Quote:
Originally Posted by Mavericks Rockets Fan
The way I see it, we would have beat the Spurs if Carlisle hadn't been so adamant about keeping Roddy on the bench. We were the better team and I think SA getting swept by the Suns proves that. Anyone who does a quick analysis can tell you we matchup well with LA. Let me demonstrate,
1. Kidd doesn't have to guard a quick pg like Parker. He can simply be put on Fisher and he will do a great job there.
2. We have Marion to defend Kobe. While Kobe is a great player who will get his, you always want to make him work for his points and shoot around 40% not 50% or 60%. Kobe never scored more than 20 points against Dallas this year - that should tell you something.
3. We have three 7'0s to play with the Lakers inside. Most teams in the NBA don't have this kind of luxury.
4. Roddy would destroy Fisher. Everybody knows Fisher has one weakness: Quick PGs.
Call it "sore loser juice" all you want. I still insist we had the personnel to beat LA....
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I don't call it sore loser juice since I was telling everyone that the Lakers biggest challenge would be the Mavs, in fact my thoughts were that there was only ONE team that COULD beat the Lakers and that was Dallas.
Had everything to do with matchups. IMO the Mavs have been built to beat teams like the Spurs, who have a strong post presence and run a set offense. The Mavs have just enough size and strength to defend the post and try to minimize that advantage. Then the Mavs utilize their advantage with Dirk to beat teams like SA and LA. IMO the Mavs would be in trouble against teams like OKC and PHX. Run and gun could cause a scoring issue for the Mavs but IMO they had just enough in that department to survive a shoot out with either team this year.
The one place where I felt LA had a clear advantage over the Mavs, as someone else already mentioned, was the mental game. I felt the Mavs would fold when things got tough but my concern was things would not get tough cause the Mavs could blow by the Lakers when the triangle got stagnent. Then it would turn in to Kobe trying to out score Dirk, Jet, and Butler. I felt that Gasol and Bynum could be held in check if you roughed up Gasol. Bynum is somewhat limited and IMO Kobe and Phil don't trust him enough to run the offense through him when Gasol goes in to soft Euro-mode because some defender gets a little rough with him in the post.
I was worried that the Lakers would get "shocked" by the Mavs. A team like the Mavs looks like a 5 game cake walk for most fans but I could have seen the Mavs getting a split in the first two games then holding serve on their home court.
Too bad it didn't happen, I would love to have known if my analysis of the Lakers/Mavs would be close to the mark.