Any chance vs the Mavs?
They went 48 wins last season and have now added Parsons, Tyson Chandler and Jameer Nelson, and Nelson is looking smooth in that pick and roll with Dirk and Tyson.
They are a far superior team to the Rockets and now that we've learned from that Rockets game- it's time to step up and see if we have the focus and discipline to stay with the Mavs through three quarters- and see what happens in the fourth.
I hope this team finds its identity, as Scalabrine suggested they seemed to lose against the Rockets- which is a great point.
What is that identity?
Well, it's what makes the Stevens system so great, similarly to Popovich's schemes on the Spurs, it's an aggressive system based on taking the initiative rather than reacting to your opponents- that way, you're trying not to react to the one or two franchise players every moves, you're trying make them react to you, always one step behind like a poor poker player.
Unfortunately against Houston, our players went into reaction mode very quickly. Be it nerves, or the first game on the road, they produced what can only be described as stage fright + late night in Marcus Smart's home town with airballs, terrible shooting and D-League level defense at multiple stages throughout the night.
-Stick to the three point strategy and open up the paint once a few threes go down.
The idea behind this is to wear out the Mavs early by making Ellis, Dirk and Chandler RUN their asses off in the first 2 quarters trying to defend the perimeter with pinpoint multiple accuracy...at the same time, make sure Sully or Olynyk/Bass get some action in the paint. Sullinger will have Chandler on him and he has dominated Chandler against New York.- let him try and draw a few easy fouls to disjoint the Mavs defense early. The key to our aggressive offense is ball movement from side to side, and as a natural side effect we'll get the wide open three point shots that are crucial to hitting early in the game to get a shooting groove going and take the crowd out of it early, which in turn will turn to room for our wings to attack the basket heading towards the first time out session.
- Focus on defense but don't get rattled early with a few fouls called against us.
- run the pick and roll with Rondo and our bigs.
- put Marcus Smart out there to guard the Mavs pick and roll and experience guarding the pick and roll against HOF pick n roll opponents. The Mavs are like a pick and roll coach's wet dream.
- Be physical but smart from the onset. Sullinger needs to overpower Tyson Chandler early and get him frustrated- Chandler's a sensitive player psychologically and he's easy to throw off.
- Make Ellis and Parsons shoot the threes and jumpshots early on- just make it the teams job to deny Dirk outside and Chandler on the pick and roll.
- Rebounding will be crucial to making the Mavericks run around and burn out early- without those rebounds we don't have any fast breaks or quick outlet passes which is a strength of ours with our youth, speed and coaching to get easy buckets/to the line with mismatches or easy fouls which will hopefully soften their defense early on. Of course the other cream on top is that is usually results in a boatload of wide open transition threes which we will not get without pounding the boards- Rondo's gotta be all over those boards and hitting Green and Olynyk with Peyton Manning lazers from one end to the other.
Couldn't be bothered going on any longer but those are some things to watch out for.
Ad your thoughts or things you'd like to see or think we will see
Topic: Real Contender: Dallas Mavs. What do we need to do, to have a shot ? (Read 5638 times)