Dirk also had 6 offensive boards (season high) back on Dec. 14 - also against the Suns. I think his success in crashing the glass last night can be attributed largely to two things:
(1) The Suns, ranked 13th in the NBA, are a sub-par rebounding team to say the least (Nash led the team with 5 boards until the 11:14 mark in the 4th Quarter, when Diaw grabbed his sixth). In the Dec. game and last night, Dallas won the rebounding battles 54-44 (they were only that close because Marion had 19) and 50-37 respectively. This creates a situation where a player can 'effort' his way into getting a ton of rebounds. Which brings me to reason #2...
(2) Dampier was absolutely abysmal last night. He didn't get his first rebound until 10:36 in the 3rd quarter. I have been one of the more stalwart defenders of Damp on this board but last night's performance was awful. He has really disappointed me with his play lately - in April the guy is averaging 6.3 rpg (if we take it back to Mar. 28, that number drops to 5.9 rpg) and 3.7 fouls pg. For those of you who are keeping track - that ratio sucks. In 3 out of 7 games he's had more PFs than rebounds. I'm not even going to bring up his 'scoring' because it is anemic and to his 'credit', that's not what he's out there for. But the fact of the matter is, he is on the court to rebound - if he can't even do that, then what the f*ck is he good for? This wasn't supposed to be an anti-Damp post so I digress.
My point is, I wouldn't go too much off of last night's game as a measure of Dirk's 'newfound' offensive rebounding prowess. He's averaging 1.4 orpg on the season, which is right around his career average. It's true that in April he's averaging 2.4 orpg but I feel that number is inflated by the fact that we have been getting NBDL-quality play from our centers.
Last edited by orangedays; 04-14-2006 at 04:26 PM.
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