Dallas Must Discover Killer Instinct

[BGMaverick9]

The Dallas Mavericks have a troubling trend popping up again, they cannot maintain leads. In each of the last two games, the Mavericks have built solid leads on their opponents and have been unable to maintain the lead to secure a win. In the game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday night, Dallas played "Mavericks" basketball in the first half. They were solid on defense and getting out and running their flow offense. They ran out to a 10-point lead early and led 55-51 at halftime. Dallas matched its then second-highest point total for a first half, 56 points (which was done eight other times in the season), but they put up 40 second-half points.

It was a new opponent on Saturday night but the Mavericks had the same issue. The Mavericks led the Magic 50-34 but eventually lost it 117-107 at American Airlines Center. With the score was tied 85-85 with 10:24 to go in the game, the Magic throttled the Mavericks with a 23-2 run and eventually led 108-88 before defeating the Mavericks 117-107. "Our problems all year long have been with having a lead and then not being able to sustain it or put a team away," said Jason Terry. "So if we're going to be the team we say we want to be, regardless of who's in uniform, you're going to have to do something about it. You can't just allow teams to keep coming back on you. It's been our problem all year long and until we address it, we'll be sitting here with a sad face."

you can read more at http://www.mavsmoneyball.com/2011/1/...iller-instinct

[Bayliss]

Well, when you have He who shall not be named playing major minutes, and you have Terry playing major miutes... the leads will evaporate.

As much as Cuban is a fan of advanced stats... every advanced stat has pretty much shown that he who shall not be named is dreadul.

[Jerry Stackhouse]

Dallas must discover better players. Nowitzki and Beaubois returning would be a start.

[u2sarajevo]

Originally Posted by Bayliss

Well, when you have He who shall not be named playing major minutes, and you have Terry playing major miutes... the leads will evaporate.

As much as Cuban is a fan of advanced stats... every advanced stat has pretty much shown that he who shall not be named is dreadul.

Voldeshort?

[Bayliss]

Voldeshort?

Catchy. I like that.

[41mvp]

We have killers instinct when Dirk is active

[CadBane]

You mean...without Dirk the Mavs are struggling to close teams out!? Shocking!

[BGMaverick9]

You play with the hand that is dealt...they've beaten a nice Portland team and built healthy leads without Dirk, so it can be done.

[fluid.forty.one]

Dallas needs Dirk back.

[LSMF]

Originally Posted by CadBane

You mean...without Dirk the Mavs are struggling to close teams out!? Shocking!

But to be honest, even with Dirk we were blowing leads. Of course, it's hard without our Big German but we can't act like this is a new trend. I think our biggest issue with closing teams out are "Quick points". We just lose focus for a minute, and boom the other team gets within striking distance. Hopefully, we can correct or at least minimize this issue before it comes back to haunt us.

[DMOC]

This happens to every team.

[SMC0007]

Failure to match intensity is a major issue with this team.

Consistent firepower is another.

You can play with the hand you are dealt but you need to keep a healthy set of expectations with that. Sure a win against Orlando would be nice but seriously?

[BGMaverick9]

Originally Posted by SMC0007

Failure to match intensity is a major issue with this team.

Consistent firepower is another.

You can play with the hand you are dealt but you need to keep a healthy set of expectations with that. Sure a win against Orlando would be nice but seriously?

They built a lead, Magic were missing their threes and Howard got in foul trouble...you've got to cash in while those opportunities are there. They lose focus on defense and then it makes it harder on their offense.

[ReDirkulous Tyme]

In all reality, I haven't been nearly as disappointed this year (when Dirk is on the court) as I was last year in respect to getting huge leads and blowing them late. I think our defensive improvement this year has lead to us being better in 4th quarters and, by proxy, holding leads better. Consider the fact that, with Dirk and Caron, the Mavs had only lost 5 games. With only 5 losses, obviously there weren't too many leads COMPLETELY blown. Opposing teams may have brought the deficit down from 16 points to say, 8, but that isn't BLOWING a lead, IMHO.

Everyone seriously needs to calm down in respect to the Mavs 2-5 record over the last 7 games. Championship caliber teams have stretches like this when they're COMPLETELY healthy, we're obviously anything but healthy right now. I have a feeling the front office is going to pull off a trade for a guy like AI or S-Jax, and everyone knows we have Dirk coming back, possibly next game. In addition to this, we have roddy back, more than likely early to middle of next month.

We lost basically 40% of our offense when Dirk and Caron went down. The fact that our team has coped with our losses as well as we have is, in my opinion, quite extraordinary. I expected our offense to be absolutely ABYSMAL 80% of the time, and it hasn't been quite that bad. Trust me, calm down, in about a month's time you will understand what I'm talking about. Assuming we pull off a trade, I still have as much confidence, if not more, in our team as I had before the injuries.

