Mirage of Success: Mavericks 108, Kings 100

This is the NBA. Most players should be able to hit a wide open jumper.

Jason Kidd learned this skill at age 34. Talk about a guy redefining himself late in his career. Hopefully Reke doesn’t take this long to learn how to shoot.

guard Nowitski one-on-one most of the time? I don’t see double teaming as an issue in and of itself. It is quick rotations out of the double team, and leaving the wrong players unguarded that becomes problematic. Let’s face it too, we are in the dog days of the season. Players are not at that most chipper, though adding a couple new pieces in Landry and Cisco has given the team a new spark and bounce to their step, that an otherwise 21-41 team would not have.

The breakdowns that I see most often are playing solid D for 15 to 20 seconds but then unable to secure a defensive rebound. Give a team like the Mavs, or any team really, second and third chances and they will score. And take quick, ill-advised shots are on one end, and you become vulnerable to transition on the other.

A teams defensive effectiveness is not as simple as drawing up the best scheme, whether to double or not, man up or zone, and then executing it. Taking smart shots so as not to jeopardize floor balance, and limiting multiple chances on the same possessions, correlate highly into points surrendered.

Carl Landry has made a big difference in regard to high percentage looks. In the last 5 games (without JT and with Carl playing 38.2 minutes a game) the Kings are 3-2. We are scoring 98.2 points vs. 98.6 allowed, for a differential of -0.4. This compares to a season long differential of -4.5 points, and scoring around 94 points. In other words, with Landry as our starting PF, and with JT sidelined, we are scoring 4 points more a game, and have cut our point differential by 4 points a game. In short, we are more competitive.

This is a small sample size, but reason to be encouraged, regarding the trade and direction of the team. And it speaks to my point that simply minimizing mistakes, limiting bad shots, bad TOs, bad possessions, will give you a chance in the 4th quarter. Hell, we won a road game shooting 32%! I think this team has turned a corner towards respectability. We could routed on Sunday versus OKC, and all the recent progress will be temporarily forgotten. But I doubt it. Games like we saw against the Mavs are more likely the rest of the year. We have our first real low post threat since Ron-Ron, and this goes a long way to keeping scores close.

PW won’t play Spencer.

I don’t think any of us can yet accurately predict what level of player JT can be – starter, sixth man, 9th man, maybe we can agree that he will not be a “star”. . The one thing that JT has that allows us this confusion – he has drive. He wants to get better and he has skills. The ingredients exist, how the recipe will cook is hard to tell because he is still “in the oven”.