdown, engines on. Enjoy your travels through the shooting percentage atmosphere, and for the Mavs’ sake I hope your shot never comes back down.
• At times, I’ve feared that the zone defense may become too reliable a crutch for the Mavs, and their man-to-man defense would struggle as a result. It sure seemed that way in the first half, as Dallas struggled to defend in man sets and saw their defensive effectiveness jump upon implementing the zone. However, the Mavs were fantastic in utilizing both approaches in the second half, which is a testament to the Mavs’ keen defensive awareness and excellent instruction by Rick Carlisle and his staff.
• Brendan Haywood (four points, six rebounds, two blocks) had 28 minutes of burn thanks to Chandler’s foul trouble, but wasn’t all that impressive. His defense was nice, but the Mavss were pretty thoroughly out-rebounded, and that’s Haywood’s domain. Don’t let the raw box score, which says the Mavs were only out-rebounded by six, fool you; this game was incredibly slow, and as far as rebounding rate is concerned, the Jazz fared far better on the glass.
• Deron Williams is incredible when running an offense, but he’s also so strong playing off the ball, too. Is there any other playmaker in the league that moves within the offense without the ball better than Deron?
• Speaking of: an 8.8 offensive rebounding rate? Are you kidding me? The Mavs have been a poor offensive rebounding team all season, but that weak of an offensive rebounding presence is even impressive for them. It takes work to dodge offensive boards so frequently.
• I didn’t really anticipate the possibility of Dirk Nowitzki being even more efficient with his shot than he has in past years, but Dirk’s shooting percentages are just stupid good this season. Nowitzki shot 12-of-18 in this one for 26 points (with each of those 21 makes seemingly more improbable than the last), but that kind of shooting performance isn’t even notable. That’s how fantastic Dirk’s touch has been this year. .619 true shooting percentage. .566 effective field goal percentage. Both career highs. Damn. Just…damn.
• Butler (16 points, 6-12 FG, 2-2 3FG), again, played well overall. See what happens when he’s not forcing the issue in isolation (particularly in a game with so few possessions to be squandered)? This is either a real evolution in Caron’s decision-making or perhaps just a better understanding of his role on the team, but this is where Butler needs to be: helpfully contributing without letting a more intrusive style of play deter the Mavs’ offensive success.

Every Last Smudge

Posted by Rob Mahoney on December 3, 2010 under Commentary | View Comments

By most measures — objective or otherwise — the Minnesota Timberwolves are among the worst teams the NBA has to offer. They have the league’s second worst offense and its fifth worst defense. Their rotation is a mess. Their system and personnel are an odd fit. Most everything on the court is a bit of a struggle, save for one particular dimension of the game: rebounding.

Minnesota is a top-five offensive rebounding team and a top-10 defensive rebounding team, which is fairly remarkable given their weaknesses in every other aspect of the game. Kevin Love is a huge part of their success on the glass, but contributions from Darko Milicic and Anthony Tolliver round out the Wolves’ rebounding numbers, and offer the franchise some small token of success amidst all their ineptitude.

That makes the Mavs’ performance on the glass Wednesday night all the more significant. Dallas out-rebounded their opponents on both ends according to the single-game rebounding rate. Not worthy of a commemorative plaque, but considering Dallas’ relative struggles on the boards (the Mavs rank 13th in the league in defensive rebounding rate and a horrible 24th in offensive rebounding rate), it’s a showing that warrants a moment’s notice.

Or maybe more than a moment in the case of one particularly exemplary rebounding performance.

Tyson Chandler came out of the first half with four rebounds, but somehow finished the game with 18. Nice, right?

Oh, one more thing: he didn’t play a single second of the fourth quarter.

Chandler grabbed 14 boards (10 on the defensive end and four on the offensive end) over an eight-and-a-half-minute stretch in the third quarter. It was a favor to Chandler that the Wolves are the fastest team in the league and managed to pull the notoriously slow Mavs into playing an uptempo game, but 14 boards are 14 boards. Even the healthy push of pace doesn’t devalue that kind of volume.

It’s not that Chandler did anything out of the ordinary. This is just one of those occurrences in which effort and luck formed that perfect cocktail, one which all of us on this side of the lines had the pleasure of drinking in. Eat, watch Tyson Chandler, and be merry, folks.

Diamond in the Rough

Posted by Rob Mahoney on December 2, 2010 under xOther | View Comments

The Mavs’ email newsletter has a regular feature entitled “INSIDE DISH,” in which Mavs’ staffer Danny Bollinger interviews various members of the team for the usual personals. It’s a great place to find the latest breaking news on Jason Terry’s favorite foods or Shawn Marion’s greatest basketball memory, but occasionally, they yield gems like this one from Steve Novak:

[Bollinger]: Who is the most famous person’s number in your cell phone?
[Novak]: I don’t really know any Hollywood celebrities. But you know what, this will be appreciated. In L.A., I was neighbors with The Most Interesting Man in The World. The Dos Equis guy, I swear. I had lunch with the guy. Him and his wife and me and my wife.  Okay, this is what happened. My wife was at the gym one day and he was there. You know –the little condo gym with four elliptical machines a couple treadmills and some weights. This guy is in there working out. By coincidence my buddy from Milwaukee, who owns a steakhouse named Mo’s in Milwaukee, calls me a couple of weeks later and tells me about this great idea he has for his new restaurant that he opening in Houston. He is going to find The Most Interesting Man in The World and get him to come to his restaurant and hang out, smoke a cigar in the lounge…whatever. I said that is a good idea since I am his neighbor! He was like you are kidding me. Long story short, we all meet at Cheesecake Factory in L.A. and set the deal up. Jonathan Goldstein is the guy’s name. Isn’t that crazy?

