Mavs v. Wolves Game Thread

[MFFL]

<< We look like a bad junior high school girls team. >>



I just saw a season of bad junior high school girls basketball. We couldn't even inbound the ball half the time.

[MavsFanFinley]

<< MFF if they are praticing plays for the end of games, it sure doesn't show. The Mavs absolutely suck during closing game situations when we need a must score basket. >>



I know, but it wasn't like this before. The blame runs in so many directions, but the only way I see it being fixed is to remove Nelson. And I'm not sure he's entirely to blame.

We've called timeouts, ran a play for someone, not even for the hot hand in most cases. We've gone to Dirk twice in recent games and he's missed, but it was the right play. We've had players shoot too soon. Our clock awareness has been awful. We've missed open shots. We have pushed the ball without calling a timeout, but have taken poor shots. We've had trouble getting the ball to Dirk in the post.

They seem so clueless this year late in the game. Is Nelson to blame solely for that? When Fin, Dirk and Nash have played a couple years together. It's not like our guys don't have some experience here.

[seelenjaeger]

lets get it down to this:

If Nellie is as horrible as most people here are telling us, then there are 28 others in this league who fail more. Who are even more unable to win games, to shoot better percentages, to defend better, to play better offense, to get their guys involved more, to get their guys more rest and so on.

Are there topics to adress? Sure.

People called for better defense and a better rebounding all day long.

Was this our problem last night?

For sure it was NOT the rebounding. Defense - maybe, yet it has been solid enough to keep us in the game last night aswell.

So lets see what we´ve got - in the beginning of the year, when some key guys were injured (Raef, Nick, later Eddie) Nellie focused on getting games done with what he had, and he did. Dirk was not playing up to his level back then, he was solid and brought something special every now and then, Fin was extremely streaky during those games, and Nash had stellar nights and ball-hog nights aswell. Still, we cursed to 14-0, and there was a major factor to this, called Shawn Bradley.

What happened later: Raef came back, and he didn´t. Nick got some great games, and choked during others. We had some serious set-backs (Lakers, Utah, Kings), but prevailed from falling.

What do you think has to be done at the moment? Win ballgames? Try to get ready to win in the playoffs? Try to get guys involved? Or try to get Nellie out of the door, which seems to be the only thing that counts now.

You cannot win games by riding the hot hand down to 50 shots. Won´t work if you don´t have Larry Bird, Shaquille O´Neal, Mr. Jordan ... And Dirk is none of those. He can dominate, he can take 40 shots a night, but not EACH night, at least not now.

We´re talking about 3 possessions, two of them executed by Finley, our 2nd man out there tonight. What if Flip Saunders would have told the Wolves to utilize the dominant Garnett down the stretch instead of taking the momentum guy and using the opportunity to shoot? I´d say the Wolves would have lost last nights game if they´d gone to Garnett late. Was it a mistake to go to Finley (who just knocked down the game-tying three) late, with Dirk struggling to get clutch shots connected during the last games (see also DMN)? Maybe. Was it horrible? Far from. It was a game time decision. And it´s not like putting Esch on the three point line ...

About Eddie. Ya know, I can still hear the &quot;attack the inside&quot; demands, &quot;why do we jack up 3pt-shots late in the game, why don´t we take it inside ...&quot; and so on. Eddie was 1-5. Sure, he threw up invitations to get blocked which have been gladly accepted by Nesterovic this night, still, it was 5 shots. Should Eddie be able to get 5 shots during 103 attempts? Think so, yes. Is it his job to decide wether to take a shot or not? Answer it yourself.

About Raef and Bradley. No clue, absolutely no clue. On one hand, their main job is to protect and to defend the basket and the boards. It worked pretty well without them during the 3rd and early 4th, so you can say &quot;if we don´t need them to protect something (as it worked without them), why should we play them, if they cannot help us fighting our main issue (shooting) that game&quot;. That latter part is the problem. I do think they might have helped us last night on offense. But this is pure speculation, and I do accept Nellie´s point of thinking otherwise, he´s the far more skilled expert and I trust him. In addition, I see the point of not playing one-dimensional guys (Griffin, Raja, Shawn) too much during those few games when it´s not their dimension beeing our problem. I´d loved to see them out there more, especially Griffin gave us some nice spark last night, but his back is the issue, so why use him more than needed?

So again, here comes the question - what is our main goal at the moment?

Getting guys ready for playoffs?
Resting guys for playoffs?
Getting Finley into a &quot;I won´t shoot below 40%&quot;-streak?
Getting Nick into a &quot;I won´t shoot IF I shoot below 40%&quot; mood?
Getting Nash some rest?
Getting Nash more shots?
Getting Dirk more touches?
Running every play through Dirk?
Winning each and every game whatever it takes?
Improving our Rebounding?
Improving our Defense?
Improving our Clutch Execution?
Getting Raef involved more?
Getting Shawn involved more?
...

Whatever is adressed, some people will call out another of those topics are missed, and will call for Nellie´s head.

There were several topics adressed last night, take those, and count them in favourite of Nellie before you call for his head.

