First of all... no, I'm not Avery Johnson. Good question though Nick. Haha I agree with mostly everyone on here... don't change up and go smaller & quicker to try to stop the warriors. Play your strength and make the other team adjust. I think this series is in the hands of Dirk. I love dirk's game, but in this series... he needs to play BIG! He's used to being guarded by big centers & power forwards, that he can easily drive around those guys or pull up for a J. But look who is guarding him now... Stephen Jackson? Continuing to play like a guard is just helping GS out. Play big and force GS to stop that 4 guard lineup.
Like most everyone else said, the answer is going and staying big. Keep Dampier/Diop in the game and force them to take 12 ft+ jumpers all day long. Play zone to cover the interior - GS only shoots 35% from 3pt land. Also - foul Baron Davis HARD. He's not an outstanding FT shooter and is not the toughest mentally. Rattling him disrupts their entire offense.
yeah but when you look at what they are matching up against it's not that small. their guards and forwards are bigger than dallas' except for dirk. dirk doesn't exactly play big either. further all the G's and F's for the warriors are very long, athletic, physical, and relatively good shooters. i know they aren't running a center out there but dallas isn't running a competent center out there either.
Avery should have just played the starter in the last meeting of the reg season, and there wouldn't be small ball issue any more. He tried to screw the clippers, and could now screw himself, his players, and freaking Mark Cuban. I love it!
Remember GS can stop Yao if they want, we have McGrady who can carry us. I suppose they focused on stopping Dirk last night, and Terry, HOward, and Stackhouse played miserably. They need to step up.
No way in hell. This is a 67 win team, guys. For all the **** we talk about Dallas, they're a good team. Anything less than a WCF would be choking. Here's to hoping the Warriors can pull it off in 7 or less!
I have not be overly impressed with A Johnson. Now I don't think the Dallas coaching staff is bad, but I am far from intimidated. Results are mixed too. They lost 4 strait in Mia series after being up 0-2. They nearly lost to Spurs after being up 3-1 last year (remeber Duncan had a game winner in game 7 he missed, Dallas got a little lucky). AJ also stubbornly stuck with Van Horn in the Rockets series a couple fo years ago only for Van Horn's injury taking him out of this dumb habit and making his team much better against us. So as far as AJ being a great adjuster/tactician--I am not buying it yet. But the Mavs have a fine, fine, talented squad. Dirk is a great shooter and gets a lot of calls on top, and the Mavs are really athletic in their top 7 or 8 guys--this makes them tough to beat. The Mavs lost Sunday because they were not methodical, Dirk was off, and the shot like crap. It isn't rocket science. The Mavs need to slow it down, reduce possessions and make it a 1/2 court affair, and use their size advantage--just as how they took control of the Suns last year in the WCF.
