A Few Thoughts on Mavs 109, Pacers 112

[mavsluvr]

"The refs did him no favors, calling him for a foul when his gather resulted in an elbow in his opponent's face, even though he had been hit in the back on the play."

This NBA obsession with rewarding flopping and drawing fouls by crowding up in an offensive player's body has to stop.  If a big player like Boban can be called for a foul by merely bringing up his arms for a shot, then all a defender has to do to take him out of the equation is just get his body right up against the offensive big.  At that point, there is just about no option for the big to do anything without making contact with the defender.

As usual, great synopsis.  I thought either Boban or WCS should have been in the game in those last three minutes when the Mavs were unable to score because at least we could have gotten the ball to them inside and draw defenders, which should have left somebody with a better look, or possibly allow WCS or Boban to draw a foul and get to the line.

Boban/WCS instead of Wright? So, a three-big lineup?

This is an example of a "grind mode" offense which all of the championship elite teams have, even the poster child of the small ball era, Golden State Warriors or the current NBA star studded Lakers who utilize Maverick cast-off Javale McGee and not-quite-washed-up-after-all Dwight Howard along with the long limbed super skilled Anthony Davis. 

The Lakers can grind a team up inside, bang on them, even use a guy like McGee to cheat foul a Maverick like they did Seth Curry, all different ways to win a game. 

I took the point there as not necessarily Boban/WCS instead of Wright but to have somebody at the 5 position that can get a high % shot inside and/or draw a foul and/or suck in the defense so that shooters like Luka, KP, THJ, Seth Curry etc. get a really good look during the clutch.

These big bodies also demand more attention and focus from the opponents front line player rather than leaving them free to disrupt and beat up the Mavericks stars and skilled players.  This not only increases the 'L' count but also can add to the injury body count for Dallas. 
Its alway seemed a bit crazy to me that otherwise genius coaches like Don Nelson, Mike D'Antoni and yes our own Rick Carlisle just never seem to have that in their play books.  
Fortunately the Mavericks 2011 Championship team had Tyson Chandler, Brendan Haywood and Ian Mahinmi all grinding inside and protecting Dirk, Kidd and company.  
Maybe Carlisle lucked into that big powerful front line and maybe the NBA championship went to his head so much that he decided he could fully do his offense any way he want to and declare the big man inside play dead and done. 

The fact remains, we're seeing how powered offenses that for some reason can be shut down just during the times when it matters most during games.

Just trying to get a sense of what the idea would look like. I don't remember Rick ever playing Chandler, Haywood and Mahinmi at the same time, although I might not remember every single 
experiment. 

The thing is, if you put Boban or WCS in, you don't get to just add him to the mix, you have to take someone else out. I thought he was suggesting luka/thj/maxi/kp/Boban-WCS as the closing lineup. It seems like you might substitute Boban-WCS for Maxi, and leave Wright in.