We Can Leave Your Friends Behind

Posted by Rob Mahoney on under xOther | View Comments

Credit to the FOX Sports Southwest team for catching Caron in this particularly groovy act.

The Difference: Dallas Mavericks 100, Minnesota Timberwolves 86

Posted by Rob Mahoney on under Recaps | View Comments

Box Score — Play-By-Play — Shot Chart — GameFlow

Team	Pace	Off. Eff.	eFG%	FT/FG	ORB%	TOR
Dallas	97.0	103.1	47.1	20.7	23.9	14.4
Minnesota		88.7	41.5	22.0	22.0	17.5

You know the drill. The Difference is a quick-hitting reflection on the game that was, with one bullet for every point in the final margin.

• The Mavs are a much better team than the Timberwolves, which unfortunately doesn’t make for compelling theater. There’s not much of a story for anyone to push in Dallas doing what’s expected of them; the Mavs kept their turnovers down, they didn’t make it easy for the Wolves by sending them to the line, and they blanketed a team that’s already limited offensively in so many ways. This is the way things are supposed to be in lesser teams, and while that may not impress the NBA world at large, I supposed there’s something of note in the Mavs handily putting away the opponents that aren’t on their level. Golf clap for an expected win, a pat on the back for seven straight victories, and let’s move right along.
• For perhaps the first time all season, both Mavs centers were clicking. Tyson Chandler set the season-high in rebounding for Dallas this season with 18 boards, and added nine points (2-3 FG) for the hell of it. Brendan Haywood (seven points, 10 rebounds) was forced to sub for Chandler early thanks to a few unfortunate whistles, and though Haywood had a few decisions worthy of a good head scratch (at the 3:43 mark in the first, he abandoned his box out to chase a block against the already covered Kevin Love, and in doing so allowed Darko Milicic to slam home an uncontested put-back), he did a fine job in his 21 minutes.
• There’s an interesting difference in the way we do and should evaluate the shooting of Jason Terry and Caron Butler. JET had a nice showing, but also drained a pair of step-back three-pointers that would have induced eye rolls had they come off of Butler’s fingers. It’s not just because Terry is a better shooter — which he certainly is — but that we know that Terry knows better. JET moves brilliantly without the ball. He seeks spot-up opportunities or smart pull-ups out of the pick-and-roll. He isn’t one to attempt doomed iso possessions repetitively, as he’ll willingly give up the ball because he understands that if open, it will find him. Essentially, those attempts, whether made or missed, are atypical rather than part of a depressing pattern.
• To his credit, Butler had a nice night. He only contributed 10 points, but did so on eight shots while only committing two turnovers. It’s also worth noting that both of those turnovers came while trying to attack the basket, which sure beats the alternative.
• DeShawn Stevenson had a surprisingly versatile third quarter. He hit a three, drew a shooting foul, attacked the basket, and threw two lobs to Tyson Chandler. One of those lobs resulted in Michael Beasley fouling Chandler, and the other went a little something like this:
• Dallas actually shot better from three-point range (41.7%) than they did from two-point range (41.3%). Shawn Marion had gone 1-for-10 from three so far this season, but made two of his four attempts in this one. J.J. Barea is still struggling from distance (1-4 3FG), but still boosted his humbling three-point shooting percentage to 16.7%.
• Jason Terry shot 50% from the field for the first time in seven games. Welcome back, JET.
• Shawn Marion (16 points, eight rebounds) continues to thrive, though this night was a bit more inefficient than usual. He still had 16 points on 14 shots, but completed just 35.7% of his field goal attepts. One thing I’m loving about Marion this season: he’s far more decisive than he was last year. There’s no hesitation in his moves, and no attempt to turn each catch into some kind of dribbling diagnostic. He catches and goes, getting right by slower defenders like Kevin Love and catching some of his quicker opponents off-guard with his first step. It makes a world of difference.
• Jason Kidd shot 2-of-11 from the field. He had four assists to just three turnovers. He shot 20% from three-point range, and contributed only five points. So naturally, because he’s Jason Kidd, he had a +14 raw plus/minus.
• Terry is so good at tight-roping the baseline after foregoing a look from the corner. He doesn’t have the passing savvy to thread the needle to a cutter, but he regularly attacks that baseline to either find Dirk spotting up on the opposite wing or a three-point shooter open at the top of the key. On a related note: JET notched seven assists and just one turnover.
• Brian Cardinal hit a pair of three-pointers in the third quarter, the second of which sparked this celebration from Dirk Nowitzki:

  Cardinal is already referred to as “The Custodian” and “The Janitor.” Is Dirk adding “The Truck Driver” to the list? “The Train Conductor?”

• The down side to Dominique Jones’ D-League assignment? His absence in games like this one. I’m not sure how much garbage time minutes really facilitate his development, but it’s a nice blowout draw to see him out there even in a game that’s already been decided.
• Dirk Nowitzki finished with 10 points on 4-of-11 shooting, and the Mavs win by 14. Even with the Wolves in the building, that’s a nice touch.
• Aside from Wesley Johnson (2-3 FG) and Kosta Koufos (1-1 FG), every Timberwolves player hit less than half of their field goal attempts.