MAVS NEWS: Luka Is Hurt, But is Trudging On | DLive's Mom Passes Away| Maxi OUT

[SleepingHero]

Oh, sure they will! It’s just that you and I see different strategies for how to deal with that. 

You seem to care about matching up with them, whereas I see an opportunity to punish them easily for even attempting to play some slow-footed, single-brain-cell dinosaur in a basketball game against my team of movers and shooters. 

Earlier this season, I claimed that I would not be scared one bit of playing the Minnesota Timberwolves in a seven game series. I am actually more frightened of that prospect now than I was before the trade deadline, because the economics of the mavericks roster indicate that they believe as you do, that you have to throw big players at KAT, Gobert and Reid. That seems silly to me, because we literally watched our own mavericks team create the blueprint for how to beat Gobert, and it involved Kleber hitting 8 threes from the corner in a single game and Gobert looking like he did not even belong in the NBA.

They WANT you to try to matchup with their size. That is their entire strategy. That is how they beat you. They have zigged, and the way to beat them is to zag. Plus, it’s just a cooler way of playing basketball that is 1000 times more fun to watch.

You're absolutely correct here.

But what I might be confused about is that the Mavs can still play that way...? They have Maxi to play 5 out if they need to. PJ has shot close to 41% on catch and shoot threes for his career AND can play small ball 5 if needed. Mavs now have the ability to play big AND small. 

All I've seen with these deals is that the Mavs got even more flexible with the ability to play 48 minutes of pure Lively ball and if needed go 5 out super small with Maxi and a MUCH more effective (on paper) Grant Williams.

I'm like surfpuckmd in that I wasn't elated with the PJ deal. I was kind of out on him before the TDL and didn't want to give up the 2027. But I still understood why the Mavs wanted him and the upside was there. The jury is out if he will fit. But if he does, we saw how good this team looked with a 15ppg stretch 4 in the first 10 games when Grant Williams was effective.

So I'm optimistic.