[EricaLubarsky]

Originally Posted by Jerry Stackhouse

Dallas must discover better players. Nowitzki and Beaubois returning would be a start.

exactly. They come out with momentum and energy but momentum and energy isn't worth beans when opponents tighten up their defenses and begin running plays with more precision. We have to burn the turbo boost that we used to use in the 4th quarter in the first quarter now just to get the lead but we just can't keep it up and team eventually figure it out and apply defensive pressure of their own which can all but shut us down. THAT is why we are shooting in the 30% range for games or in the second half of games. We have some great role players that have learned to be borderline stars in Dirk's shadow, but we are a few scorers away from being a whole team.

Without more talent and scoring the team will always take advantage of teams only as long as they lack focus and are flustered by our sharp defense. Once they begin to defend and run plays, we fall apart. Everyone just jacks up covered 3s because there are no open shots without Dirk. Kidd and Terry are useless without someone drawing attention. Terry has always been a guy for us that punishes teams for guarding Dirk too well. Kidd has seen a slight resurgence in Dallas despite his age because Dirk opens up breaks with his defense/rebounding and opens the floor in the halfcourt with his versatile offense. As soon as teams guard Kidd, his age immediately shows and he's a wily but almost useless veteran. Its just how it is.

I mean, I'm content with the team we have-- we dont need 5 stars. We need a cohesive team of role players around Dirk that can play well in both directions. We have them this year as much as we've ever had a cohesive team. Its just that without the star the team is built around, the team is rather impotent. Its not about drive or killer instinct, its about having a team with less talent, less balance, less leadership, and no go-to guy to anchor the team and score in the 4th.

I'd love to see this team win more without Dirk, but we built a damn fine team of opportunist scorers around Dirk to harness the power of Dirk and to punish teams that double him. Guys like Marion get layups, guys like Chandler get oops. Guys like Stevenson and Kidd get open threes. Guys like Terry find pockets in the opposing defense to knock down jumpers. Its not a team of creators, particularly now that we are without Butler and Roddy. In fact, we now don't have a single guy that is really capable of consistently creating offense, and thats ok when Dirk is playing as long as you have a guy like Kidd that can get the ball to the right guy if Dirk gets doubled. Without Dirk, though, this team is just bad. The above average defense lacks focus and rebounding. The defense leads to primary and secondary breaks and if its halfcourt, you have Dirk creating spacing and opportunities for others even when he's not scoring.

Dirk alone is enough to bring us back into the top 4-5 teams in the league and if we can replace Butler with even a starting-caliber player like Jackson, we could very well get back into contention for #1 in the league.

I think that that is the absolute truth and that the guys on the floor are playing as well as they possibly can given the circumstances. No one is to blame, its just how the team is built, the personnel we have, and the unfortunate nature of the injuries. This is just a team that is built around Dirk. The team has the killer instinct, but right now we are like a wolverine without claws or teeth that is tiring itself out too quickly being ferocious. We are not a dangerous or even good team without Dirk and/or a creator.

[CadBane]

Pretty sure with Dirk on the court, we were leading the NBA in lowest 4th quarter points allowed...

[dalger]

Originally Posted by EricaLubarsky

I think that that is the absolute truth....

...not sure about that. Absolute truth?

That said, I basically agree with everything you said in your post. Yes, we did beat Portland without Dirk, Butler and Roddy, but that doesn't mean we're better than them without three of our four best scorers. Every team in this league has the potential to beat any other team every once in a while. However, the real indicator of a quality team is the ability to do it consistently. Since we haven't been able to beat good teams like the Spurs, OKC or Orlando in light of our injuries, I'm inclined to believe that it's not a lack of killer instinct that's causing the damage. It's a lack of quality to consistently play a decent 48-minute basketball game.

Dirk will inevitably change that and make us a much better team again, maybe one of the six best teams in the league. I don't believe he can make the current Mavs team without Caron and Roddy a contender all by himself, but he will have a huge impact. Like at the start of the season and now that Caron is out, our hopes of being championship material once again lie on the shoulders of a young Frenchman who has played no more than 60 NBA games in his entire life and has yet to experience something like crunch time in the playoffs. We expect him to have a remarkable learning curve, that's for sure. Therefore, it would be quite the gamble to accept Caron's injury and go into the postseason without a replacement. That's why I would be beyond surprised if there was no move until the trade deadline.

[wilmtalk]

I am not convinced that Caron was that important to the Mavs that they need to make a desperate move to replace him. Caron was playing very well before he got injured. If say he were injured a month earlier than most of us might have said well we play better without him. Where he really hurts is it messes up our second team and rotations. Stevenson has picked up the scoring slack for Caron up to now.

