A Few Thoughts on Mavs 149, Rockets 153

[mavsluvr]

After watching this game, I don't know whether the team can win a first-round series, but I definitely think they could make a series against just about any team competitive, and that whoever opposes them in the first round is not going to think they got an easy draw. It is really tough for an inexperienced team to make a playoff run, and if they make a good account of themselves, I think it will give them a lot of confidence, and that their future is bright, assuming good health

I too was ultimately encouraged as painful as it was to watch the loss. The Mavs are right there and they have NO real experience and NO business being able to hang with teams and players that have a decade of experience battling for the title. Every great team and player has to earn their way in through many crucial losses and disappointments. You learn through failure. Buckle up if you want to watch Luka succeed in this league, there is going to be some significant failure.

I think there is a lot to this analysis. 

When I try to step back from the individual result and think about it as if I were responsible for improving this team, I feel like there is a great base of talent and character to work with. The result was, statistically speaking, a tie, and that is a more than respectable result against the dialed-in Rockets in a playoff-style game. 

It seems to me that, generally speaking, this group looks a season away from truly being a contender. As impressive as they are, they still make a lot of "little" execution errors that are probably fixable with time. By contender standards, they just don't look sharp, and they are still lacking that "killer instinct" -- that hypervigilance, unrelenting every-single-second focus, aggressiveness at pouncing on every opponent error, and ability to raise their game on defense and rebounding in the clutch that seasoned contenders exhibit. 

I think it's likely that they'll get there, and I have more hope than I have had in a number of years. But I don't think it looks like being fixed this season. There's just too much that needs to come together in too short a time. Nevertheless, I look for these guys to make some noise even now. And they're going to be a barrel of fun to watch as they blossom before our eyes.

Anyway, good points!