[kg_veteran]

Excellent post, WOW. Nice to have a few Lakers fans that are regular contributors to our board that see both teams pretty objectively.

Was about to start a thread to talk about the game, but saw this one and thought I'd just post here. A few thoughts to add to what has already been said:

The Mavericks just didn't play intelligent basketball last night. We can debate until we are blue in the face as to whether it was coaching or the players, but I think this quote from Phil Jackson pretty much sums up the difference between the two teams at this point:

"We felt we were in control the whole game,'' Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "We had an idea of what we wanted to do and we did it.''

The Lakers have an idea of what they want to do, and they do it. The Mavericks have no idea of what they want to do, and that's the biggest problem.

On offense they just jacked up jumper after jumper after jumper with a hand in the face of the shooter. There didn't seem to be any kind of offensive plan whatsoever. As Bayliss calls it, they were running the "scatterf**k" offense. Steve and Antoine showed up and tried hard on that end, but they couldn't do it all.

And it wasn't just the offense they were/weren't running. The Mavericks want to push the ball against the Lakers, or at least so I'm told. So why in the HELL is Steve Nash inbounding the ball after made baskets???? I can't count how many times that happened last night (and has happened this season), and it's just fundamentally stupid. Your point guard should be receiving the inbounds pass, not throwing it. At some point, Nellie and the coaches need to see this on the tape and inform their big guys that they need to go get the ball and throw it in before running down the damn court.

Defensively, I have no clue what they were thinking.

Najera should NEVER be asked to try and guard Shaq. Ever. As Kenny Smith astutely pointed out after the game, Najera was a forward in COLLEGE. The dude is just too small to be trying to flop around in the paint with Shaq. If he wants to give help defensively, that's fine. If you want to put him on Malone for stretches, that's fine. But putting him on Shaq is unfair to Eddie and fundamentally stupid. You have two guys on the bench who at least have one attribute or the other (Bradley - height, weight; Fortson - strength, weight) which gives them a bit of a better shot to deal with Shaq. And they're both going to need help. They logged a total of 11 minutes, and Dirk wasn't even here playing center. It makes no sense. Like WOW said, I'd like to see the Mavs actually give Bradley some help when guarding Shaq instead of asking him to stop Shaq one-on-one. Using Bradley's height in combination with a help defender at least has the potential to be effective against Shaq. Using a 6'7" 220 lb forward against him doesn't.

Also, why was Tony Delk in the game? All he does is bog down the offense, chunk up shots, and cause us to be overmatched in the backcourt defensively. He can't guard Kobe Bryant. He's not even tall enough to get in Bryant's sight line. He can't guard Gary Payton, and that pushes Nash over to match up with George or Bryant, which is also ridiculous.

I love Mike Finley, but is he intimidated by the Lakers? He played better in the second half, but I just get the impression that he didn't think the Mavs had a realistic shot to win the game.

Josh Howard continues to impress me. He is still lacking some offensive sophistication at this level and needs to improve the consistency and range on his jumpshot, but the guy should be either starting or the first guy off the bench. The things he does well are things that not many other Mavericks do well, and we need him in the game.

Antawn Jamison was completely underutilized last night. Instead of so many damn jumpshots, it would have been nice to see Jamison down on the block against George or Russell. That's particularly the case when Dirk was out. Sure, he missed a bunch last night, but the guy continually gets good shots. I'd rather have him missing from 10 feet and in than guys missing from 20 feet and out, especially when those outside jumpers aren't falling.

Why did Nellie bail out on the team last night? Kiki has discussed this in another thread, but that was such a sorry thing to do. It wasn't like he was fired up or trying to motivate the team. He just wanted to leave, and so he did.

All in all, I took some positives away from the game. I firmly believe the Mavs CAN beat the Lakers. But they have to play intelligently, and they have to have a better gameplan. The Lakers are NOT invincible. I just wish that Nelson and the majority of his players would start believing that.