Don't dis dallas

[dude1394]

Of course being a homer, I love when pundits pick my mavs...I liked the statement that anyone saying that the mavs don't play defense should have their credentionals revoked.

dontdisdallas

by Kurt | permalink | trackback

Let’s be up front here — I’m picking San Antonio to win the West. Which is to say I’m on the same page with everyone on the planet, including the entire staff from ESPN (which makes me feel good about myself in the case of John Hollinger, somewhat frightened in the case of Will Perdue). But picking the Spurs is boring — picking Note Dame to beat Navy in football level boring. So what are the other options?

After San Antonio the sexy pick is Houston, what with two big stars, a great off-season addition in Stromile Swift, and the team seemed to come together the second half of last season. That kind of incredible second half — plus getting an outside shooter back in Voshon Lenard — has a lot of people picking Denver as the dark horse in the West.

And everybody is looking right past Dallas. They shouldn’t. Last season’s version of the Mavericks started to make steps away from the “most fun team to watch in the NBA” title that they held during the Lakers three-peat years and toward the kind of team that wins titles.

If you’re looking past the Mavericks, you’re likely doing it for one of two mistaken reasons:

1) They don’t play defense. Anyone who says this didn’t watch much NBA last season. If a media member says it, their “NBA analyst” credentials should be pulled.

Last season, with Avery Johnson cracking the whip, the Mavericks had a defensive rating of 103.9, ninth best in the league, and much better than the league average of 106.1. (For those new to CourtsideTimes, that means they gave up 103.9 points per 100 opponent possessions.) That was a huge improvement from the season before, when their rating was 106.9 (26th in the league). Last season the Mavericks were seventh in opponent field goal percentage at 47.1 (eFG%) and best in the league in opposing three-point percentage (33%).

Maybe the difference was Avery Johnson as coach and changing the focus. It helped that Jason Terry was at the point, where he had a defensive rating of 107, very close to the league average and much better than Steve Nash’s 111 the season before. It helped that Dirk Nowitzki has improved his defense and last season had a defensive rating of 100 and a career high 1.6 blocks per 40 minutes. Probably it was a combination. Whatever the reasons, it worked.

And despite the defensive focus the Mav’s offense didn’t take a big dip. They averaged only half a possession less per game last season, and while their offensive rating fell 2.1 points from the year before, it was still 110.5 last season and that was good enough for fourth in the league.

(For the record, last season the Mav’s started to play defense again — the Mav’s played pretty good D during the 2002-03 season, and not so coincidentally they reached the conference finals, only to run into those pesky Spurs.)

therest

[Bookit]

Good read. Thanks.

[Male30Dan]

Originally posted by: dude1394
Of course being a homer, I love when pundits pick my mavs...I liked the statement that anyone saying that the mavs don't play defense should have their credentionals revoked.

dontdisdallas

by Kurt | permalink | trackback

Let’s be up front here — I’m picking San Antonio to win the West. Which is to say I’m on the same page with everyone on the planet, including the entire staff from ESPN (which makes me feel good about myself in the case of John Hollinger, somewhat frightened in the case of Will Perdue). But picking the Spurs is boring — picking Note Dame to beat Navy in football level boring. So what are the other options?

After San Antonio the sexy pick is Houston, what with two big stars, a great off-season addition in Stromile Swift, and the team seemed to come together the second half of last season. That kind of incredible second half — plus getting an outside shooter back in Voshon Lenard — has a lot of people picking Denver as the dark horse in the West.

And everybody is looking right past Dallas. They shouldn’t. Last season’s version of the Mavericks started to make steps away from the “most fun team to watch in the NBA” title that they held during the Lakers three-peat years and toward the kind of team that wins titles.

If you’re looking past the Mavericks, you’re likely doing it for one of two mistaken reasons:

1) They don’t play defense. Anyone who says this didn’t watch much NBA last season. If a media member says it, their “NBA analyst” credentials should be pulled.

Last season, with Avery Johnson cracking the whip, the Mavericks had a defensive rating of 103.9, ninth best in the league, and much better than the league average of 106.1. (For those new to CourtsideTimes, that means they gave up 103.9 points per 100 opponent possessions.) That was a huge improvement from the season before, when their rating was 106.9 (26th in the league). Last season the Mavericks were seventh in opponent field goal percentage at 47.1 (eFG%) and best in the league in opposing three-point percentage (33%).

Maybe the difference was Avery Johnson as coach and changing the focus. It helped that Jason Terry was at the point, where he had a defensive rating of 107, very close to the league average and much better than Steve Nash’s 111 the season before. It helped that Dirk Nowitzki has improved his defense and last season had a defensive rating of 100 and a career high 1.6 blocks per 40 minutes. Probably it was a combination. Whatever the reasons, it worked.

And despite the defensive focus the Mav’s offense didn’t take a big dip. They averaged only half a possession less per game last season, and while their offensive rating fell 2.1 points from the year before, it was still 110.5 last season and that was good enough for fourth in the league.

(For the record, last season the Mav’s started to play defense again — the Mav’s played pretty good D during the 2002-03 season, and not so coincidentally they reached the conference finals, only to run into those pesky Spurs.)

therest

What the hell??? Please re-read the bold area!

[grndmstr_c]

It's not the most well-written sentence I've ever seen, Dan, but it's not that difficult to figure out what the writer was going for. Just drawing a paralle between the Rockets and Nuggets.

The NBA analyst credentials bit is my favorite.

[jthig32]

The rest of the article has some really good insite on Terry and Damp. I wish a lot of the local media would take a minutes to read his thoughts on Damp, it'd do everyone some good.

