phrazbit wrote:Frank Lee wrote:Dallas smaller? Weaker? Less athletic? Check it again. No given moment did we have 2 guys over 6’7” on the court. Tell me that Luka and Dimwid aren’t stronger than CP and CPayne… we had Ayton… that was it for any physical edge. And we know about his pseudo bigness. Suns got mugged up and pushed around in both series… and nothing has really changed. So just stop it.
Man who live in denial get eaten by crocodile
Luka is not athletic, he is skilled, very very skilled. Booker is faster, more agile and a far better leaper. Luka was probably one of the slowest guys on the court at any particular moment of that series.
And you know your barking at sand when Spencer Dinwiddle becomes the argument for a monster athlete.
Yes, the Suns were the bigger, stronger, faster and more athletic team in that series... by a freaking mile.
The Mavs buried us with ball movement and shooting.
We need better shooting.
There notion that the Mavs beat us with speed and strength is a flat out joke. They were LITERALLY the slowest team in the whole damn league, 30th out of 30 for pace. They play slow because they are slow.
The Mavs series was an outlier situation wherein we just suffered a complete collapse fundamentally, in terms of focus and not playing up to the standards of our system. Also our coach got exposed for being unable to adapt whatever to the constant screens Kidd utilized to target Paul. Also, the Mavs absurd shooting performances do to our poor rotational defensive closeouts as well as the Mavs playing more disruptive defense and playing with more energy and physicality.
You're definitely right that we need more shooting. But that only addresses one critical issue for us honestly. And it's still somewhat disingenuous to target the Mavs series as an outlier example of us not needing size, length, athleticism to be more successful in the postseason when matchups often dictate momentum and outcome. The bucks dominated us with size, length, athleticism and physicality last finals, causing us to target Mcghee. The Pelicans were younger faster, longer ( Jones, Ingram, etc) more physical in our first series that we barely survived to even make it to the 2nd round thanks to Paul playing out of his mind in that series and Ayton having a huge impact as an additional catalyst in that series for us too.
Sure if you have top tier hof level skilled players like Golden state with Curry and Klay, Athleticism isn't as important, but even then, Look at the key role Wiggins played for them utilizing his athleticism to their advantage. And even Kuminga too. And there singular weaknesses was still lack of size against the opposing teams with Wiseman out! We have skilled players in Paul, Booker, Bridges and Ayton. But beyond that, our bench depth is borderline mediocre and woefully insufficient. And as for our stars in Paul and Booker, Paul is on the downslope of his career, and Booker is still a b level star that's inconsistent/ unreliable too often in key situations. Our stars and more importantly our overall talent level and athleticism are just not on par with the rest of the league's legitimate contenders currently. Bridges needs to find his offensive game and postseason consistency. Ayton needs to find his inner monster and physicality. As well as working on increasing his skillset to a greater range. The bottom line is that regardless of being a team with some skilled players, we're woefully insufficient in terms of overall talent and athleticism, size, physical high motor players that feed momentum to our team. We need a legitimate influx of high end supportive talent to place around our starters so that maybe we can actually field legitimate depth and help Paul and Booker avoid early burnout as opposed to the evidenced outcome this last postseason due to our illusionary, mediocre and inconsistent depth. We need the additional size, athleticism, length, and physicality to deal with the bigger, stronger, faster and more athletic teams we'll be facing throughout the postseason, just to even have a chance to make it back to the finals again.
Lastly, even in the Mavs series, Doncic utilized his size/ girth advantage against Paul for mismatches, Kleber on Crowder, Brunson utilized his speed, lateral quickness and ability to penetrate in addition to his shooting to garner advantage. The mismatches they were able to create were due to size, speed, physicality IN ADDITION TO their outlier shooting performances. All of the turnovers and disruptive defensive plays they made were more a result of their athleticism, speed, conditioning rather than skill alone. They closed out faster, stopped our penetration to the rim/ interior scoring ( sans Ayton when he actually did play) with their size, length, physicality and athleticism ( Kleber/ Powell/ ) and Doncic/ Bullock) size, length, girth on Paul. Additional athleticism, size, length, etc affords us greater options to not be disadvantaged in situational matchups. It also affords us important options in situations wherein our offense/ shooting stagnates and we need to find opportunities to generate offense or score in general or defend other teams more dominant and legitimate stars.
So yes, we need more shooting. But we ALSO NEED more athleticism, talent, size, physicality for specific matchups so we won't be so easily disadvantaged. As teams actually reach legitimate contender status, it's important to address/ shore up any potential situational weaknesses that other teams can exploit. That's what we're emphasizing addressing here. And should be a legitimate focal point to address around the deadline, in free agency, and in the draft ( for cost control considerations) as well.
