GAME 2: Brooklyn Nets (0-2) vs. Dallas Mavericks (2-0) | 120-125 WIN!!!!!

[DanSchwartzgan]

Maybe Kidd is right about Lively but I still would have liked to see him.  Especially knowing he is going to have rough stretches during the year, I would like to take advantage and give him experience and build his confidence.  When he is not in the rotation, you just feel how light we are at center.  I thought Powell was excellent.  I am not a fan of the center maxi minutes with no size.  Maybe I will change my opinion but I would go with maxi and Powell together.  They play well together and if Luka is on the floor they should be put in good situations.  While Lively had two non dunks (I believe) they were both plays we didn’t see at all while he was at Duke.  Anything non dunk for him in a bonus.  I was expecting the worst from him with touch around the rim.  It will probably still be bad but we are seeing glimpses for down the road.

It really appears we are missing one long wing.  OMAx would fill this need.  We may just need to wait on him.  It just feels like there is 20-25 minutes or so that are the taking.  I feel this will be a constant thought for the first half of the season.

I really want Hardaway to be aggressive trying to score.  It is just sometimes don’t want to be that aggressive…if that makes sense.

I think you’ve been crushing it with your takes lately.  Like this and the one you had right after the game last night.  Great that we got the win, but it was frustrating to watch as no one really played well outside of Luka (well, DP, but everyone knows you can’t stop him…you can only hope to contain him).

I like to look at the data before posting and neither Popcorn Machine nor B-Ref has the game flow posted.  I think we are going to have to put up with lineup experimentation for a while and just hope it doesn’t cost us too many games.  NBA.com does have two games worth of lineup data.  It is interesting to note that Green with the other four starters has a net rating of +65.8 while DJJ with the same guys is -6.1 (sample is obviously small).  Josh has been fairly turnover prone so far this season.  I probably would have been more happy with last night’s game if he’d have hit one of those 3’s and gotten to 10 points.

I think we have our 5th starter in Green.  But, to your point of needing one more wing, even if Green started, there is still a hole on the roster that I don’t think anyone fills well.  There is nothing I’ve seen in the early going that says DJJ with the bench would work and I’ve not seen anything from anyone else that says THIS is the guy who could do what Josh is doing with the bench.  At least Kidd has been smart enough to close games with Green.

Interesting data point on Lively.  Everyone wants to see more Lively…including me.  But, the D-Rating was the worst of anyone on the team last night (123) when he was in the game.  The O-Rating was also 123, so he was a net nothing, but that was better than Powell (the problem with the small Powell sample is no one could score at all…except Powell).  I agree, I feel really insecure about the D when Maxi is the lone big.  One of the reasons I want to look at flow data is to see the Lively/Maxi and Powell/Maxi data.  It feels more secure defensively, but the eye test can fool you.  If it were me, I’d probably give Lively/Williams 30 minutes and Powell/Maxi the other 18 and call it a day.  There isn’t anyone I’m just dying to add to the 4/5 rotation right now.  

That leaves the 1, 2 and 3 being covered by Luka, Kyrie, Green and THJ plus ‘stuff’.  Stuff seems inadequate right this moment, but what should we expect as the candidates are all low-dollar adds or first/second year guys.  What I think we need is that guy who is so obviously better than Josh (or Williams, I don’t care which) that we all agree Josh (or GWill) should come off the bench.  Add THAT guy and this team is really strong.  Heck, I think we will be just fine starting Josh and GWill, but we still need someone like what you’ve described to round out the bench.  I think Hardy could certainly get to Cam Thomas type play, but that doesn’t fit defensively between THJ and Irving.  So, even if Hardy got there, it would require more extensive changes.