(12-04-2019, 11:45 PM)LukTheShadow Wrote: Kamm, I can not vote for refs ... they're playing a lot...
Jalen is the man of the evening big time!
DP was excellent, but is a difference between assisted execution and win creation in Q4.
Well, from my point of view.
You know, what stood out in Powell's performance for me was that there were multiple plays that HE created. It was a new thing that he hasn't done this year. He is usually a vital cog, but gets the ball in non-scoring situations and is getting rid of the ball like a hot potato. He had a pump-fake-drive-dunk on Towns that made me ask who the F is this that has possession of Powell's body. That was beast mode Powell.
This was no doubt a shared dirkie situation. They pretty much PERFECTLY complimented each other - and Powell only stopped due to cracking his arm on KP's apparently rock hard abs!!! (side bar. seriously, wth? if there is a collision with someones arm and another person's upper groin/lower abdomen, and the dude that got hit in the gut doesn't flinch, and the other dude is writhing in pain? What just happened? I don't think I have ever seen anything like that. KP didn't seem impacted at all. Razor hips? What a freak injury, wow!) Powell was really the guy the first 3 quarters and the Mavs are pretty much getting blown out without him. He may have KEPT giving MIN the business, who knows?
That takes NOTHING away from Jalen's performance. His aggression (which he regularly plays with) coincided with efficiency and he is the reason we pull away and win, comfortably. I have voted the dirkie for that type of impactful, albeit not full-game, performance before and it is deserving here! He did nothing for most of the game and was HUGE in the 4th.
In a game with those performances, my favorite take away was from KP. He smiled. A LOT. That has been missing in his game. It was huge to see, and I hope that in a game where he struggled in the early part, that his end game success, (and camaraderie that comes with contributing the way he did down the stretch in a big win, and JOY in playing the game he loves), carries over to the next few games. Maybe that gets him out of his funk and, possibly, out of his own head. He has played tight and rushed, and maybe now he can relax a bit and have some fun! Winning is fun, but some people don't enjoy it when they don't feel like they have contributed to it. In his interviews, it seems like he has internalized his struggles - maybe being a contributor down the stretch is what the Dr. ordered!
Lastly, leading up to Luka's draft, Luka was consistently voted by evaluators as the player with the highest FLOOR. People who "doubted him", (I don't think anyone thought he couldn't play), questioned his ceiling. While we have all likely been guilty of underestimating how great he actually would be, I think it is pretty amazing that in this game, we sort of got a view of Luka's "high floor". My oh my is it high. lol Seriously though, if you were to plot out Luka's game performances this season 3 games would stick out as bad game outliers - This game, Clippers (about the same as this), and Denver (actually worse). But yeah, this is what a bad night looks like for this guy!!! Good times.