Mavericks Rant

I've been a Mavericks fan for most of my life. I steadfastly supported the team through 11 and 13 win seasons, through the complete dismantling of the Three Js, through the 10 years of playoff drought, and through the two biggest post seasons collapses in history. Of all of my favorite teams in every sport, I most want to celebrate a Mavs championship. Over the last 15 years I have THOROUGHLY considered about a million trades, free agent signings, and coaching moves that would make my Mavs Championship Dreams more realistic.

All that said, I'm about ready to call it quits on this year's team.

They have the talent: They are the deepest team in the league from 1 to 10, they have the MVP and a host of what should be complimentary players, and they have the perfect mix of veterans in their prime (Dirk, Terry) and young guys hitting their stride (Howard, Harris). They've got the coaching staff: Avery Johnson is a fantastic motivator and one of the best adjustments guys in the league, Paul Westphal is an offensive genius, and Mario Elie brings toughness that has been missing. They've got the owner: Mark Cuban will do ANYTHING and everything to get Dallas a ring. And they have the experience: They have been to the Finals and experienced the pain of an early exit and they should have learned from those experiences.

Yet they still struggle with the exact same things that have gotten them into trouble for the last 5 years. The whole team has problems with the fundamentals, the basketball IQ of the team as a whole is still very low, and they rely far too much on outside shooting. We'll take them one at a time.

FUNDAMENTALS
This team SUCKS in the fundamentals department. It's not that they are selfish or unwilling to work or anything like that. It's that they lack understanding of the basics and cannot seem to grasp the little things. A good zone defense can KILL the Mavs because they have no idea how to beat it. You beat the zone by swinging the ball across the court until a hole opens up and by getting a man in the middle of the zone, thereby sucking multiple defenders to the middle and leaving people open.

The Mavs do not perform the "Drive and Dish" very well at all. The NBA game is really built around two things: the pick and roll and the drive and dish. Drive to the basket, watch the defense collapse around you, and kick it to the open man. It's a very simple and effective way to, you know, score baskets.

And they have no idea how to feed the post, or anyone for that matter. Dirk gets DRILLED for his lack of a post game. In truth, 9 times out of 10, Dirk establishes position only to have Jason Terry or someone else move the ball to the other side of the court. If he's got position, get him the ball! Likewise, the Mavs often go 5 or 8 possessions in a row without getting Dirk the ball ANYWHERE on the court, even when he's on fire. STUPID.

These are things that decent 8th grade girls teams can do and there's no excuse for a good, veteran NBA team to struggle in all of these things consistently.

BASKETBALL IQ
Some of this goes hand in hand with the fundamentals. Not getting the ball to the guy with the hot hand is simply moronic. It makes things so much harder on the rest of the team and you often end up making the aforementioned hot hand frustrated leading to his drifting to the perimeter and not working for the ball. They take dumb, forced shots when there is no need to do so. And they commit 12 teams' share of stupid, unnecessary, frustration fouls. Howard and Harris, in particular, are constantly in foul trouble on reach ins and "I just turned the ball over and I'm mad so I'm going to hack this guy so I can gripe at the ref" fouls. STUPID. Avery ought to fine a guy $5k every time he commits one of these.

JUMPSHOOTING
This is the big one. One of my absolute biggest pet peeves is basketball teams that refuse to drive. Part of it is seeing that most of the championship teams of the past 20 years get a lot of their points in the paint and part of it comes from the fact that my own game revolved so much around driving and either finishing in the paint or kicking it out (and I'm a small guy!).

The fact is, it's easier to score points the closer you get to the basket! (Shocking, I know.) And, when you drive, you tend to suck the defense in, leaving teammates open for the beloved jumpshots! (Again, shocking.) You CANNOT win championships in the NBA by basing your whole offense on jumpshots. You just can't. You have to have someone on your team that either gets into the paint and finishes with consistency or can set up shop on the low post and score down low. But the Mavs do neither, at least not with any consistency.

The real frustrating thing is, they have guys that are capable of driving and scoring in the paint. There is no one in the league who can stop Devin Harris when he gets a step. He gets to the rim with reckless abandon. Problem is, he has no idea how to dish it out when he runs into the big boys and he will have several games in a row where he cannot finish. Josh Howard SHOULD be a prototypical slasher: he's got the frame, the strength, the quickness, and amazing body control. He finishes very well in the paint. Problem is, he falls in love with the jump shot and takes far more outside jumpers than he should. Jason Terry is extremely effective on the drive, both finishing and getting fouled, when he chooses to do so. Problem is, he makes every attempt to stay as far away from the paint as possible, as if he was a vampire and the paint was laced with garlic. Almost every shot comes from 18 feet or farther away. Stackhouse was once one of the more feared slashers in the league. Problem is, he's 97 years old and his knees barely allow him to move from the his locker to the shower, let alone to make a dynamic drive and finish. Dirk can be a very good post player. Problem is, as mentioned above, his teammates can't figure out how to get the ball to the post and he gets hacked without calls more than anyone in the NBA not named Shaq when he does get the ball.

With the exception of Stack, who physically is not capable of slashing like he once did, all of these issues are CHOICES. The guys cannot figure out how to finish or how to kick it back out or how to, you know, every once in a while, maybe take a step toward the basket instead of always launching from the outside. Even more frustrating, the Mavs tend to fair pretty well when they do drive and shoot less threes.

I love to collect different stats. Here is an example:
In 9 wins this season, the Mavs have shot 46.9% from beyond the arc. IN the 5 loses, they've shot 22.5%. That tells me that they are relying way too much on the jumpshot. Let's take it even further. In wins, they attempt 14.4 3s per game. In loses, they attempt 20.4 3s per game. 6 more attempts in loses. 14.4 is a very reasonable total. You really shouldn't be launching too many 3s unless you're on. In their wins they seem to either catch fire from deep or figure out that it's not working and drive. Just a little further, in wins the Mavs attempt 28.5 free throws per game, in loses 26 per game. That doesn't seem so bad until you take out the Pacers game (38 attempts) in which the refs called every single touch as a foul, for both teams. That leaves the Mavs at 23 attempts per game in loses, 28.4 in wins. That's significant.

Basically what it comes down to is that this team is not a three point shooting team. Dirk and Terry are deadly from deep but Dirk doesn't spend as much time on the outside as he once did and with Terry's aversion to the paint, his three point shooting cannot be depended on because he takes so freaking many. The rest of the team, Harris, Howard, Stack, Ager, Jones, etc. are inconsistent three point threats AT BEST.

The answer to this is to FREAKING DRIVE!!! Obviously in their wins they've either caught fire or figured out they needed to drive and get points in the paint or get foul shots. In the loses they refuse to drive, refuse to feed the post, and end up with stat lines like tonight against Washington, when as a team the Mavs put up 21 three pointers (none by Dirk, by the way) and hit...3 of them. Pathetic. If they took 6 less 3s and drove instead, they win the game. So the moral of the story is, unless you're on fire, there's no reason for this team to shoot more than 15 threes in a game. Get to the rim, feed the post, and FINISH and this team raises the banner. Keep shooting 20 threes per game and pretending to be Superman while the paint is made of Kryptonite (Jason Terry!!!) and you'll struggle to get a top spot in the playoffs, let alone win a title.