PLAYOFFS: WC 1st Rnd - (2) LAC (4-2) vs. (7) DAL (2-4) | DAL Eliminated

[omahen]

This is all going according to plan, and getting manhandled by the league's best team will only accelerate our Mavs' growth.

I don't care about Clippers series. Clippers are best team this season in my opinion and they are clearly better than Mavs. What I don't like is that Mavs didn't win a single important game in the bubble. Houston, first Phoenix game, Clippers, Portland were games that could put them in play to avoid Clippers and they lost them all. The message Mavs left for me was - we are fun to watch as long as the opponents let us, but when things get serious, we dissapear. Opponent gets a bit physical and we submit. Luka and KP are great, but other guys were greatly overpowered. DFS basically left third best impression, but he is just asked to do too much on defense. He is too weak to guard serious wings and he is not a PF. THJ and Curry were a total no show on defense. 

Bench is depleted, but can't be really an excuse. Nets came without half a team and they are doing their best to kick out Portland in a game that has no importance for them. That is heart! Mavs lost to Phoenix by 20 and the game was finished by halftime.

[KillerLeft]

They're BABIES, by professional sports standards. They make so many mistakes. Every game is a lesson. Basketball is played after the all star break, and this year, the bubble was the closest thing we got to that.

I fully expect them to have some rough moments in this series against the Clippers, and that's OK!

[ClutchDirk]

https://twitter.com/NotoriousOHM/status/...2643507200

[donzingis38]

**** it. Mavs in 7

Need THJ and Seth to shoot like the splash bros though. Not worried about Luka/KP.

[ThisIStheYear]

5 games. Luka does something crazy like a 35 point triple double in a losing game 5 effort to give Mavs fans some hope for next year.

[burekemde]

Mavs in 6 or 7. Mavs will figure out to use KP and Maxi protect the rim, and let them just come inside to them. This is the best defense we can make, its scary how they protect the paint. I want to see dFS and MKG play more. Let them penetrate and try score over KP and Maxi. It will take them out of rhytm, it will be a block party as we have seen this season often.

THJ Curry need to be better on d.

[DanSchwartzgan]

Sorry guys.  LAC in four...five max.  We aren't there yet, are extremely thin and can't close games yet. I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than to set myself up for disappointment.

[Hypermav]

Sorry guys.  LAC in four...five max.  We aren't there yet, are extremely thin and can't close games yet. I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than to set myself up for disappointment.

[ItsGoTime]

Mavs in 2. We beat them so badly in the first 2 games that they quit!

[Hypermav]

https://theathletic.com/1997562/2020/08/...-and-more/

Clippers view of the series.

[mtrot]

This is all going according to plan, and getting manhandled by the league's best team will only accelerate our Mavs' growth.

I don't care about Clippers series. Clippers are best team this season in my opinion and they are clearly better than Mavs. What I don't like is that Mavs didn't win a single important game in the bubble. Houston, first Phoenix game, Clippers, Portland were games that could put them in play to avoid Clippers and they lost them all. The message Mavs left for me was - we are fun to watch as long as the opponents let us, but when things get serious, we dissapear. Opponent gets a bit physical and we submit. Luka and KP are great, but other guys were greatly overpowered. DFS basically left third best impression, but he is just asked to do too much on defense. He is too weak to guard serious wings and he is not a PF. THJ and Curry were a total no show on defense. 

Bench is depleted, but can't be really an excuse. Nets came without half a team and they are doing their best to kick out Portland in a game that has no importance for them. That is heart! Mavs lost to Phoenix by 20 and the game was finished by halftime.

Exactly.  Mavs are just too soft and have been that way for years.  The question is, why is this not changing?

[Scott41theMavs]

This is all going according to plan, and getting manhandled by the league's best team will only accelerate our Mavs' growth.

I don't care about Clippers series. Clippers are best team this season in my opinion and they are clearly better than Mavs. What I don't like is that Mavs didn't win a single important game in the bubble. Houston, first Phoenix game, Clippers, Portland were games that could put them in play to avoid Clippers and they lost them all. The message Mavs left for me was - we are fun to watch as long as the opponents let us, but when things get serious, we dissapear. Opponent gets a bit physical and we submit. Luka and KP are great, but other guys were greatly overpowered. DFS basically left third best impression, but he is just asked to do too much on defense. He is too weak to guard serious wings and he is not a PF. THJ and Curry were a total no show on defense.

