Yeah he's not putting it on the floor very often anymore, which makes him a lot easier to guard. Don't have to worry about that fake and then drive, just have to avoid giving him open shots.
Maori must really be in Cuban's head. I don't know how else to explain a smart guy doing something this dumb. It doesn't matter how accurate or inaccurate his observations are. It's just stupid to provide this kind of additional motivation to the role players on a team going into the first round of the playoffs-
When you get right down to it , this roster is very flawed and has injuries to key players on top of those flaws. FT shooting - Dorsey , Smith & Dwight all shoot a horrible percentage. This is an area where not having DMo really compounds your prolems as you could put him & Jones in and expect both to make 60something percent , teams really cant use the hacka strategy to take the ball out of Hardens hands with DMo & Jones. No one outside of Harden can attack the rim or create shots on their own. Ariza off the dribble is a hot mess , hate to see him touch the ball other than spotting up to shoot. Terry isnt much better. Neither was PatBev. At least they have Prigioni to run the pick & roll .... Dwight - 37% of his post touches end in a turnover. He also shoots only 40% on non dunks from those post opportunities. Contrast that to finishing 79% of pick & roll shots with a made basket. He's not a reliable option to run the offense thru when Harden is on the bench. DMo was the best option outside of Harden. A volume 3 point shooting offense that doesn't make a high volume of them. They are fairly average in percentage of makes. When those shots aren't falling , the offense really struggles to generate points. They also have several players who are prone to committing a large umber of turnovers. The fact that they were able to win 56 games despite the flaws and injuries is a testament to how good Harden has been all season , he's carried a poor offensive team to the #2 seed in the toughest division & conference in sports. Cuban is right .... Harden's great and he makes the rest of the roster just good enough to beat you.
He's not completey wrong until he said "that's not a very good team over there" And the Mavericks are? lol
Shaq didn't shoot Three's because HE DID NOT NEED TO SHOOT THREE'S Rockets don't need to be overly creative. . . what they do works Rocket River
Part of me wonders if they've ever discussed fueling the rivalry for "business reasons". The constant jabs at one another can't be completely malicious, right? Naturally neither one of them go at the Spurs like this because well...they can't.
He's saying the team outside of James Harden, isn't that great. But because we have James Harden, and because he's so damn good, our team is still very talented.
Obvious attempt from Cuban to get our other guys to take more shots to prove him wrong, and to get the ball out of James' hand.
Cuban is right though...if the 3 pointer doesn't fall for us, we are screwed! We don't run any plays, ISO James Harden all day...it's the truth and it hurts. We succeed because we have the best player this season reppin #13!!!
There will always be an excuse with Cuban. Harden shoots too many free throws, parsons wasn't 100%, refs made bad calls, Dirk wasn't 100%, etc. He will always make some lame excuse when they flame out in rd 1
Would you call the Rockets beating them flaming out ? The Rockets are the 2 seed with home court and should be favored ?!
Mark Cuban has never understood that the same direct-honesty approach you use in business to succeed doesn't work in professional sports. At this level, of course, players shouldn't need billboard material to be motivated. But, let's face it- some of them do- I would think particularly lesser players on a team do. No one needs to motivate James Harden or Dwight Howard- they're motivated by a desire to be Hall-of-Fame players. But lesser players- you don't want to rile them up. It was like what Barkley said one time - a lot of your lesser players will play better at home b/c they need that motivation from the crowd. Great players play great anywhere- and sometimes even better on the road. So, the moral of the story is... or the Morey of the story is... don't give bulletin board material to non-stars. The one year the Mavericks won it all was, coincidentally, the one year that Cuban kept his yap shut through the entire playoffs.
Great coach in Carlisle? Agreed. Predictable? Every team has their playing style. One dimensional? Sometimes during off games. Fact is, as someone pointed out, we've had a rotating door of injuries but somehow still made it at the top of a tough division, in a tough conference. I'm actually glad he says stuff like that to fire up our guys and prove him otherwise. Our guys are young, talented and extremely hungry to prove something. I'm not saying it'll be a cake walk but you can't overlook what other guys besides Harden can bring to the table.
What made me really LOl was this bull**** excuse about 2007: To most fans, that upset is one for the ages, but Cuban argues that Golden State should never even have had the chance to pull it off. Never one to shy away from controversy, he maintains that without the help of the league’s most infamous former official, the Warriors might never have made the playoffs that year. I’ll let him take it from here. “So here’s how [Tim] Donaghy impacted my world. It’s the 2006-07 season, and the Warriors are playing the Bulls. It is February. It’s a tie game — 10, 15 seconds left. Whatever. Ben Gordon of the Bulls is dribbling the ball for the last shot. Andris Biedrins is just sitting in the paint, just standing still for the Warriors. But he’s in the paint! Four seconds, five seconds, six seconds, seven seconds. Tim Donaghy, instead of calling defensive three seconds, literally steps onto the court and pushes him out of the paint.” “When it happened, I was watching the game, and I sent an email to the NBA saying, ‘Did you see this ****?’ Now, I had no idea at the time about the big [Donaghy] issue, although I had hints of it. After he pushed him out of the way, Ben Gordon misses the shot, and then the Warriors win in overtime. Had he sent Ben Gordon to the line, there’s an 85 percent chance he makes the free throw, the Bulls get the ball, and the Warriors have to foul. The Warriors made the playoffs by how many games?” See what I mean? He's honestly trying to imply that a non-call in a game in February was the reason his 67-win team lost in the first round. Plus, if you watch that video, Biedrins is in the paint for no longer than 2 seconds before he has one foot out of it- and like an official is going to call 3 seconds on that when Gordon is on the completely opposite side of the floor. Laughable. If I'm the owner of the Mavs, I'm like "We had no excuse for 2007. We were a 67-win team, and there's no way any team should have beaten us in the first round. We were beat by a hungrier team and a better coach, period." But that's what I mean about Cubesteak- complete denial.
