Just woke up from a nasty, nasty nightmare. I was dreaming the Mavs went to SA and got to face the Spurs without Tim Duncan. … and then turned to SmallBall, benched Devin, relied on JJB, made Dirk a decoy, gave Stack a green light and promoted The Animal to go-to guy. … and lost.
While I wipe away the eye snot, the 75-Member Staff makes fun of Brett Favre as “Sportsman of the Year,’’ takes a swing at the hapless Rangers, and yeah, takes another hard look at a hard loss in San Antonio. …
MORE RANDOM MAVS-SPURS THOUGHTS
With the help of our man David in Kerrville, who positioned himself 12 rows behind the Mavs bench on Wednesday:
ITEM: Simple question: How does the MVP become a non-factor night after night? Whatever Avery is trying to do, Dirk is playing like a neutered version of himself right now. During the Mavs 2nd half melt down, on several trips down the floor the Mavs ran their offense through Brandon Bass (who was isolated with Oberto). Now, we like Bass, but meanwhile the MVP is standing by helplessly. Oh, and he is a little frustrated; we say that judging the look in his eyes and the comment he made to Bass shortly thereafter, following an ill-advised goal-tending of a Parker tear-drop that was clearly going to be an airball. We need to point this out again: This WAS NOT ABOUT DOUBLE-TEAMS ON DIRK. It wasn’t always about Bowen, either. This was about Dirk and the Mavs allowing him to be man-handled by Tony Parker, Jacques Vaughn and Michael Finley! Also, on several transition opportunities, Dirk was the first man down the floor – but he never looked back for a pass! Last night, once again, Dirk looked like the guy from the Golden State series – something is wicked wrong with the picture we observed from close-up.
ITEM: There is a fine line here. But why does J-Ho “never see a shot he doesn’t like” in the first half, and then disappear offensively in the second half? If this is the year he’s supposed to become “Batman,’’ shouldn’t he shoot as frequently in each half? ITEM:
ITEM: On a night without Duncan, who didn’t know Ginobili would “go off”? And that being the case, why did the Mavs open with JET covering Ginobili and J-Ho chasing Bowen?
ITEM: On a night when Ginobili was going off, why not give him the normal “Duncan treatment” (rotating as many able bodies as were available and using up 18-24 fouls on the guy to keep him from driving left at will?)
ITEM: We strongly insist that Avery is mis-managing Devin Harris (like we thought Pop did with Parker early on until finally turning him loose last season). Turn the kid loose, and let’s roll with the punches. A national story of up-coming young point guards in the league today didn’t even mention Harris. That’s on Avery. (Granted, Harris was pressing last night – as was Parker, especially in the first half…but a look at the final box score tells how all that turned out!) Avery appears to being over-coaching and playing mind games with Harris – kind of like Parcells did with TO last year. Give the kid a little love, keep featuring him, speak kindly of him in public…and take him completely off “the leash.”
Our standard line on Devin Harris applies here: If he does not succeed, it will be an indictment of him – and his head coach.
ITEM: Down the stretch, JET was the only guy with fire in his belly. That will not do. Stackhouse is a shadow of himself but still continues to get minutes and take shots (maybe he ought to get back to eating unhealthy again…because his shot is gone right now and his energy level on the court is very low.) We’re heading down to the AAC this afternoon, and we’re thinking of picking up some KFC, and dumping it into Jerry’s locker.
ITEM: Any film study of the Spurs this year reveals a strong tendency to “give a clinic” coming out of halftime; it’s a sign of fine coaching. For some reason, didn’t that seemed to catch the Mavs off-guard last night?
ITEM: We’re not in love with Ager. We’re not in love with Hassell. But we’d rather see a lot more of them and a lot less of, say, JJB. If this regular season is about getting ready for the post-season, we’ve got to believe Ager should be of more use more often than JJB. But he won’t be if he doesn’t get some serious burn during the regular season. In fact, if it’s experiment time, maybe Ager needs a sniff at least as much as Hassell or Jones or George or even Stackhouse. It’s another sign of the twisted “plan’’ right now; are we “building,’’ “experimenting,’’ “tinkering,’’ “going retro’’? JJB and Ager are interesting cases down there at the end of the bench. Ager, buried at a position where we need help. JJB getting to play through mistakes while Devin is not allowed the same luxury. Weird.
ITEM: Did we not learn from Golden State that big is better? Once again, the other team goes small, and we counter by: Burying our centers. Asking Dirk to be a center. Asking Bass to guard a small. Playing a tiny backcourt. Oh, and losing. Just a thought here, but in SA, Francisco Elson is often mentioned as one of the “fleeter big men” in the NBA. Again, watching closely from Row 12, pretty much every time he was given the opportunity last night, Diop was running with Elson stride for stride last night. The Mavs centers are NOT athletic liabilities. They are rare commodities rendered invisible just because the other team dictates it. Ridiculous.
