LOL nice explanation. But I have to beg the question: If you (or any one of us fans) were in McHale's shoes last night, we could have all in theory "not stopped" the Josh/Dwight 2-man game and Smoove-sailed as well correct?
We are exposing Dirk both as a man-defender and as a help defender. Our strategy is simple on the pick and roll: 1) Make the pocket pass to the roller 2) Run him toward Chandler 3) If Chandler helps make the pass to the other big. If Chandler stays on his man Dunk THAT S**T!! Neither Dirk nor Amare can protect the rim in that scenario. I can see the Mavs doing a few things: 1) Trying to just play zone. They will be susceptible to open three point shooting and backdoor cuts by Brewer but most of our guys are pretty streaky from deep. I fully expect to see a lot of this if we get ahead. 2) Hack-a-Rocket. Surprised I didnt see more of this in all honesty, especially when our crowd was going nuts in the 4th. 3) Play Aminu in at SF and have him guard Josh/TJ. Dirk can hide on defense if Ariza is in the game standing in the corner but Brewer at SF will obviously run Dirk into the ground. Thats about it. Barring something absolutely INSANE it looks like we'll win this series handily.
I think If TJones didn't get hurt then Smith wouldn't have been in and did what he did. So did McHale see something? or was it just a circumstance that dictated what happened?
A little of both. What I like about our front court is we can basically play the same way no matter what combination of guys are in. Obviously Smoove is a better passer than TJ but their skillsets are similar. Same with Dwight and Capella. All those lobs Dwight was flushing would be there if Capella were inside too. I think the pass Josh threw from the 3pt line to Dwight was something TJ couldn't do but the other plays were def within TJ's abilities. Right now Dirk is a cut above a boxers eye. We just have to keep hammering it and they will crumble.
Not sure there is much Carlisle can do at this point. Mavs just don't have the horses; they needed to be fully healthy and hope to hit their shots to have a chance in this series. Mavs basically had everything go for them in Game 2 (sans Rondo) and still weren't close in the end. Have to hope Dwight gets in Foul trouble, but that requires the refs to call touch fouls more like they did in Game 1. Game 2 refs really didn't fall for the flopping as much. I agree with one poster above that it might be time to see if Harden can get his shot back this series and try to D up as much as possible on everyone else. Probably need to do more hacking and should have gone to that when Josh and Dwight took over. Otherwise, hope the Rockets go cold and settle for threes.
As far as going cold from deep, the Rockets (sans Terry) did just that last night. Ariza shot horribly. Now we have seen games this season where Ariza and Brewer have had pretty bad shooting nights. Harden was dared to be a jump-shooter last night and outside of the first quarter, he didn't knock them down. Granted, the step-backs he's missed in the first 2 games have been very make-able good shots. If Carlisle goes to a zone, it will give Harden room to weave into that zone D (like in game 1) and dish out.
The only adjustment we need to make is Harden shooting better. If Harden makes his shots in these next two games, this series is not coming back to Houston.
This. But another adjustment is to finish the point blank layups. They missed too many early on last night. Could have blown the game wide open.
Nevermind. "Back injury" eh? pfff <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>ESPN sources says Mavs are ruling out Rajon Rondo indefinitely after back injury he sustained in Game 2</p>— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNSteinLine/status/590967630552379392">April 22, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Rockets adjustment is to make 50% of their open shots all over the court, and don't get sucked into what Dallas is going to do to dirty up the next 2 games. They are going to be cheap fouling the **** out of our bigs.
Let Josh and Howard do their thing, and everybody gets out of their way. That would be my adjustment.
Carlisle has two options: Defend Harden well or defend the paint well. He doesn't have the personnel to do both. If he continues to double-team Harden, Dwight/Josh will keep making them look silly inside. If he leaves only a single man on Harden (Ellis? Felton? Injured Harris? BAREA?), Beard will torch them like he's done against single-coverage all year long. I hate people on this site saying that Carlisle is a genius coach and McHale is a moron whose only strategy is to implore his guys to play harder. Game strategy is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to discussing the value of an NBA head coach. Carlisle may be a good X-and-O guy, but he's done a pathetic job at managing a volatile-yet-effective player in Rondo. Meanwhile, McHale, the "terrible" coach, has used a deft touch and people skills to magically transform "troublemaker" Josh Smith into a critical asset on a team that was already pretty damn good before we acquired him. Some coaches, like Pop, are good at both. Carlisle is a great strategy guy who alienates players by never attempting to see things from their perspective. He always demands they bow down to him and never meets them halfway on anything. That may work in college, but not when you're dealing with pampered, coddled millionaires. For every game that McHale loses by getting out-coached, he'll get a few wins by being a much better team manager and asset-handler.
In my opinion, I think next game you see them to run their offense via pick-and-roll with Dirk and Ellis vs. posting Dirk every play. It's become clear him in the post vs. Jones, Smith, etc. is not a good look for him, but when on the move he might be able to free himself or Ellis up for a midrange jumper/three. I think they will go the hacking route more aggressively, especially when Smith is in the game given his poor FT shooting....on the road, wouldnt be surprised to see him miss some FT's. I think they avoid that with Howard since he's been hitting his. I think they'll try to get DH in foul trouble and look for guys trying to run into him and force contact early. On defense, they will back off on Harden and dare him to beat them with his three point shooting. For us, we have to keep forcing the issue on the fast break and stay aggressive. If we take this game, they will fold game 4.
On the pick n roll, Dallas will probably let the players guarding the corner 3's come down to Dwight or whoever is near the rim. Past two games they mainly stayed on their man in the corners and we saw what happened. They may change that and force the Rockets to hit their 3's. Our "adjustment" this game will be to hit our 3's since that's what poison the Mavs will try to deal with.
Harden hasn't even turned on "Chef" mode yet. There's nothing the Mavs can do about that. I say keep going back to the well. Nowitzki can't stay with Smith and Chandler can't defend both Smith and Howard at the same time. Let's just make it Lob City again like in game 2, and see how the Mavs react to that. Ironically, I think trading away Brendan Wright was the worst move Dallas made. Chandler / Wright would have probably stopped all those lobs in game 2.
Agree with this 100%. We will continue involving Dirk in the PNR with Harden, and Josh will keep rolling. The only adjustment they can make in this situation is to crash the middle with their help defenders leaving our shooters open. We need to realize this and make the correct skip pass (something I'm confident Smoove and Harden can do). And if we make our shots, then it'll be a guaranteed win. We don't even need Harden to go off for 30+. I would actually prefer if he doesn't. We can destroy them within the system.
