The Question on Everyone's Mind: Can the Mavs Beat the Lakers? - Page 2 - Dallas-Mavs.com Forums

jthig32 · 03-11-2010, 02:35 PM

Legler and many other people continue to over rate Butler's defense based on the fact that he gets steals. Don't get me wrong, Butler has been better defensively than I expected. But he is absolutely not on Marion's level defensively. And he's not a better defender than Josh was, when Josh cared.

mavsfan1000 · 03-11-2010, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jthig32

Legler and many other people continue to over rate Butler's defense based on the fact that he gets steals. Don't get me wrong, Butler has been better defensively than I expected. But he is absolutely not on Marion's level defensively. And he's not a better defender than Josh was, when Josh cared.

lol He is definitely better than Josh's defense due to the fact he's not so boneheaded. Josh might've been more athletic but he was skinny and didn't have good anticipation.

SMC0007 · 03-11-2010, 03:00 PM

Butler is pretty damn good defnsively. I think Butler needs a little more time in this system to really say if Josh was better or not. It seems like Butlers mistakes come more from not fully knowing where his help is than him getting taken to the cup.

dude1394 · 03-11-2010, 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jthig32

Legler and many other people continue to over rate Butler's defense based on the fact that he gets steals. Don't get me wrong, Butler has been better defensively than I expected. But he is absolutely not on Marion's level defensively. And he's not a better defender than Josh was, when Josh cared.

Josh had more atheletic ability but he wasn't the brightest bulb out there. Caron seems to usually be in the right place, offensively and defensively. He's much more consistent than josh was on both ends. It is also difficult to talk about josh caring, since we haven't seen a consistent josh in years, so that person may not exist anymore.

Caron is better than the josh we had this year it appears.

kg_veteran · 03-11-2010, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jthig32

Legler and many other people continue to over rate Butler's defense based on the fact that he gets steals. Don't get me wrong, Butler has been better defensively than I expected. But he is absolutely not on Marion's level defensively. And he's not a better defender than Josh was, when Josh cared.

Butler's not as good of a defender as Marion is, but he is pretty good when he locks in on a guy. Re: Howard, which guy are we talking about? Josh Howard hasn't been a very good defender in quite some time.

jthig32 · 03-11-2010, 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kg_veteran

Butler's not as good of a defender as Marion is, but he is pretty good when he locks in on a guy. Re: Howard, which guy are we talking about? Josh Howard hasn't been a very good defender in quite some time.

That's why I caveated the statement with "when he cared".

Like I said, I've been impressed with this defense. But I felt like the article seemed to imply that Butler and Marion are somewhat interchangeable defensively, and that's definitely not the case.

jthig32 · 03-11-2010, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dude1394

Caron is better than the josh we had this year it appears.

Oh goodness, there's absolutely no question about that.

Thespiralgoeson · 03-11-2010, 08:28 PM

As far as defense goes, I put Butler and Howard on about the same level. Howard's defense certainly wasn't bad, but it was vastly overrated, even on his best days.

Underdog · 03-11-2010, 08:33 PM

Screw hypotheticals - Butler has been effective next to Marion on defense while Howard never was...

twelli · 03-11-2010, 08:42 PM

Lakers-Mavs, in the end it comes down to this: The Mavs are collectively hungrier for a title, we want it more, especially because we are an old team and players like Kidd, Dirk, Terry, virtually any player on the team except for Beaubois, is running out of time to win a ring. The Lakers on the other hand have done it before and have the confidence that goes with it. So we just have to make sure that our Hunger is bigger than their Confidence and we have a decent chance to win it all.

Thespiralgoeson · 03-11-2010, 08:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Underdog

Screw hypotheticals - Butler has been effective next to Marion on defense while Howard never was...

That's a very good point. Howard never looked comfortable next to Marion. Caron fits like a glove (or at least a lot better than Howard did.)

Mavsfan4ever · 03-11-2010, 08:56 PM

I think we have a high chance of beating the Lakers as things stand. Since the All Star break this new Mavericks team has played just like that a team while the Lakers have not been playing as a cohesive unit. You never see Dirk trying to play one on five in the fourth the way Kobe does when your star player plays selfishly it effects the team over all and that is what I see from the Lakers recently.

Mavsfan4ever · 03-11-2010, 09:18 PM

What seed would the Nuggets have to take going into the playoffs to face the Lakers in the second round?

I was thinking if the Lakers faced the Trailblazers in the first round that would likely go 5-6 games. Then if they face the Nuggets in the second round it's bound to go 6-7 games depending on rather we make it to the WCF and how many games we have to play to get there a worn down Lakers team would make things much easier and yes I know I'm stating the obvious

BGMaverick9 · 03-11-2010, 09:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mavsfan4ever

What seed would the Nuggets have to take going into the playoffs to face the Lakers in the second round?

if the lakers stay the top seed, then Denver would have to be the 4 seed.
if the lakers drop to the two, then Denver needs to be the 3 seed.

dmavs1980 · 03-12-2010, 12:19 AM

mavs have beat everyone in the league except portland i think