Francis scores 17 in the first quarter. Mobley 15 in the third. What happened? imo, Dallas really came out with a poor defensive strategy. They place Finley on Francis, and had Nash on Mobley (with a man strong-side behind Nash to stop the drives whenever Mobley got the ball on the wing). Further, they let Francis dribble to the top of the key to start the offensive set...completely unharrassed. I'm sorry Nellie, but you cannot let Francis start at the key (not the 3 pt arc mind you--the key). Francis was then able to drive either side on Finley and shoot if Finley backed up. Not only that, Francis had both sides of the court to pass to, in case the defense overplayed the drives. Man...that defense is not working. Francis is way too good when facing someone from the key. That was pretty passive defense for a team with no great defensive players in the game. Then, in the 3rd they start trapping Francis any way they can to get the ball out of his hands. This was wrong, too, as Mobley was left wide open, and still being guarded by Nash. bam! 9 points in 87 seconds, and 15 for the quarter (or was it 16?). note to Nellie, if you are going to do aggressive traps of Francis like Minnesota and Miami, I'd suggest starting the game that way before Francis goes off on you.
If the Rockets' shooters are on, they can make anybody's defense look bad. That was what we have been waiting for. With a Webber-less Sacramento team, if Houston shoots well again, we could see another Rocket win.
I didn't know Nelson or the Mavs believed in defense. I don't remember a Nelson team ever playing good defense, at least not since the Buck teams.
that is a very general statement boomboom. I agree with you, but my post was to point out that this was a different defense against Francis than he's seen this year. We still want to see him beat traps of the pnr. We cannot expect too many teams to allow him to *start* the play in the middle of the court at ease. btw: we were down 10-2 and took a timeout. Immediately out of that timeout Rudy had Francis started taking Finley down the lane from the key. I think he saw something, and I'm betting the rest of the league did too after Stevie exposed them!!! good side is: Francis can burn you once he gets into the middle. bad side: We probably won't see too many teams let him get there unharrassed.
I guess I should have expanded my thoughts by stating that when the outside shot is falling, it really helps open the middle up. When you have Walt Williams and/or Glen Rice making their shots, that almost automatically will pull a decent sized forward away from the lane, giving Steve and Cuttino more driving room. You are right on the mark with the Mavs playing a different kind of defense. I think that is just Don Nelson's different (and strange) coaching style. From the historical perspective, it wouldn't shock me in the least if Dallas plays Steve the same way. In addition to Dallas' average defense, Don Nelson's coaching style will kill that team. Good points, crispee!
I think that the whole offensive strategy has changed since the first half of the SA game. We start our offense from above the key directly infront of the basket with the high picknroll now instead of on the side of the key. Steve has been able to drive much better, we saw it in the SA game, LA game although we didn't hit the outside shots and now in the Dallas game where we hit our shots and killed them. The defense will catchup but they are still guarding the old offense IMO, that is why the Mavs had their defense setup the way you described it.
Good spotting and description. I agree that is one of our standard sets. However, I do not believe that is something we have "changed." I'm not ready to say that this was a systemic change that has us playing better. That is too optimistic for me. imo, it was a game situation change to exploit a defense that we won't see much. We always run the high middle pnr with Griffin and some with K9. Moochie almost exclusively starts high in front, and ran that a lot with Collier and Hakeem. We are still going to see the wing pnr...certainly with Mobley that hasn't stopped. One advantage of the wing versus the middle is it sets up the picker better for attacking from the middle wing....getting him away from help defense....in theory, at least. My point was that defenses cannot let Francis take the middle at the key area, because he is that much closer to the basket for drives and enyo face jumpers. Having him 26 feet away in the middle is different. We'll see other teams pressure him more to not allow easy positioning. I don't think Rudy will be able to change the system longterm by saying...."Stevie, dribble to the key and start the offense there. You don't need a pick to get there, do you?"
I think the success over the last 10 quarters has been the ablility of Francis getting to the key area. Either with the high pnr or with Dallas just letting him start there. SA, Dal, and LA didn't trap with the person defending the picker so we had good offensive production from our sets.
I think it's a nice change to see teams trying unorthodox ways to stop the Rockets. It just goes to show what kind of talent this team has, top to bottom & the number of mismatches that Rudy can create. Now, if we can just get rid of Ca......., okay,I won't start that here.
WoodlandsBoy, I agree. Hottoddie, Did you see that crap LA tried to stop Mobley with? They had Kobe on Mobley way overplaying Mobley's left (the direction to the middle). They had help 4 feet behind Kobe to presumably stop the baseline drive. This help was coming from the defender who is covering the picker. Kobe's position interferred with the ability of the picker to come over and pick, as Kobe shielded the picker's path, and he can't pick Kobe's back because back picks directly up against someone are illegal; you must provide room or pick from the side. So basically, they trapped Mobley before the pick came. That didn't work. Mobley still went baseline. Damn he is soooo fast. They stopped doing that later in the game and Kobe just squared up on Mobley. That didn't work, either. Mobley still went baseline....lol
Nellie was simply a moron. The Mavs are bad at defending one on one players as is, so Nellie decides to let his worst defender guard Francis by himself on the switch. Big mistake. (btw: I'm pretty sure Buckner and Finley took turns guarding Francis, though it matters little since Nowitzki took Francis on the switch almost every time). One thing I will say is that Nash is tough. He was right on Mobley defensively in the first half, and did a much better job than Finley at keeping him from driving. (Sidenote: they were exchanging some words, Mobley and Nash, over what, I don't know, but it definitely motivated Nash to get serious defensively on Mobley). The high pick with Francis and our small forward is quickly becoming one of my favorite plays (same play used by the Rockets with Bullard when we beat San Antonio). There's something about the angle of the pick that is so damn effective; 50% of the time he can just blow by his man to the hole on that play, and the other 50% of the time he either gets a weaker defensive player on him due to a swtich defensively and/or he can shoot the midrange jumper with the defender on his heels. Keep on running that one. The traps by Dallas were weak and ineffective. They worked in the preseason game with Mobley out, but he and Walt made them pay this time. Given the streakiness of our small forwards though, it still is a concern of mine that teams may be able to force us into prolonged scoring droughts by employing this tactic.
First the Rockets have always given the MAVS fits. This game was no different. The way this game was going I didn't think it was possible for the Rockets to miss a shot. From the Rockets point of view they should use this as a confidence builder. They beat a very good team in the MAVS, and appear to be headed to playoffs if they keep it up. From the MAVS point of view, don't take the loss too hard. It's only one game (well actually it's 2 considering they got blown out the last time too), just study film, and come to play next time. A lot of people have been saying the MAVS are done but those same people seem to forget that the MAVS got blown out in 3 early games last year too. One of those blowouts came against the Grizz, and everyone saw the outcome at the end of the year.
Mobley got the ball pretty deep on the wing (15' away as a semi post up) against Kobe a few times too - Mobley simply swung the ball towards the baseline and went straight past Kobe to the front of the hoop! I was mightily impressed with his ability to get his shot anytime against one of the 'premier' defenders in the league! Can't wait till we get a little something defensively in the middle!
