The Autopsy - Dallas-Mavs.com Forums

Bayliss · 05-11-2002, 11:59 PM

<< First off, I'm as disappointed as anyone, but having a longer car ride home than most of you gave me time to reflect. There are four absolute monsters left in the western conference. Two very good teams are going to be done within a week. Either would be good enough to win the East.
We are probably about where Sac was two years ago. Talented, but young and defenseless. They grew up and they addressed their "D" (as we have chronicled here before). It won't surprise me a bit if they win it all this year. It is incredibly disappointing to lose to a team that is without Peja and fouls out it's two starting big men (one an all-pro). I said earlier in the year Bobby Jackson deserved 6th man of the year and I still believe that. He was a man among boys in that 4th quarter come back almost single handedly willing his team back. Scott Pollard also gave us fits. We need to throw Wang, Bradley and Esch into a pot and stir it up and try to create a player like him. He is exactly what we need.

I will again respectfully disagree with GA's comments about the guards for Sacramento. They have played great and probably better than ours. I'll stand by my mantra that this team can go as far as Dirk can carry it. We appear to have found that limitation this year.

I continue to disagree with playing all 5 of the offensive guns together. Yes it worked in game 2, but only because Adelman was a complete moron. The team just plays better when Najera (where was he in the second half), Buck or Griff are in the game. Other than the opening spurt, which we quickly gave away, the team was not effective with the big five in and built leads when one or more of the scramblers was in. NVE (besides being 2 of 10) was a defensive liability against Jackson in the 4th period.

Another pet peeve. The difference between an easy score and forced garbage is one pass. My buddies and I paid some attention to this in the 3rd and early 4th. When we had it clicking on O, we were making a single pass (not too much to ask). When we went stale, it was because we were taking turns going one on one.

We can't blame it on the ref's (surely the networks and league want to see this thing go to 7 games). We can't blame it on the crowd (which was fantastic and IMHO better than the San Antonio win last year where Dirk lost his tooth). I think you have to give Sacramento their due. They have been building to get to this point for several years now. We are the new kids on the block and we've come up wanting in several areas. If Dirk hits his damn free throw, this all gets postponed a night or two. But that's it. If Sac can pull off what they pulled off today under the circumstances they were battling then a win today would have just postponed the inevitable. We've had a great season and in less than a week, we can start debating how to fix that leaky "D".

ps. I'll go to bed tonight praying they take the next three and make me look like a complete idiot...but I don't see it. >>

Saw this post at LMF... very very true.

MavsFanFinley · 05-12-2002, 12:11 AM

I defintely agree on the parallel comment that we're the Kings of a couple years ago.

We are young and must learn defense. We can't be all about show and run and gun, if this series hasn't convinced some people of that, then I don't know what will.

Problem is that we'll most likely never get that banger inside cause of Nelson and what he prefers. Even if it is a Pollard type player, someone you can bring off the bench to give you that toughness and rebounding.

We have a couple defensive stoppers in Buckner and Griffin and Nelson won't play them when it's obvious we need one of them out there.

dude1394 · 05-12-2002, 12:25 AM

Agree that it seems that we will only go as far as Dirk. What I am concerned about is whether Nelson cna handle a low-post top 5 player. His offense seems to be predicated on going one-on-one after a high pick and roll.

His love of small ball drives me crazy.

But looking at our bench we are way over-rated here. Unless we can make players our of Najera and Wang, our bench is really not effective.

Drbio · 05-12-2002, 09:29 AM

His love of small ball drives me crazy.

Oh man do I agree with yo uon this !!!

MFFL · 05-12-2002, 09:58 AM

What seperates us from the Kings is Christie. The Kings were in the same situation a couple of years ago and then got Christie. His defensive play has inspired the club and now the Kings are a good defensive team. Not great, but good. Weren't the Kings the #8 team in the NBA in opposing field goal percentage? I don't even want to think where the Mavs were.

Bayliss · 05-12-2002, 10:37 AM

<< What seperates us from the Kings is Christie. >>

But MFFL. We have our own Christie. Buck and Griff does just as good of job as Christie. The difference is Adelman plays Christie **always** where as Nellie plays Griff/Buck **sometimes**.

MFFL · 05-12-2002, 10:45 AM

Honestly I would say that Buckner and Griffin are a notch below Christie in defensive ability but I see your point.

Addleman got Christie and uses him ALL the time. That allows a defensive thought process to rub off on the other players. Nellie gets NVE and uses him all of the time. That encourages a shoot first mentality and matador defense.

dude1394 · 05-12-2002, 10:48 AM

<< Honestly I would say that Buckner and Griffin are a notch below Christie in defensive ability but I see your point.

Addleman got Christie and uses him ALL the time. That allows a defensive thought process to rub off on the other players. Nellie gets NVE and uses him all of the time. That encourages a shoot first mentality and matador defense. >>

Actually Buckner is two notches below Christie. Griffin has a chance to be one notch but he just cannot stay healthy (buckner couldn't either but Griffin is day to day).

I don't know how many times we put buckner in, weber would take him and buck would have to just sit there and look at webber 5 feet away from him. That is because Buck can't shoot worth a durn, I think he is worse than najera. Griffin would have been able to make Weber pay on that. Christie would have killed webber in that matchup.

DTL · 05-12-2002, 04:19 PM

<< We are probably about where Sac was two years ago. Talented, but young and defenseless >>

Nellie also said postgame that we're really using the Kings as a model as we build up our team.link

Drbio · 05-12-2002, 05:53 PM

I think that there is a certain amount of coachspeak going on there. I think Nellie truly believes this team is ready now. A few breaks here and there and we would be up 3-1.