The larger picture is that Dallas is going to get exposed. Dallas has a very good offense. I agree. That is due to their personnel. In their top 9 rotation they have 5 guys who can be offensive juggernauts in Dirk, Monta, Parsons, Harris, Barea. Two more who are excellent at getting high percentage shots at the rim, especially versus teams that lack size in Tyson and Wright. Then they have Jameer Nelson who can still shoot. Only Aminu isn't a good player on offense. On the flip side only 2 of those guys can even play decent defense: Tyson Chandler and Aminu. This is a big reason why good teams score at will against Dallas. The difference is that while Dallas "straight murders" bad teams with their offensive output, they do not do as great versus good teams. Perhaps this is due to them actually having to expend energy on defense. So Dallas gets "straight murdered" by good offenses and struggles a lot more versus good defenses. This is the reason they have lost to pretty much every playoff team they have played. The Mavericks are literally the Rockets of last year. This fact will be even more compounded when Fatty Felton comes back. I'm waiting for that train wreck to happen. We saw how far that style got us with Portland. We scored on them at will. Game 2, first quarter. Dwight scored on every possession on our end. But the Blazers were basically tied with us the entire first quarter because we could not stop them. That will be Dallas this year.
Why are you talking about their defense when this thread is about their offense? Their offense is ranked #1, 4 points better than the second best, even after last night's bad game. Did our defense make them bad last night? I am sure it was an important factor. We are a very good defensive team. Did our defense cause them to shoot 17% 3pters? Did our defense make Nowitzki shoot 4-18, missing all 8 of his 3s? Any objective person would say no. No defense can be that good. And I don't know why the fact that we also missed shots in the second half matters in this discussion. What does that have to do with the Mavs' offense? And if you want to argue that their offense is inflated by weak opponent, then our offense is pretty bad. We are currently 22nd, having played one of the softest schedules so far, twice against the worst defense in the league (Lakers). I am a Rockets fan. I loved how we beat the Mavs last night. But homerism is homerism.
I was referencing a lot of those other things as a general round-up of the "Mavericks vs. Rockets" undertone that this thread has taken. I was not the first to get off topic here. Read the posts in the last few pages. You can't expect a discussion to stay stationary. As far as Dallas' offense goes, it is very good. As I already addressed, but it is gimmicky. I am willing to put a wager that Dallas does not finish with the best offense in the league. Hell, I'm willing to even wager they wont have the best offense by the All-Star break. You, or anyone else can take me up on that. Their players missed some good shots yesterday. My point, and it is relevant, whether you think it is off topic or not, is that all teams have bad shooting. That is included in the offense. Just as our 2-21 second half was. Rather than taking the stance that last night was a fluke (which is what it seems that many, including you, are saying) I feel it was just bound to statistically happen because Dallas' offense was never going to remain that good. In Dallas' case, while last night was a deviation from the norm towards one extreme, their start (mainly their games against horrible teams) was toward the other extreme. Dallas' shooting percentages and offensive output is unsustainable. There is a reason no team in the NBA has had this good of an offense for the entire season. I expect Dallas' offense to remain near the top of the league, but level off eventually to somewhere between last night and the Lakers games. I actually think our offense has been pretty bad so far. So that's a moot point. Their offense is still inflated because of bad opponents.
Sure, the offensive output is probably not sustainable. But... 1. Why do you think it is "gimmicky"? You said they are like how we played last season. I don't see it that way. Last season, our "gimmick" was running. It was gimmicky only because our half court game sucked. If we could play good half court offense AND could run, we would be a great offensive team. Running would be our strength and not just a gimmick. Dallas's half court game does not suck. They have good ball movement to create good shots. 2. Why does a team have to be at the top to be elite. There are other elite offensive teams in the league. If you are top 5, you are pretty much a "top" offensive team, just like we are a "top" defensive team currently at #3. Do you believe that the Mavs will end up a top 5 offense?
Guys, we won the game on good shooting and defense... We were up 15 for christ sake! They shot badly because we rotated and shots were contested. Dallas is a perrenial offesive jaugernaut but DEFENSE wins championships. Go as the Spurs.