I especially enjoyed this line from his thoughts on Terry: "The bottom line, while Nash was off winning the MVP in Phoenix Dallas was doing better at the position without him."

[Thespiralgoeson]

This really is a damn good read... and not just because I'm a homer... Really, the guy breaks it down quite nicely, and has the frickin stats to back it up. It's an article that the GMC's of these forums could be proud of.

Maybe the biggest difference was adding a true center who, while not living up to expectations set up by the season before, played solidly and allowed Nowitzki to spend more time at the four and be more effective. Dampier was not bad, he had a PER of 15.2, but a drop from the 20 the season before. He had a rebound rate of 17.4, down from the 20.8 the season before but still quite good. Plus, Dampier was very solid defensively, with a rating of 100

That's the most insightful part of the article, I think. Something anyone who misses the days of Raef La Frentz should take to heart.

[dude1394]

Well actually Damp replaced....Danny Fortson, Shawn, Walker, Dirk at center, not raef.

[Thespiralgoeson]

Originally posted by: dude1394
Well actually Damp replaced....Danny Fortson, Shawn, Walker, Dirk at center, not raef.

Well dude, I don't think there's anybody here who's pissed off because they thought the 03-04 team was on the verge of winning a championship. I was obviously referring to your beloved 02-03 team.

[FreshJive]

Well considering the authors comments he was clearly referring to the 2003-2004 team, because the 02-03 team had centers.

[jthig32]

Originally posted by: FreshJive
Well considering the authors comments he was clearly referring to the 2003-2004 team, because the 02-03 team had centers.

That is infinitely debateable.....

[Thespiralgoeson]

Originally posted by: jthig32

That is infinitely debateable.....

I don't even think it is... The only Center we had was Bradley. Raef is a center like Dirk and Antoine Walker are centers.

Edit: Besides, the quote I used was referring to Erick Dampier and ONLY Erick Dampier... It made absolutely no mention of the 03-04 team, or the Mavericks at all.

[dude1394]

Well I just won't back off on raef being a solid enough center to do the job, in fact I again would say that he did "do" the job. If nellie had forced players to take defense seriously I have no doubt that my beloved 02-03 team would have competed for a championship. Just a little bit of perimeter defense would have been enough imo.

If nothing else I'm the only one who has any data to back it up as the 02-03 team WAS playing for the NBA championship.

I look at rasho and see the spurs do it, I see no reason that raef also couldn't have been a serviceable center. I just don't have the idea that the center has to be some hulking slug who can't hit an 8 footer.

[FreshJive]

True enough about the infinitely debateableness of Raef. I just assumed that when he mentioned the true center thing he was referring to 2003-2004 team, because he mentions that the 2002 team was good at defense.

[chumdawg]

It really doesn't matter what kind of center you think Raef was. Or rather, how well you think he meshed with your own idea of what a center *should* be. Fact is, he played the center spot for that Mavs team, and that Mavs team was damn good.

It's statistically proven--you can look it up--that margin of victory is generally a very, very good indication of teams' relative strength. The '03 Mavs were tremendous in this regard. They also played some pretty good defense, especially considering how good they were on the other end of the court. In terms of +/- scoring differential, '03 looked like this:

+8.1 - Dallas (ranked 9th in defense, though no one would know it, it seems...of course, ranked 1st in offense)

+6.6 - Sacramento (ranked 2nd in defense, though no one would know it, ranked 7th in offense)

+6.3 - San Antonio (ranked 6th in offense, ranked 3rd in defense...great balance)

+5.4 - New Jersey (ranked 1st in defense, for all the good it did them, ranked 11th in offense)

+2.4 - LA Lakers (ranked 19th in defense)

People just don't give Raef and his cohort enough credit for the defense they played that year, especially consider how far they outclassed the rest of the league in offense. It's really pretty sickening. You like defense a lot? How much you like those New Jersey Nets? Defense wins championships, right? Tell it to the Nets.

[grndmstr_c]

If you're giving Raef much defensive credit you may actually be going overboard with the accolades. He was an effective player for the team overall, I think, but it was his offense that was primarily responsible. He was about 4 points per 48 minutes better than Shawn on that side of the ball, but almost 6 points worse on defense.

[Thespiralgoeson]

Alls I knows is, it's nice to have your starting center average more than 4 rpg. And as long as I live, I'll never forget the sight of Raef trying to guard an ancient, sloth-like Vlade Divac, only to see Vlade have his way in the paint.

[chumdawg]

G, I don't believe I ever said word one about Raef's defense. Nor did I say anything, Spiral, about his rebounding. Or about what he looked like one-on-one against Vlade on Sacramento's offensive end. (Did Vlade ever look bad on his defensive end, trying to chase Raef around the court?)

I'm saying that you have to look at it all on balance. There's a reason the Mavs were able to outclass the league that year in point differential, and that reason is mostly down to the fact that they overcame whatever defensive shortcomings they had with offensive advantages of their own.

But of course people don't like to look at the whole picture. It doesn't fit with their worldview, that big, scary, guys who block shots and then glare at you are the key to winning championships. Or guys that will foul you into the first row (even if they can't hit the broad side of a barn on offense).

When they start handing out wins based on block shots and rebounds, let me know. Until then, I'll continue paying attention to who puts the ball in the basket more than the other guys do. (And there are two sides to that proposition, as much as it may shock you to consider it.)

[grndmstr_c]

People just don't give Raef and his cohort enough credit for the defense they played that year

That's what I was responding to, CD. But I was't trying to take issue with your basic contention regarding the quality of that team. They were excellent.