ClutchFans Game Thread: Mavericks @ Rockets 12/23/2013

A slide to .500 would mean that this team isn't actually better than the one last season (relative to everyone else). Right now, this team's biggest issue is staying healthy. Everything else like coaching, defense and TOs is all secondary.

 

Did you see the Lakers last game? They looked like a third tier Euro team against one of the Euroleague powerhouses. It was that kind of performance.

 

Yeah, but those guys have been performing regardless of the opponent.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Mavs&amp;src=hash">#Mavs</a> Dirk Nowitzki passed Alex English for 13th on NBA's all-time scoring list. Has scored more pts vs HOU than any other team. <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Rockets&amp;src=hash">#Rockets</a></p>&mdash; AdamWexlerCSN (@awexler) <a href="https://twitter.com/awexler/statuses/415348428286078976">December 24, 2013</a></blockquote>
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Not to mention defensively he's in another league vs Goran.

His first year as a starter and he's putting up better numbers in every category vs Goran in his prime.

 

Dragic is a really good defender...

 

Both Lin and Parsons looked pretty good, Lin got tired at times, probably cuz of layoff. As far as all the Dallas three's, it just seemed like a lot of helping and scrambling to recover.

I didn't like how McHale didn't make any adjustments when Dallas kept getting Lin or Brooks switched onto Dirk in the 4th. They must have ran that play 4 or 5 times in a row, and we kept switching into that mismatch. Didn't notice McHale too much, but he didn't seem too animated, other than a couple times at the aforementioned blind Jones.

Also, I haven't seen this mentioned, but we need to get work on getting Dwight the ball on the block earlier and with more ease. Several times in the 3rd quarter, we spent a good 10-15 seconds of shot clock trying to get him the ball, but couldn't, forcing a long jump shot, which led to a Dallas fastbreak that killed us.

 

I was expecting Lin to be a lot more rusty. I thought he played pretty well. 20 points on 10 shots. Some mishandling and some missed coverages, but nothing serious and certainly nothing major compared to the stars on the team. If I didn't actually watch the game and just read through these posts, I'd think Lin was the worst lifeform on this planet. I think some people on here look at every tiny mistake Lin makes and amplifies it 100x in their heads without even realizing it. Yes, there are Lin haters out there, but many of you truly seem to believe that Lin is bad. I mean, really bad.

 

Well, at least physically Jeremy is close to 100%

same couldn't be said about his decision making

 

Most of you're posts about Harden are the same.

 

it's like that with all of our PG's. it's disgusting. Terrible team defense? Let's put the blame on the PGs. Opposing SG, SF, PF, or C went off today? Don't worry, let's blame it on the PG. PGs and other wing players have the same amount of turnovers. Too many turnovers from the PG position tonight, unacceptable. But hey, let's give a pass to the other positions because they're not PG's!

 

People are emotional in game threads. Look at every other NBA team forum with a lot of traffic and you will get these types of posts when a player is not playing too well and the game ends in a loss.

 

Well, at least nobody got hurt or contracted a serious disease as far as we know. Some defensive issues, a bad stretch in the 3rd and Dirk being unstoppable doomed the team to a loss. But not entirely without positives. Overall good offense, especially by Dwight Howard and most importantly, everyone lived to fight another day.

 

Amen!

 

Yuck, stopped watching around midway through the 2nd quarter and was hoping to watch the rest of the game when I got back. But of course we lose.

From the looks of it, looks like turnovers and lack of defense did us in.

Garcia, Casspi had their typical ****ty game. They've really been awful this year.

We have been playing horrible, horrible basketball since that win vs. the Spurs. We need health.

 

I think it's also the announcers. I watched it online with Dallas announcers and they were pretty fair. Watching some of the highlights of Lin with Rockets announcers (Worrell and Drexler), you hear jabs at Lin. I think some of that influences people. Of course, no one's going to admit to themselves that they could be influenced by Rockets announcers, but it's human nature.

 

The numbers are very nice, but if you are the starting PG you can't have 2 assists and 5 TOs. Only TJones and Brewer had less assists than Lin. He has to make up his mind. Does he want to be a PG or LinSanity? If he want's to win the games alone, that's fine. But you have to deliver.

 

Thank you. The guy came back from an injury. He's going to be a little rusty.

 

"WE" you mean.

 

Some big positives to take away from this game and it is going to be great when we incorporate James with all the changes and adjustments we saw through this stretch. The only thing I would change is telling Casspi which shots to take. Some of the shots he takes are just head-scratchers.