A Few Thoughts on Mavs 99, Clippers 114

[omahen]

The Clippers may have put down the blueprint for defending KP by putting a smaller player on him

The rights to these go to Houston already, as Harden was guarding KP for extended period of time. In offense KP has only been dangerous as a spot up shooter so far. He did get at least one offensive rebound over the smaller player though. His post up play is limited to turnaround jumpers which are horribly inefficient at the moment.

But please, Clippers team is ELITE. They have 2 of the top 10 players in the league. They have 3 former all NBA defense team members. They have the multiple 6th man of the year. They have 4 guys averaging over 15 points per game. 

Mavs have one top 5 guy and one other good player (hopefully he can get to all star level again). None of them has been in the defensive player of the year conversations.  Only one other guy has the average over 10 points per game. It is clear Mavs are realistically not capable of competing with Clippers. Not yet!

Since it is becoming clear that none of the non Luka or KP bunch can reliably step up on a nightly basis, we need an upgrade to become a true contender. But we can afford to wait till summer as we are probably good enough to make playoffs this year.

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Chucking 3 pt offense is going to kill this team

What else can they do when facing a serious team playing defense? We don't have the quality. Our centers have 0 post up game. Half of every line-up we put on the floor is not really dangerous from three which enables oponents to prevent Powell rim runs. Only Luka and Brunson are capable of creating their own shot or for others. To some extent Seth and THJ. Wright looks affraid to look at the basket half of the time. It is not my intent to be overly critical, let's just be realistic what we have on the roster. It is good and will work greatly against teams letting them, but our limitations will be exposed against strong defenses. Especially ones capable of throwing several big bodies at Luka.