Bench is depleted, but can't be really an excuse. Nets came without half a team and they are doing their best to kick out Portland in a game that has no importance for them. That is heart! Mavs lost to Phoenix by 20 and the game was finished by halftime.

Exactly. Mavs are just too soft and have been that way for years. The question is, why is this not changing?

Count three posts up from yours. That's why.

---

The Clippers should be the prohibitive favorites to win the championship this year in spite of not having the best record, and they are. They were already a badass team last year (once again, soooo frustrating, since they deserved years of misery after the douchiness of the CP-Blake-VAJ-Doc era, but, in a Spurs-like way, you have to take your hats off to them while gagging), and then they added two superstars with the most coveted skillsets in the league (defensive, athletic wings who are also top-flyte scorers). They should be embarrassed to whatever extent they fail to go 16-0.

My head tells me Clippers in 4. My heart tells me Clippers in 5. Both tell me that if Luka, KP, and the misfit toys somehow beat the Clippers in this series in a way that doesn't involve LAC injuries, we're winning rings this year.

[KillerLeft]

Exactly.  Mavs are just too soft and have been that way for years.  The question is, why is this not changing?

In my opinion, nothing between 2011 and last season counts because there were very few glimpses of anything resembling a "team" during that chunk of time. Even if some disagree with that statement, surely, we can all agree that it's ridiculous to compare a team built around Monta Ellis and an ancient Dirk to one built around Harrison Barnes or one built around Luka Doncic. 

Basically, this current journey started about midway through last season, when the Mavs got smart enough to give Luka the ball, make him the PG and trade away the poser known as Dennis Smith Jr. That was ground zero - the beginning. Anything before that is irrelevant. 

Now, we're in year two (2!!!) and the team is already setting record offensive standards and has earned a spot in the playoffs. Luka is an MVP candidate at 21 years old. KP looks like he's slowly rounding back into form, and we can cautiously say that he's a good fit here. Don't forget that the pick and roll lob threat went away when Powell got injured. I know he's not the most popular player on the team, but I'm not overselling things when I say that the role he plays in the offense was integral to the team's design, and to be honest, he played that role superbly well. 

Yes, they're a work in progress. They've clearly made a shift in philosophy to focus more on offensive rebounding, which has resulted in one of the worst transition defenses we've ever seen from the Mavs. They don't yet have a killer instinct on defense, or for that matter, even on offense, despite their obviously tailor made system. They're a team of young players built around a (literal) kid, so yeah, they make numerous mistakes during every game, even on top of the above deficiencies.

Are they mentally tough? Not in the way that wins playoff games, no! But, no rational person could expect them to be (yet), at least not one who has seen the cycle of a team from start to finish. Do we not remember how long it took Dirk's Mavericks to get to the finals, and then to win them? 

If you're looking at this team's chances against the Clippers in this series and trying to pin them to Luka or Carlisle as some sort of disappointment, I have a feeling you're going to be bummed out for a few years to come. Me? I'm just grateful to finally have the opportunity to follow a real team being built the right way. The ride is the thing, not just the destination. That's what all those waste of time, tread-water blow-off seasons between 2011 and last year taught me.

[Scott41theMavs]

Me? I'm just grateful to finally have the opportunity to follow a real team being built the right way.

KL, I'm pleased as punch that you've found us here, and really look forward to reading your contributions. I liked (even though I didn't necessarily agree with) most of this post. This line though - serious question to a happy optimist, how can you look at the summer of 2019 and say the team is being built the right way?

Another question - didn't KP rather replace DP in his role when Powell got injured, and isn't that a far more promising usage of KP (who is obviously several times more important) than going back to using Powell as he was used?

[KillerLeft]

Hey Scott, good to see you.

When I say "the right way" I mean they're building around a guy who really is good enough to warrant it. That doesn't mean everything they try will work, either short term or long term. Building a professional title contender in any sport is tough, man. Luka makes it possible, but not guaranteed. Still, don't take for granted that they made the playoffs in year 2! Lebron James couldn't do that, so obviously, it's not ONLY Luka's presence on the floor getting things done.