I like the comment in the earlier post about complementory role players. Thats what good teams are constucted as. It is better to have a team of very good role players providing depth than a team with two superstars and a lack of depth or players that are not complementory. The reason that Caron was effective before he was injured was because he became a complimentory player. A desperate move to replace him might get us a non complementory player who might disrupt the chemistry instead. Added to that we would then also be minus the players that it cost to get him.

One other point this organization has never been effective making good quick decisions which they have not had a lot of time to think about. Usually when they have had a quick trigger they have ended up shooting themselves in the foot.

[KillerLeft]

I actually feel like this version of the Mavs has the most "killer instinct" in franchise history, at least since Cuban bought the team.

The problem is that there are 5-8 teams in the league who are just significantly more talented than the Mavs. Dirk or no Dirk, the Mavs are beating Orlando in a 7 game series, and the same goes for Miami, Boston, LA and SA. Utah and OKC would give them trouble, too, but I'm not ready to say Dallas couldn't beat those teams.

Caron was EXTREMELY important to this team - not because of the way he was playing, necessarily - but because he gave them (and us) HOPE that when teams sell out to take away Dirk down the stretch of playoff games (and they will) he could make them pay.

Now, I'm no fortune teller, but it's not hard to see that we're all in store for a lot of bricked jumpers coming off the hands of Kidd, Terry and Stevenson during the last 5 minutes of playoff games this season. This team has too many Indians, and not enough Chiefs.

[Murphy3]

Yep, the Mavs are without a doubt a lottery team without Dirk.... That's pretty much the problem. I am not going to blame the guys on the court at all for losing leads in the 4th quarter. I don't expect them to maintain leads in the 4th. Any win that this team gets right now is a bonus until Dirk comes back.

[dalger]

Originally Posted by KillerLeft

I actually feel like this version of the Mavs has the most "killer instinct" in franchise history, at least since Cuban bought the team.

The problem is that there are 5-8 teams in the league who are just significantly more talented than the Mavs. Dirk or no Dirk, the Mavs are beating Orlando in a 7 game series, and the same goes for Miami, Boston, LA and SA. Utah and OKC would give them trouble, too, but I'm not ready to say Dallas couldn't beat those teams.

Caron was EXTREMELY important to this team - not because of the way he was playing, necessarily - but because he gave them (and us) HOPE that when teams sell out to take away Dirk down the stretch of playoff games (and they will) he could make them pay.

Now, I'm no fortune teller, but it's not hard to see that we're all in store for a lot of bricked jumpers coming off the hands of Kidd, Terry and Stevenson during the last 5 minutes of playoff games this season. This team has too many Indians, and not enough Chiefs.

Without Caron, probably. Prior to his injury, I thought that only the Lakers and Celtics had a more talented team. But there were reasons to be confident that we could give them a great 7-game series.

Right now, I'm not so sure. Dirk will make a huge difference, Roddy could be a difference maker as well, but it will be tough to beat the Lakers and/or Spurs in the race for the conference crown.

Caron had been really productive the last couple of weeks and embodied what was promising about this year's Mavs: a wealth of options, the ability to rely on many different players and thus a lack of dependency on one or two players to always get the job done. Butler was no Robin, which he didn't need to be, he was just another capable option. With him out of the mix, one (important) option is missing and the dependency on certain players to deliver has increased. Considering that Jet, who has a long history of having serious trouble in the playoffs, is one of those "certain players", I'm not particularly thrilled at the moment as far as our chances come April are concerned.

With all that said, there's still a lot of time make some adjustments and no reason at all to be overly frustrated because of our 2-5 record in the last seven games. No team would be able to overcome that kind of injury trouble without a couple of losses.

[Kidd Karma]

Depth is the issue here, when you can build an early lead, through 2-3 quarters, and get killed in the 4th, the problem is the number of quality bodies you have at your disposal. I'm in Norcal and get coverage of the Warriors, they were winning early because of a soft schedule, but once it toughened up, the L's piled up. GSW's problem is depth, they have quality starters 1-5, but it's the bench, when your starters, even if they're 22-24 year old, 40 minutes a night does not go well in this league. Dallas' issue is losiing their top 2 players and haviing very little to make up for it. I think once Dirk gets back, we will protect these leads.

[ReDirkulous Tyme]

In all reality, before the injury we were only lacking quality depth at the 4 and the 1 (I don't consider JJB "quality depth"). At this point, we're definitely lacking quality depth at the 3, 4, and 1. All of those positions need to be shored up before the trade deadline if we want to make a run at the conference title. I think we have the trade pieces available to make a pretty big splash, given Denver's current situation, and could fairly easily fill all of those positions and still be up there with SA, LA, and Boston in terms of chasing a title.

[SMC0007]

We are only lacking a replacement for Caron. It's pretty simple.

Dirk and Roddy should be back. Roddy gelling with the team on the court should be the only question. IF they aren't back then forget it, it's a lost season. Marion was doing fine as the backup PF and SF.