The Kings are just deeper and far more experienced. I know regular season doesn't count for much of anything, but the Rockets did a good job of staying with the Mavs... they were basically dismantled by Sacramento. Maybe that should have been our first clue?
I think the clue for me was that they can both score a lot but Sacramento can actually play defense with it's frontline players. Dallas is content to just shoot threes and give up layups. I don't think Nellie ball has ever made it past the second round and it's not looking good here.
I agree with you on the more experienced part but when you go into overtime the Kings don't have Webber or Paja and then they loose Vlade at the start then Nick, Nash, Finley, Dirk and Reaf should have easily won. Experience may be the key though.
Sacramento just seems to be a better assemblage of talent- everybody serves a distinct role on that team. I think the Van Exel-Lafrentz acquisitions were a tad overrated too....while both are great individual talents, they're superfluous on the Mavs. Bibby going off has kind of surprised me though. I always thought that sheepdog Nash worked hard on the defensive end, but maybe it's just the oscillating hair fooling me.
crash5179- This is what I meant by "experience". Here are the playoff games of the Kings bench players - Pollard - 24 Jackson - 22 Turkoglu - 15 Funderburke - 12 Contrast this with: Bradley - 15 Zhi Zhi - 11 Buckner - 10 La Frentz - 6 Griffin - 2 And that's just games. I think minutes may be even more telling as Adelman tends to leave a player in the game if they are playing well.
I think the Kings and Mavs are basically identical teams, but the Kings are one year ahead in their "progression" in becoming good (more experience, chemistry, etc). I think the Mavs next year will be as good as the Kings this year, but right now, the Kings are just simply better at this style of play.
How would Zhi Zhi have 11 playoff games? Anyway, to me, the question remains why a Bobby Jackson totally outplayed a Nick van Exel (he should have some playoff experience...).
Well, i don't know if he was on the playoff roster last year, but he was with the team for all of last year's games, plus this year's games. So, they played 10 last year, i think, plus 7 more this year thus far, so he actually has 17 if you don't count whether or not he got in the game, but was part of the team.
No excuse what so ever. If you supposedly have a run-and-gun team in which 4 out of the 5 players on the floor can score from almost anywhere on the floor, and you can't come up with a few baskets..........shame.....shame. Dallas Defense..........is that an oxymoron? C'mon......we're talking about Bobby Jackson here.....Bobby Jackson!?!? What was the stat...........that Dallas only scored 4 or 5 more points in the 4th quarter than Bobby Jackson did?
"How do you spell choke?" Wait...i know this one...it's...don't tell me, i got it...c.....c-h....ch-o...." BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! I lose to the lakers AGAIN! If only there were more TIME, i would've figured it out....
The Kings defense is better too. Dirk Nowitzki can not play a lick of defense, along with some of his fellow starters.
Sacramento's defense might be a little better but it is not that much better. All of you guys say that Dallas' defense sucks but you forget to realize that Sacramento only scored two more points than Dallas, yet somehow Sacramento's defense isn't horrible but Dallas' defense is. I don't understand it.
Well, Sac scored 2 more points than Dallas when Sac had their 3 best offensive players out of the game. Also, how about this: Of the last 8 teams left, Dallas is playing the worst defense (45.8 OFG%) while Sac is playing the 4th best (42.8). In the regular season Dallas' defense was 19th best in the league (45.2), Sac's was 9th (44.0). You are right Sac's defense is less than great, but do I need to go on to show you how bad Dallas' is, especially relative to the other playoff teams?