As far as what they did last summer, I think they had the right idea, tbh. Not everyone they targeted believed in their (at the time) 20 year old, but as he matures, more and more of those "no, thank you" responses will turn into "oh HELL yeah!" That seems clear, and I'm pretty confident about it.

Like I said, I like what they tried to do with Wright, Curry and Boban. Wright, in particular, has been a huge disappointment, but he's exactly the type of player they're missing: a defensive-minded GUARD with size (but still clearly a guard, and not a wing). Wright could've been that guy, but for whatever reason, he has failed on the offensive end both as shooter (good percentage, but he's just too gun-shy) and as a handler (OMG he is painful to watch with the ball in his hands). What that means is that he literally can't be played most of the time. Carlisle has given him chance after chance, but it just hasn't worked. Boban and Curry have both had moments this year where they seemed like successful acquisitions, though both are clearly only complementary players.

If you didn't like last off season, my hunch is that you probably won't like the next one, either. They'll look for little ways to improve again, as all logic points to a big swing for the fences during the summer of 2022. Giannis, Oladipo, whoever. Luka will then be 23, still an MVP candidate, and by then he'll have made friends around the league. It's so clear to me. They'll move Powell between now and then, offer a max slot, and someone who moves the needle is going to take it.

---

Another question - didn't KP rather replace DP in his role when Powell got injured, and isn't that a far more promising usage of KP (who is obviously several times more important) than going back to using Powell as he was used?

I mean, he did and he didn't. I agree that KP is the better player (obvs) and yes, they started playing him more and more at center, eventually playing him there exclusively (praise Jebus). This forced the Mavs to start working the Luka/KP game a little more aggressively, but honestly, the slow roll into that part of the offense might have been due to KP's injury, so maybe we'd be seeing more of that by now even with a healthy Powell. Not sure.

I do think the Luka/Powell pick and roll was special, and it created an unbelievable amount of space by extending the offense vertically. I'm not sure how they move forward with both he and KP on the roster, and like I said above, I think they see his contract as the only obstacle to a max slot. We'll have to wait and see how that pans out. But, regardless of what happens in the future, the offense that was designed during the last off-season and implemented during this season's training camp (with a 2nd year point guard) was absolutely built with Powell's rim running in mind. The fact that they've adapted so quickly and are still making defenses look silly is a testament to both Luka and Carlisle, in my opinion.

[Scott41theMavs]

Great post, KL. I do understand the concept of having that one great guy to build around. I think they've accelerated the process by getting a second star whom we would have seen as a reasonable alternative cornerstone had we known how good he would look at the end of this year. Your post is actually so persuasive as to get me to consider stomaching an offseason in which we don't finish the starting lineup. 

Do your max slot calculations include a THJ extension? I think he can only productively be kept if the extension is $14 mil per or less. Considering I don't think the team is doing anything if he's higher overall than 5th in the quality/pecking order, that still seems like a lot of money, and it's hard to imagine he stays for less. If he picks up his player option, do they just tread water with him until he expires, doing that 2021 swing for the fences? Or do they trade him for a different expirer? I still rather believe that the best option is to find a way *this summer* to dump the team's bad contracts (THJ at his current price, Wright, and Powell) and make sure anyone else we acquire is either paid at something close to value or expiring in 2021. That way, we could easily do the Heat trick - trade away those good deals to clear room for that max guy (without even necessarily having to attach assets to them like the Heat did, iirc). If we get one of the league's best bargains this offseason with our MLE, that would obviously apply to him as well. I am also quite concerned that the failure to acquire at least one real starter to put next to Luka and KP is wasting a year in which they will be ready to be pretenders if not contenders, and that that could seriously disgruntle our baby star. I guess my bottom line is no plan powder, but rather plan Riley.

[StepBackJay]

I think I disagree that they are going to dump Powell. I haven't done the math but I think you can do a max slot without moving Powell. This assumes that we aren't adding any new money. The cap could be 125 and I believe Wright will be off the team by that point. It's probably possible to keep THJ + DP and still create a max slot. I am fairly certain the Mavs will offer THJ exactly how much they need to in order to preserve that slot.

