Playoff lineup

[slowmo]

Who will be left out of the lineup? Shawn Williams, Devon George, GMoney, Stackabrick? We have 15 guys and only 13 can play.

[Dirkadirkastan]

Now that's a bold guess.

[LonghornDub]

We have 15 guys and three of them are injured (George, Stack, Williams). That leaves 12, which is the maximum for the playoff roster. So there's really no decision to be made here.

[ty]

I just want to see more Hollins dunk time!...but not when he has to guard Duncan please...

[alby]

LonghornDub > slowmo

[tcat075]

A better question is not who will be inactive, but who will actually play.

Here's who we know will play:

Damp (will start. maybe won't play but 5 minutes, but will play)
Dirk
Josh (when available due to health)
JET
Kidd

Wright (wing defender. best on the team. plus, we have few wing defenders)
Barea (amount of pt will depend on match-ups and effectiveness, but Barea will have to back up Kidd at some point)
Bass (the league's most effective line up has Bass at center. he'll play)

Now, we start to see question marks. I'd expect to see DNP-CD's for all of these guys in some games. The question is whether they will get ANY meaningful playing time.

Singleton (I hope he does; however, Bass could take all his minutes. I think Singleton may play in games for energy or rebounding. I'd be surprised if he never saw the court in the playoffs)
Hollins (I think he'll play due to fouls or matchups, and only due to fouls or matchups)
Green (I'm thinking no, but we've seen some pretty random playing time decisions by carlisle. I wouldn't rule out the possibility, though extremely slim)
Carroll (ditto on what I said for green, but even more slim of a chance)


This is more of a general playoff picture. I keep saying match-ups...here's how I see the matchups with the players vs the Spurs.

Dirk: matches up well with anyone
Kidd: ditto
JET: ditto, to a lesser degree
Josh: again, to a lesser degree, ditto

No duh. We know those 4 should all get 35+ mpg.

Damp: He's a big solid body. He can match-up well with all the SAS big men, except Bonner. Shouldn't be able to be exploited by Duncan. Offense is irrevelent if Damp can play good D.

Wright: You hate to put Wright on Mason. Mason is a good player, but you hardly need your best defender on him. You just need someone who can stick with Mason and get a hand in his face. However, if Mason becomes a problem, then I'd expect to see Wright on him. Same for Parker...if Parker is scoring at will (we know he's going to score a lot, but if he's doing even more damage than we accounted for) then Wright will go on him. If Finley goes crazy, Wright will go on him. Basically, Wright is the go-to guy on defense. That matches up well with anybody.

Bass: I would say he doensn't match up well with Duncan, but I would also have said he didn't match up well with Shaq or Yao. He did more than an adequate job on those two. Bass's energy can frustrate Duncan or Bonner on the offensive end, and his defense hopefully is good on Duncan.

Barea: Has the quickness to keep up with Parker, but not the finesse. Will get man-handled. Likewise, Parker should be able to defend Barea pretty well. I'm not sure this is a series where Barea goes crazy.

Singleton: Scrappy, doesn't really match up that well with any of the Spurs. Bass can do a lot of what Singleton does. If Bass doesn't play well, perhaps Singleton gets some of his minutes.

Hollins: On offense, he can dunk over anyone. However, I'm not sure his jump out of the roof helps him on Duncan. I wouldn't mind trying it, though, and while he's in there there's always the Kidd-to-Hollins alley-oop that might connect. He might be worth a shot.

Green: I'm sure that his defense would be fine when guarding Bowen...heck, I think he might be the type of player who can track Mason around and get a hand in his face when shooting (problem is Green has a tendancy to foul jump shooters). I'm not sure. Really, I only see Green being used on if we need a jump-start on offense...I mean, REALLY need a jump-start on offense. Like 30 points in a half jumpstart.

Carroll: Unathletic shooter who can't shoot well for us? Enough said.



Alright, correct me where my analysis is off. I know for a fact that I missed something, or I'm wrong about something. I put no research into this.

[jthig32]

Williams isn't actually hurt, per se, at least from what we've been told. He's simply not with the team. But the point stands.

As far as who will play, I think I generally agree with the analysis above. Green and Carroll clearly won't sniff the game if the score is within 20 points. I think Singleton is completely out of the rotation for this series. He's an emergency guy. I think Hollins might have one or two games where he comes in due to Damp foul trouble and gives the team a spark with his energy.

I think you're going to see a TON of Dirk and Bass because anytime Damp is on the floor they can hide Duncan on him. With Duncan supposedly less than 100% (although let's all remember what he did to us the last time we played him in the playoffs after an injured regular season), I think you have to make him work on defense as much as possible.

That is obviously balanced out by the defense you give up with that lineup. If Damp is really holding his own against Duncan and making life tough then he'll stay on the floor but if Duncan is getting what he wants on offense then I think you'll see Bass to make him work harder on the other end.

Another key matchup will be whether the Spurs can make the Mavs pay for having Barrea on the floor. I imagine Finley still has the chops to make Barea pay in the post, but you might see Carlisle give it a try to see if the Spurs will spend too many possessions trying to exploit it instead of letting their best players run the offense. Kind of like setting out a honey pot to see if the other team will take the bait and focus on a poorer offensive player for too long. Nellie used to do that to perfection.

