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BFFsThe Dallas Mavericks Should Fear No One
I've never seen such bullshit. I have quite literally heard people -- media, fans -- say that the Dallas Mavericks can play with and possibly beat the Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder.
What team have you been watching the last three months? This Mavericks team ends up beating itself most days. Going up against the monsters of the Western Conference -- a hungry set of teams looking for retribution -- is an added obstacle. Although I noted that the Mavericks could see an uptick in play sans Lamar Odom, never was it intimated that the Mavericks could beat anyone in a playoff series.
Yesterday was the proof in the pudding. The Mavericks, by using the two eyeballs in my head, were outplayed yesterday by a significant gap. The chasm between the two teams is large. Anyone that says differently is severely misguided or dumb. Look at the stats. Giant differences in two important areas -- rebounds and free-throw attempts. The Lakers won both soundly. Headed into that fourth quarter tied, I had zero doubt that the Lakers would win.
There Is Something Wrong In Dirk Nowitzki's Game
Yeah. It's called shooting a bunch of jumpers when you need a basket. The Dirk Nowitzki of the, oh, say, 10 years is evidence as to how this thing rolls. For nine years, Nowitzki depending on a series of spins and fakes to get a defender off balance so Nowtizki himself could attempt an off-balance 15-foot jumper that would miss more often than not when it really counted. Last year, in April and May, Nowitzki put the ball on the floor and took any defender of any size or state of athleticism to the rim.
There's two ways of looking at this. Either Nowitzki and Kidd are playing like shit, a massive game of possum, or they're older and got their ring and are content. Yesterday, when the Mavericks absolutely needed a bucket, the only guy to get within five feet of the basket was Brendan Haywood and it was one of the hilariously disastrous displays in Mavericks history.
Tyson Chandler Doesn't Matter
No one says this explicitly. They hint at it. I hear it through the media more than anything. Everyone gets enamored with the points per game and field goal percentage stats and assume that the Mavericks' defense has survived the departure of Chandler. Those stats, honestly, are not terrible although they've gotten worse as the year's wore on. However, it doesn't take much to look at the Mavericks play and see how desperately they could use a guy like Chandler -- an athletic hardass that plays tremendous help defense, can go toe to toe with Pau Gasol, Marc Gasol, Blake Griffin, Andy Bynum, Lamarcus Aldridge, Tim Duncan and any other big man in the conference.
Now, Brandan Wright has to sit any game going up against anyone with size and Brendan Haywood couldn't be more overwhelmed. For every decent possession he posts, there are three or four where he's abused.
Brendan Haywood Doesn't Rebound Because He's Stuck In On-The-Ball, Man-On-Man Defense
That excuse -- as Haywood grabbed five boards in 38 minutes yesterday -- was put out by a media expert. Seven footers should accidentally get five rebounds in 40 minutes. Matt Barnes grabbed 11 in 33 minutes. Haywood, on average, is the third-best rebounder on the team and only beats an aging Jason Kidd, and two guys that haven't gotten the minutes over the course of the season (Ian Mahinmi, Wright) and a disinterested Lamar Odom. If everything was in its right place, Haywood would be the fifth best rebounder on the team ... as the starting center.
Dirk Nowitzki's Troubles Are Worrisome
Trust me, Dirk's the least of your troubles.
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