Powell might actually be okay if he joins the second unit with Maxi. As much as Powell was above-the-rim on offense he was a feet on the ground, arms up defender so not a ton lost there. The big question is whether or not Powell will still be effective as a roll man in PnR. I think he will be because rolling to the basket isn't all ab your vertical ability. I also would look to Rudy Gay as a favorable comparison to Powell in terms of age and athleticism when he suffered his achilles. RG has still had a very good career since then. I could see Powell still being an effective roll man and better suited for the bench.

All that to say I believe KP as center with 5 out is how Rick is going to play his starting unit. I don't think there's any doubt which means that KP and Powell will not play a lot together, especially in the starting unit. Mavs really need a good defender that plays bigger than his size. There are a bunch of SF/PF's that could be stop gaps this year.

I fully expect the Mavs to do like short-term contracts this year. I would be very surprised to see a full MLE thrown at anybody. The one guy that could get extended is THJ. I am expecting short-term moves that shore up the team for 1 season while they try to land a bigger fish. The one caveat is that Mavs have ammunition this summer to land a big fish so that wrinkle where I could see them landing a big fish sooner than later.

[omahen]

I think I disagree that they are going to dump Powell. I haven't done the math but I think you can do a max slot without moving Powell. This assumes that we aren't adding any new money. The cap could be 125 and I believe Wright will be off the team by that point. It's probably possible to keep THJ + DP and still create a max slot. I am fairly certain the Mavs will offer THJ exactly how much they need to in order to preserve that slot.

I think you are optimistic here. Based on Corona situation, we might be happy if cap stays at this year level (109 mil) in 2021. NBA is planning for 2020/21 season without fans. Wright is not off the books in the summer of 2021 yet. Without any new money, Mavs have 84 million committed salaries in the summer of 2021, so some 25 million of cap space. But I will be really pissed if they don't add something this offseason. 

I agree it is a waste of money moving Powell, when his value is such negative due to injury. Besides, they love him and that's why they paid him. I think he will be here to stay.

I am expecting short-term moves that shore up the team for 1 season while they try to land a bigger fish. The one caveat is that Mavs have ammunition this summer to land a big fish so that wrinkle where I could see them landing a big fish sooner than later.

Looks like the summer 2019 lesson was not strong enough  We don't need cap space to sign a max guy. We need best possible guys on good contracts, not just wasting money on one year rentals. Unless we have Giannis relatives locked somewhere as collateral and we are 100 % sure we are getting him

I can accept the slow building and patient team building concept they started in 2019. But I want them to continue on this path, add a solid couple of pieces while try to eliminate the couple of mistakes made. No need to stand pat waiting for 2021 and no need to break the team apart and change everything but Luka and KP.

[StepBackJay]

I can't imagine the MBT ever learning the lesson of 2019 or any other year where they have tried to land a big FA. Many a decade from now they will change but not any time soon.

That being said they have the ability to make a big 3 this summer if they want to because they have lots of assets. Could they go ahead and get that 3rd guy now rather than wait on the Giannis sweepstakes? The best thing that could happen is Giannis signing that Supermax deal this offseason. He is the one guy the Mavs think they can get so being off the table would be the best thing we could hope for imo.

Mavs have THJ's expiring, #18, GSW, and cheap, productive players like Maxi, DFS, Curry, Brunson that could all be moved in some kind of big trade. Obviously we don't want to have to give those guys up but then you also have to consider that role guys are easier to replace than whatever the big Fish player is you traded for.

Gordon is my favorite target bc I think he's very gettable, a great fit and is young enough to fit with the same Luka, KP age window. Most other targets in 2021 are much older. Oladipo is maybe the next youngest target and he's already 28. Jrue is another guy that's been on our radar because of fit but he's already 30. We knew the Mavs were willing to get then 29 yr old Kemba so I think Oladipo is definitely in play but there's really not a long list of guys in the star/almost star mold that are available anytime soon.

Assuming the Mavs don't get the player they want I expect them to make short-term moves like 1 yr deals for FAs and/or targets on 1 yr deals like Danny Green. FA has plenty of options for role guys this year. Best case scenario to me is you get Gordon and punt on 21 or you get Gordon and find a way to dump both Wright and Powell in order to preserve cap space for 2021.

[omahen]

find a way to dump both Wright and Powell in order to preserve cap space for 2021

I agree with the rest, good stuff. Just this - we are not forced to dump them now. We can do it in 2021 if need be.