Okay, I'll admit. Dallas' offense is not gimmicky. Credit goes where it belong. Carlisle runs a good half court offense. That being said, I still do not believe Dallas will be a factor versus good defensive teams. And that their offensive production will go down There's a few major factors at work against Dallas here: 1) Shooting percentages Tyson Chandler and Brandan Wright are shooting ~70% and 80% respectively. Dirk is shooting well over 50% even though he has not shot that well for a few years now. And at his age, he's not reverting back to his 2010-2011 form. None of those percentages will hold. All the other rotation players for Dallas are shooting >~45% from the field minus Parsons and Nelson. I don't see that holding. 2) Personnel Ellis, Parsons, Barea, Harris, and Felton (when he comes back) all need the ball in their hands to be effective. Right now Parsons is suffering because he does not get the ball in his hands nearly as much as he is used to. Dallas lacks spot up shooters. This is fine versus bad defensive teams. But when you play against good defensive teams, especially those that close out hard on long 2's and 3 pointers (like the Rockets) their offense will struggle mightily. This is compounded by the fact that they have a poor low post game (although Wright has been dominating lately). 3) Shot Selection Dallas is shooting >~50% eFG on jump shots (mainly long twos) where they attempt 75% of their shots on the season. That is not likely to continue going forward. Teams like Portland and Golden State who have perhaps the best jump shooting combinations in the league with Aldridge/Lillard/Batum and Curry/Klay are shooting considerably worse on jump shots at about 48% each. They also shoot ~70% of their shots as jumpshots. For a reference team in the east, Toronto shoots 72% of their shots as jumpshots at 46%. http://www.82games.com/1415/1415DAL3.HTM http://www.82games.com/1415/1415POR3.HTM http://www.82games.com/1314/1314GSW3.HTM http://www.82games.com/1314/1314TOR3.HTM 4) Age/Injury history Tyson Chandler is injury prone and will likely miss gives at some point this season causing some of the easy points Dallas gets per game to go down. Harris, Nelson, Nowitzki, and Wright have all missed a significant amount of games within the last few years. So while Dallas has great health at the moment, I fully expect that to be an issue at some point this season and bring down their high octane offense. <br> <br> Because of those things I expect Dallas to finish between 4th-8th best offense by the time it is all said and done.
Mavs jumpshots from the championship season to last season: 2010-2011: Attempts- 75% eFG%: .484 2011-2012: Attempts- 74% eFG%: .449 2012-2013: Attempts- 73% eFG%: .475 2013-2014: Attempts- 74% eFG%: .492 This season: 2014-2015: Attempts- 74% eFG%: .503 <br> Which one of those is an aberration? The .449 But still, that .503 will go down quite a bit. That's just not realistic. Spoiler http://www.82games.com/1011/1011DAL3.HTM http://www.82games.com/1112/1112DAL3.HTM http://www.82games.com/1213/1213DAL3.HTM http://www.82games.com/1314/1314DAL3.HTM http://www.82games.com/1415/1415DAL3.HTM
I personally would not have given up your argument so easily. There has to be something gimmicky about an offense that scores 19 fewer points than their average against a Rockets defense minus their best player Howard. Dallas has not met a serious playoff contender yet that did not shut their offense down.
I still believe Dallas' offense is overrated. My view on that did not change. It's just that I realize I should not have used the word gimmicky. Carlisle deserves credit for a good offensive system. But, even still their offense is overrated as are Dallas' players.
Perhaps you are right. Gimmick - "a trick or device intended to attract attention, publicity, or business." I would say that the Dallas offense is optimized to exploit weak defenses, and is not capable of dealing with a top flight NBA defense. Small sample size.
Ah good find. Will be interesting to see how their 3point% trends. They're about league average right now. That's the one area of their offense which could get better. I disagree about this offense not being able to exploit good defenses. I think it has a ton of potential and by later on in this season they'll be looking fantastic on a more consistent basis. 3 new starters. They also have more dribble penetrators than last year. I'm a fan of how they play.
You are right. But random luck and small sample size also included us shooting 37% against Dallas this game. I will bet you anything the next time we play Dallas, we shoot above 40%. Just as there are things Dallas did against us that was not normal, so did a lot of things we did that can be characterized as abnormal. Suffice to say that if you just assume return to the norm for one team, you should also assume it works for the other team too.
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-art-of-the-wildly-efficient-dallas-mavericks/ I guess he wrote the bulk of this article about how amazing the Mavs offense is before their recent back to back losses
That's why I said BULK. Clearly he wrote the vast majority of this long article before this morning. Especially given that - as this thread indicates - he had been doing the research and interviews with the players and coaches last week.
Not stupid, he's still the best in the game. It's just funny because he had this great story going with all the numbers, and he probably thought he could wait to release it after the sure wins against Houston and Indiana, and maybe the numbers would look even better then, lol. You know last night and Saturday night he was watching the games like 'Come on Dallas, don't **** up my article!'
