The Dallas Mavericks lost a close 113-111 match to the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday night in New Orleans, despite the Pelicans missing three critical firsts.
While New Orleans lacked two of their top players, Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram, they also missed out on the best winger in Herb Jones. Even without those losses, the Pelicans led him to a well-rested and relatively healthy Mavericks team, but the Mavericks missed Tim Hardaway Jr. with a sore foot.
Dallas dug himself into a hole early on and never fully recovered. The Pelicans lost 40 points in the first quarter, forcing the Mavericks to play the rest of the game uphill. To the Mavericks’ credit, they combined their moves on the defensive side in the second and third quarters, giving them an edge going into the fourth quarter. But the Pelicans kept coming, the Mavericks offense dried up and Luka Doncic missed three potential game-winning games when time ran out.
Doncic was the top scorer of all scorers with 37 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists. The Pelicans were well-balanced throughout their roster and Trey Murphy led the way with 22 points on a perfect 8 on 8.
Here is something I noticed:
Mavericks formula looks great until it does
Dallas has a simple formula that has worked since drafting Luka Doncic – surround him with shooters, at least one other catcher and a big hoop and you’ll get results. The Mavericks have had a better winning percentage each season since Doncic was drafted by sticking to that formula. There’s no denying that it worked, especially after the Mavericks Western Conference Finals were held earlier this year.
[Stephen A. Smith voice] BUTwhen the formula doesn’t work, Really not working. Dallas has put together a roster for Doncic to strengthen and develop, but not the other way around. Doncic has been in the top 3 in usage since his second season in the league and currently leads the league with 39.3 usage. Doncic’s use has increased every season with wins, that makes sense, right? Give the ball to one of the best basketball players on the planet, there must be better things. But basketball is ultimately a team game, and while Doncic can dominate it as an individual, the Mavericks’ formula can break from time to time.
The Mavericks currently being built have three players who could find a good shot on their own, these three being Doncic, Spencer Dinwiddie and Christian Wood. These three players scored 37, 24 and 23 points respectively against the Pelicans – no one else on the Mavericks scored more than eight. Meanwhile, the Pelicans hit double-digits with eight players, five of whom were 13 or more, without three. Dorian Finney-Smith, Maxi Kleber, Reggie Bullock, JaVale McGee, Josh Green are good players in their own right and some have helped the Mavericks win many games, but they are not dynamic players. They have specific roles and jobs to do and they do well, but if a team takes away a piece of what they do, there’s not much to resist. Kleber and Finney-Smith have been playing open three-pointers long enough because the teams know what they can do. They also know what they cannot do. In three games, the players in the role of the Mavericks seemed to have less than three places, as the defenses stay at home and Doncic rushes to the rim. So far, this strategy of opposing teams with Mavericks 1-2 seems to be working. Because if there’s no open trio of Finney-Smith, Maxi or Reggie to shoot, what’s the counter? Pass until the ball finds itself to one of the three mentioned Mavericks scorers, it’s usually the answer. In the two fourth quarters Doncic has played so far this season, his effective shooting percentage (%eFG) is just 36.4.
The teams just hope Doncic wears himself out by doing everything for three quarters and watching his teammates fail to fill the gap when the gas hits in the middle of the fourth quarter. That was against the Pelicans tonight. With the Mavericks 111-107 behind, there was a position two minutes into the fourth quarter and Doncic doubled at the top of the key. He passed the ball to Dinwiddie, who threw the ball at Bullock in the corner. The New Orleans defender closed, but was strong enough to block Bullock’s three-pointer. Bullock entered the open area and awkwardly missed a buoy from just outside the paint, a shot Bullock never hit. That’s exactly what the Pelicans wanted from this defense.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the floor you have a team of guys with slightly more dynamic capabilities who can do a little bit more on their own. This makes sense when you consider the pedigrees of some Pelicans players. Trey Murphy was picked 17th overall in 2021 – he had 22 points and five rebounds on a perfect 8-on-8 shooting. Dyson Daniels was the eighth overall pick of the 2022 draft and had 11 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals and a block. Jaxson Hayes didn’t do much tonight, but he’s still in the top 10. And again, that’s without the two self-bred first-round players in Zion Williamson and Herb Jones. The Mavericks have some quality players, but they only have two players on their roster that they picked in the first round. And one of them played just 13 minutes on Tuesday night, scoring two points.
Again, the Mavericks formula is magical when it works. We saw it on full screen in the Grizzlies’ 41-point defeat. Until the Warriors shut them down, we saw them go through the Western Conference earlier this year. This is a good formula. Unfortunately, this sometimes results in frustrating losses, as is the case for the understaffed Pelicans team. Fortunately, the Mavericks still have 79 more games to play to make this loss a distant memory.
you can listen our latest podcast episode Subscribe to the Mavs Moneyball podcast feed in the embedded player below and to make sure you don’t miss a single one going forward. iTunes, Spotify, sewer, Google Podcasts, pocket broadcastsor broadcast box.
You can check out our After Dark Recap podcasts, Spotify Live recordings, Moneyball Minute shows and guest shows on our website. Mavs Moneyball Podcast feed. Please subscribe, rate and review.
Aucun commentaire
Enregistrer un commentaire