ChipotleWest wrote:ryguy613 wrote:Swish77 wrote:Crazy thing is The Clippers still haven't see the Real Luka or Kyrie yet and that's really scary.
Im rooting for the mavs to win this series, but so far i think the clippers have looked like the better team overall. The mavs needed to eek out an ugly win last night, whereas a Kawhi-less clippers team pretty much yawned their way to victory in game 1. id like to be wrong here, but i just dont see the mavs matching up well against this clippers team. maybe Luka and Kyrie will eventually find a groove... then again... maybe Kawhi finds HIS form. Or maybe he doesnt even play in game 3. who the hell knows.
Mavs had a bad first half in Game 1 that I still can't explain, but the other 3 halves Mavs have outplayed the Clippers. Now Mavs have homecourt advantage, Clippers are forced to win 1 in Dallas where usually roleplayers play better. Luka/Kyrie in two games have 119 points rest of Mavs 70 points. If the role players can score more at home I see the Mavs winning both games in Dallas.
I don't expect the Mavs to have another 1H, and especially 2Q as bad as G1 for sure. That was an anomaly, which happens sometimes, but is unlikely to repeat.
However the 2H of G1 means little to me. Clippers obviously coasted through. If they had needed to, they would have played that harder, but they didn't, and it wasn't even close.
G2 is far closer to a normal game. However Clippers also shot poorly. G1 they shot lights out. The norm is probably in between. Mavs can also be a bit better than they were in G2, but overall I'm not sure why RealGM is so high on the Mavs right now. This still looks like LAC in 6 to me, barring a Kawhi injury.
Mavs are way too reliant on LuKai, the rest of the team just goes into bad scoring droughts. They are not alone in that regard, to some extent every team goes through this and that's why playoff basketball has always hung on your defense and rebounding to see you through that. But the Mavs are especially bad on that and too reliant on their superstars. Whereas the Clippers just have so many more options to work with, and in a series more options typically end up being the difference.