[LonghornDub]

Originally Posted by jthig32

Williams isn't actually hurt, per se, at least from what we've been told. He's simply not with the team. But the point stands.

I read about 3-4 weeks back that he had been having some foot/ankle problems, in addition to "personal issues." Can't remember where I read that, though, and it may have been wrong.

[jthig32]

Originally Posted by LonghornDub

I read about 3-4 weeks back that he had been having some foot/ankle problems, in addition to "personal issues." Can't remember where I read that, though, and it may have been wrong.

Ah, you're right. I hadn't seen the note about his foot. And actually I went looking for news on him after you posted that and I saw something I hadn't seen before:

As for Williams, he is in Memphis for two reasons: He's got a foot injury, and he's also not welcomed around the team because of some immature behavior that was starting to rub off on young teammates before he was told to head home. He is under contract for next season and is supposed to be on the Mavericks' summer-league team.

Link

I hadn't read anything that specific about his absence before that. That's disappointing.

[slowmo]

I thought maybe stack would be healthy enough for the playoffs since RC had mentioned something to that effect a month or so back. Haven't heard if his fake injury is healed yet. Don't want to see him on the floor unless we need an enforcer. Has he been practicing with the team?

[vRookie]

Originally Posted by slowmo

I thought maybe stack would be healthy enough for the playoffs since RC had mentioned something to that effect a month or so back. Haven't heard if his fake injury is healed yet. Don't want to see him on the floor unless we need an enforcer. Has he been practicing with the team?

Giving any amount of significant PT to Stackhouse in the midst of playoffs, when he hasn't played all year (that one or two times don't count), is just asking for a quick first round exit. Having said that, I remember what you are referring to but I don't think it was the coach who said that, it was Donnie (ugh). I hope Carlisle is smarter than that

[alby]

Um, there's only one way Jerry Stackhouse can sniff some time on the court during the playoffs...

[DevinHarriswillstart]

I completely forgot about Williams. Shame he had to put himself in a corner.

[MavsWiLLHaVeRinGs]

Yeah I thought Williams could possibly crack the rotation and be a contributer. What happened exactly with him? I know he's out for "personal reasons" but I dont think he was getting any playing time before that.

[Thomas86]

I think where gonna be surprised at what Carlisle does...he didn't give away any of his defensive schemes in the season and now he might show us how good he is.

[bcrav4]

If I were coaching, I would spend at least one game simply roughing up Duncan. Use Bass and just keep trying to dunk on him and try to block everything he throws up etc. See if we can wear him (and those knees) down a little bit.

Also, foul Parker HARD, and don't just accept that he will go off on us. Terry needs to be the one doing it, b/c the Spurs seem to get annoyed by him the most.

[alby]

every foul should be HARD

[vRookie]

Barea will probably start today.

[bobatundi]

Originally Posted by vRookie

Giving any amount of significant PT to Stackhouse in the midst of playoffs, when he hasn't played all year (that one or two times don't count), is just asking for a quick first round exit. Having said that, I remember what you are referring to but I don't think it was the coach who said that, it was Donnie (ugh). I hope Carlisle is smarter than that

How annoying is it that every time Hubie Brown does a Mavs game, he constantly talks about how they need Jerry Stackhouse to get healthy because he's such an explosive scorer for them...well, we all know Hubie's been brain-dead for at least five years, just like Jerry Stackhouse's slashing ability...

[Sportstudi]

Originally Posted by vRookie

Barea will probably start today.

Nooooooooo

[rebbit]

I loved stackhouse though.... He used to be great

[vRookie]

Originally Posted by Sportstudi

Nooooooooo

It's not official but I have a feeling RC will give JJ the start to guard Parker

[LSMF]

I like what Bcrav4 said about fouling Parker hard. It amazes that anytime we play vs TP or Cp3 or any other good PG, some just feel we should just allow them to go off on us. Force TP to shoot contested jumpers, he's a good shooter but not great. And foul him on his way to the rim occasionally, no dirty fouls but we cant give up easy layups to him.

[mavs777]

Start Wright please

[TheMaverick]

So yesterday we saw the normal starting lineup to start the 1st

Kidd/Wright/Howard/Dirk/Damp

but to start the third it was

Barea/Kidd/Howard/Dirk/Damp

Howard sat the entire fourth quarter, Wright and Bass stepped up

players who saw action:
Kidd/Barea/Terry/Wright/Howard/Singleton/Bass/Dirk/Damp/Hollins

Singleton and Hollins only played for brief seconds at the end of the first half. So, basically it was a pretty normal 8-man playoff rotation.

[horse900703]

when will Stack be back?

[DavidDaMonkey]

Originally Posted by longsufferingmavsfan

I like what Bcrav4 said about fouling Parker hard. It amazes that anytime we play vs TP or Cp3 or any other good PG, some just feel we should just allow them to go off on us. Force TP to shoot contested jumpers, he's a good shooter but not great. And foul him on his way to the rim occasionally, no dirty fouls but we cant give up easy layups to him.

Because its really just that easy.

[Dirkadirkastan]

Originally Posted by horse900703

when will Stack be back?

Horse is back!

[mbuser]

The original post is wrong. Teams can have 15 players on their playoff roster, and 12 players active for any game, just like in the regular season. In the Mavericks case, of course, it's a moot point since they only have 12 players available.

[ty]

I just want to see more Bass owning Finley.