A Few Thoughts on Mavs 149, Rockets 153

[mavsluvr]

The team is young.  At the same time, I would like every possession in the last 5 mins to be a designed two man play with Kp and Luka. Everyone else’s shots should feed off that. Having that plan in mind makes it simpler also.  If we lose due to that strategy, I am fine with it. Right now the last 5 mins always seems haphazard.

Edit:  Also, why not play Boban on the late possessions in both regulation and overtime?  The Mavs were ineffective at that point against Houston's defense so why not change the paradigm?  There's no way the Rockets' small ball roster should have been able to keep the Mavs from getting the ball to Boban on the block.  Lots of good things can happen from that point, all of them much better than Luka dribbling out the shot clock on the perimeter.  And Boban also tends to draw fouls and shoots his FTs decently as well.  I just don't get RC at all, never have. 

Yeah, I would have been intrigued to see that tried. Carlisle only used Boban in the five minutes that James Harden was off the floor. He doesn't usually play KP and Boban together, except when he is trying to load up on rebounders after a free throw, and I understand why he didn't want to take KP off the floor to put Boban on. 

But. Stan Van Gundy said recently that one of the main things he regrets from his Pistons days is that he didn't play Boban more. He said that, as a coach, he was always very wrapped up in the defensive end of the floor, where Bobi could be a problem. But considering how unstoppable Boban was offensively, Stan wishes he would have gone ahead and played him anyway, and just dealt with whatever defensive issues arose. 

I think a lot of times coaches in general, including but not limited to Carlisle, get very involved in trying to neutralize the opposition, even at the expense of failing to take advantage of their own strengths, and BM might be a case in point. Playing him late would have been a gamble, but, as you point out, the Rockets would have been unlikely to be able to stop him on the block, and given that both the offense and defense were collapsing anyway, it might well have been a gambit worth taking. 

Anyway, I hope we get to see Bobi more in the bubble. He is truly a phenomenon around the basket.