And, to make it a little philosophical, let´s make a little experiment ...

Can you name the highest number? Or the lowest?

You know that there is twice as much numbers as numbers?
You know that there is three-times as much numbers as numbers?
You know that there is four-times as much numbers as numbers?

Whatever you say, it´s SO easy to show you the principle how you can explain the nature of this &quot;problem&quot;, still it gives you much insight into the origin of numbers and mathematics.

Just the same about coaching - the more you work on a system, the more complex it will grow, the more problems you will realize and the more nitpicking could be done. Closing a big hole ALWAYS creates little holes, each of them having to be adressed. Viscious circle.

[dude1394]

The mavs shot like crap tonight. End of story. Not &quot;defense&quot;, not &quot;rebounding&quot;, not &quot;nellie&quot;, shooting.

Nellie was trying to find someone, anyone who cold hit the broad side of a barn, they sure didn't need rebounding. The mavs played straight up man-to-man in the first quarter and got killed. They tightened it up with a zone and pretty much played really good defense. Wolves hit some really big baskets, garnett was on fire even with good defense in his face and wally hit some really big buckets down the stretch.

[madape]

For all those guys who diss Nellies use of small ball - it was the only lineup that worked last night. Our biggest runs came when Nash and Nick were on the court together. And it was more than obvious that the team suffered greatly when Eddie was on the court... that is unusual because normally I think they play better when he's in the lineup. I hope that Eddie isn't injured. I hope even more that Eddie isn't losing his fire.

Now, remember what I said a last week about a lineup with Eddie having some major drawbacks? Something about rebounding vs. scoring and ball control? Well, Eddie didn't give us much in terms of rebounding. But as usual, he was a MAJOR liability on the offensive end. When his defense and rebounding aren't working, he's pretty useless (why didn't you go there sj?). I'm not going to turn this into a Najera trash-fest, but his poor play needs mentioning. Walt Williams definitely deserved his minutes last night. So did Adrian Griffin.

An any case, I will not get upset about this game. I have full confidence that if we outrebound a team like this, and shoot that many more shots than our opponent, we will win 90% of our games. It was a freak occurance that we shot such a low percentage. That doesn't happen very often to the Mavs.

[Bookit]

I hope that Eddie isn't injured. I hope even more that Eddie isn't losing his fire.

Eddie looks like he is injured. He has no lift whatsoever. He is usually a &quot;Mexican Jumping Bean&quot;, so to speak.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] Now, he just isn't. Najera can't even finish around the basket which isn't normal for him. He is probably hiding his injury because he wan'ts badly to compete. But he is hurting the team if he isn't healthy. Griffin, on the other hand, is playing very well and needs to be in the linup.

[seelenjaeger]

The Eddie-line:

Why did we play him that much last night. Good question, but ... let´s take a look at the minutes.

Dirk 45 (fouled out)
Eddie 26 (fouled out)
Raef 19
Bradley 13

total: 103 minutes

opponent:

Garnett 41
Trent 12
Nesterovic 37
M. Jackson 10

total: 100 minutes

No team used their big man major minutes, because of the deadliness of the opponents small guys (remember Hudson taking off?). Neither team has another Big Guy Scorer other than Garnett and Dirk, just defenders and rebounders, so who should all those guys guard out there?

The Wolves failed with their attempt to establish another Big Guy out there over the years (Smith, Trent, Jackson), so now they are going another way: Sac-to, Dallas style. Playing the Wolves faces us with the same troubles as playing Sac-To - we have to create good shots for any guy out there, because we need everyone involved.

Now back to Eddie. Is he a one-dimensional guy? Yes. Did we need him out there last night? Kinda. Dirk and Raef fell behind in the first, and Dirk Bradley were not able to close the gap. Playing with Dirk and Walt seemed to be working better, as did Dirk and Griffin, but don´t you want to have a guy out there not getting killed by Garnett but beeing at least to a certain degree able to cover him? Especially if it´s money time?

Last game was a game when losing Hill (or missing out on him, however you put it) really hurt. Why? Because Hill is not losing his assignments.

Still - there won´t be much games like this anymore. Maybe 1, 2 until may. Let´s hope those games are not decisive ones then (or lets hope Fin connects in those).

[Lvubun1]

Ho hum, a pretty much pointless regular season lost, the Mavs are a jumpshooting team, if they don't fall we don't win. Of course winning is better but nothing changed. We still beat the Wolves in a 5 or 7 game series(they are the 4th seed anyway so we wouldn't see them into the WCF) and probably will still struggle vs. the Kings and Lakers. Nellie's gameplan hasn't changed in 30 years, so it isn't going to change in 20 something games, Raef or Bradley aren't going to &quot;improve&quot; in 20 games, so nothing will change about this team from now into the playoffs. The only thing that sticks out about this game is Bradley getting his dunk blocked by Kendall Gill and Raef &quot;Not in Kansas anymore, where the hell am I&quot; Lafrenz standing in the paint while NVE was trying to drive and having Nellie yell &quot;Raef get your ass out of there&quot;