Game 70 “Crossroads” : DAL (35-35) @ SAS (18-51)| 137-128 WIN!

[omahen]

suddenly Luka figures out how to use his team

I am not sure, are you actually trying to claim Luka is the one somehow holding this team back? Sure he is not perfect. But we also have quite a decent track record of what he does bring to the team and how he is always his best version in the playoffs. The thing is, the team around him is not build in a way to help with any of his weakness. He was surrounded with players who were very limited on offense but are also not elite defenders. Mavs also lack high energy guys with Green being basically the only one in that deparment. Brunson was helping with offense. Kyrie is even a better version, but he also doesn't help with defense and one of rare good defenders (DFS) is gone. No help in the form of vet leaders too (unless Kyrie fills this need).

Lets look at some stats, last four games without Luka compared to regular season average and the league average.

1. Mavs defense sucks. With or without Luka. Mavs defrtg for the season is 115.5, good for 23rd in the league. This rating is basically the same (115.6) in Luka on minutes. In the last four games the def rtg is 114 which would put Mavs on 18th place in the league. Barely a significant improvement. Mavs allow 50.8 points in the paint for season, 50 in last four games. Can't find the number with Luka on the court, but those two numbers would suggest there is no significant difference. So it is very obvious, Mavs defensive problems go way beyond just Luka. 
2. Mavs play slowly. With or without Luka. Mavs pace for the season is 96.92 (29th in the league) in minutes with Luka 97.43 (27th in the league). Last four games it was 98.07 (24th in the league). For the season Mavs score 9.3 % of points from fast breaks, in the last 4 games this was 9.6 %. Both put Mavs on 29th place in the league. Luka number is even worse with only 8.5 % points coming from fastbreak with him on the floor. Mavs score 14.2 % of points from TO on average, good for 20th in the league. With Luka on the floor, Mavs score 14.9 % of points from TO and in the last four games Mavs scored 13.7 % of points from TO.  Same conclusion as in point 1 - Mavs pace problems go beyond Luka.