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

[Smitty]

It’s not popular to defend Kidd on here. Believe me, I’ve criticized him plenty. But his two stars are poor defenders. His best defender, Maxi, has missed 37 games of a possible 65. Second best defender, Exum, has missed 26 games.

This team has shown that they can play excellent defense and they’ve shown the exact opposite, in back to back weeks, even game to game. And that’s honestly what I expect when nobody on the team has played together all season.

The Mavs and Grizzlies are the only teams in the West that don’t have a 5 man lineup that’s played 100+ minutes together. The top 4 in the West average 640 minutes played for their top 5-man lineups. The Mavs - 88 minutes.

Defense in the NBA regular season seems optional these days but to just be average you need effort, availability and continuity. Effort will always be an issue with a Luka led team. Availability hasn’t been the case this year and continuity comes with time.

The scheme obviously has flaws and to me it looks like they’re working through those things. Some games it looks good and others the communication and effort isn’t there. I watched the Celtics defense against the Mavs and it was a joke. Of course the Mavs couldn’t make anything but they’re supposed to be the best of the best and they looked like a G league team on the defensive end that night.

Hopefully they get it figured out because if they can just be average consistently, their offense is good enough to be dangerous.

Good job Kidd. 

I was responding to Hero here, who didn’t like Kidd implementing a new defensive scheme mid-season. I bash the head coach plenty. Want to give credit where credit is due.

Go Mavs!