AROUND the NBA: Pat Bev Suspended 4 Games Next Season| PHX Fires Vogel

[Chicagojk]

2. When the Dallas bigs go for two!

What a slog this season is becoming for Team Holding Pattern. Every third game, they catch the rhythm of their conference finals run -- mostly because they happen to hit 3s. Tim Hardaway Jr. and Reggie Bullock find their strokes, and for a blissful few hours the "So, what exactly are we doing around Luka Doncic?" existentialism fades.

The Mavs lead the league in free throw rate, so they're not entirely dependent on 3s -- but damned if it doesn't feel that way. Doncic supplies a lot of those free throws himself, and on too many nights the Mavs get nothing in transition or at the rim. Threes are fickle. The rim is king. It is reliable, and the Mavs are starved for more reliability.

When defenses trap Doncic, his screening partners should do more of this:

Hardaway and Dorian Finney-Smith are open when Maxi Kleber catches that pass. Kleber and the Dallas bigs are not required by law to pass to those shooters. Hunt the tin! (In fairness, Dwight Powell is a voracious rim-runner and Christian Wood has spent less time loitering around the arc.)

No one is calling for some sea change; the Luka-and-3s machine works in the aggregate. But recalibrating 5% of their offense toward rim pursuit would help against the best teams.
None of this addresses the Mavs' need for a second creator better than Spencer Dinwiddie and a third option better than ... present-day Dirk Nowitzki? Derek Harper? Jason Kidd?

I had hopes for the Doncic/Dinwiddie/Wood triumvirate, but Dallas is minus-34 in 106 minutes with those three on the floor. Kidd is reluctant to use Wood as the only big man. The Doncic/Wood/Kleber trio has been fantastic, but the foursome of Doncic, Dinwiddie, Wood, and Kleber has logged just 14 minutes. Is that something?

What's that? Kleber -- the most well-rounded and therefore least replaceable Dallas big -- is out at least six weeks? Ugh.
This team is confusing and strange. Doncic's body language is reaching "LeBron before the 2018 trade deadline" levels of sullenness.

Ugh!  Well that is depressing.   

Having Green out is really tough.  He was at least something fresh.   The rest of the team feels so stale.  It is amazing they can be so stale when they have such a unique player leading them.