Game Thread: Hawks @ Mavs -- 12/12

[Jamaaliver]

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3 things to watch for when the Mavericks take on the Hawks

The Mavericks look to extend a very strong home winning streak when they host Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks



The Dallas Mavericks (14-11) host the Atlanta Hawks (6-20) Wednesday night, the first in a home-road back to back for the Mavericks — they’ll head west to play the Phoenix Suns Thursday. This will be the final match up this season with the Hawks, a team who will be tied to the Mavericks this season, and presumably long in to the future as the careers of rookies Luka Doncic and Trae Young progress.

The Mavericks have been hot at home of late, recently blowing out the Orlando Magic 101-76. They’ve now won 10 straight at home, the first streak of its kind for the Mavs since 2008.

1. Hot start, Cold finish

When the Mavericks lost to the Hawks in Atlanta back in October, Dallas started the game super hot, up 20 after one quarter (an insane 42-22). They then went ice cold and played zero defense, allowing the Hawks to dictate much of the game, getting outscored 31-17 in the fourth. The loss marked the beginning of an ugly six-game losing streak.


2. Raining threes

Both the Mavericks and the Hawks are top ten in the league in three point attempts per game — Dallas at ninth attempting nearly 34, and the Hawks at fourth with just under 36 per game. But there’s a jump when it comes to how the teams are connecting. The Mavericks are pretty middle of the road, 13th in the NBA shooting 35 percent from long range. But the Hawks are dead last connecting on less than 32 percent from three. For Atlanta the line is pretty clear: in their six wins this season they’ve shot 40 percent from deep, and not even 29 percent in losses. When they last met, Atlanta went 15 of 38, and it was largely what led their comeback, then sealed the victory.


3. Rookie slumps, Rookie jumps

In Luka Doncic’s first 20 games he was shooting a solid 44 percent from the field, and 38 percent from three. Then came a hip injury suffered against the Lakers that sidelined the rookie for one game. In that Lakers game, plus the four he’s played in since, Doncic has shot 30 percent from the field and 24 percent from three. Whether it’s due to the injury, or a plain old shooting slump, Doncic is searching for his shot.

Another fun development over the last several games has been the play of fellow rookie Jalen Brunson, who has spot started for an injured Dennis Smith Jr. In the last three games, where he has seen a huge spike in minutes, Brunson is shooting 70 percent from the floor, averaging 14 points and five assists in 29 minutes per game.

Mavs SB nation

[Jamaaliver]

It's a shame we couldn't have caught Mavs at the tail end of this instead of the beginning:

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[Jamaaliver]

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[Spud2nique]

It's a shame we couldn't have caught Mavs at the tail end of this instead of the beginning:

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Got the Mavs at 4-10 in their next 14...tough stretch.

[atlantabbq99]

I hope this is the game that Trae proves me wrong

[kg01]

We gonna get boat-raced tonight and everybody'll blame it on Young. The reality is (a) we're a bad collection of talent, (2) our vets are letting everybody down with their play(sic) and (iii) Dallas has always been the better team.

I shouldn't even have to come out here and try to defend Young. Folks who think things through will see why he's struggling while Doncic is excelling.

[Jamaaliver]

We gonna get boat-raced tonight and everybody'll blame it on Young. The reality is...Dallas has always been the better team.

Folks who think things through will see why he's struggling while Doncic is excelling.

I predict we make a real game of it.

• No DSJ means no opposing PGs can manhandle/physically dominate Trae.
  
  
• And we're well rested. While Dallas in the int he middle of 3 games in 4 nights.
  
  
• And how has Dallas always had the better team? I question if they're truly better now. Take away Doncic, and that team is hot garbage.

I predict the opposite of what happened in ATL last month. We come out hot and then Dallas slowly plays their way back into the game.

[atlantabbq99]

We gonna get boat-raced tonight and everybody'll blame it on Young. The reality is (a) we're a bad collection of talent, (2) our vets are letting everybody down with their play(sic) and (iii) Dallas has always been the better team.

I shouldn't even have to come out here and try to defend Young. Folks who think things through will see why he's struggling while Doncic is excelling.

I don't care about the win, nobody cares about the win. Only care about Trae's shooting and efficiency. I don't remember Curry, Nash, CP3 having bad efficiency even when they were on bad teams or on their rookie season, but i do remember Murberry and Kenny Anderson having alot of poor nights in their rookie season.

Trae and Doncic will be forever linked throughout their whole career, just like how Marvin and Chris Paul are forever linked.

[kg01]

Let's be honest here. If I would've said we win big, you would've gone opposite.

[Jamaaliver]

Let's be honest here. If I would've said we win big, you would've gone opposite.

I'm mainly just surprised so many fans here keep praising the caliber of Mavs talent. Dallas has put together an underwhelming collection of players.

Luka is the reason they are winning so much. Plain and simple.

I'm optimistic for this game as it's a huge showdown for Trae and we're very well rested. If we come out after 3 straight days off and wet the bed -- it's a full indictment on the coaching staff. We should be in this game easily through the first 2 quarters.

[atlantabbq99]

:rofl2:


I'm mainly just surprised so many fans here keep praising the caliber of Mavs talent. Dallas has put together an underwhelming collection of players.

Luka is the reason they are winning so much. Plain and simple.

I'm optimistic for this game as it's a huge showdown for Trae and we're very well rested. If we come out after 3 straight days off and wet the bed -- it's a full indictment on the coaching staff. We should be in this game easily through the first 2 quarters.

No, that's wrong, it will be Trae's fault and and indication of his lack of talent.

[jayu70]

Let's be honest here. If I would've said we win big, you would've gone opposite.

I'm mainly just surprised so many fans here keep praising the caliber of Mavs talent. Dallas has put together an underwhelming collection of players.

Luka is the reason they are winning so much. Plain and simple.

I'm optimistic for this game as it's a huge showdown for Trae and we're very well rested. If we come out after 3 straight days off and wet the bed -- it's a full indictment on the coaching staff. We should be in this game easily through the first 2 quarters.

I agree. If i hear the players talking lack of energy blah blah, etc...I'll be pissed.
They've had lots of practice time, put some actual offensive sets in play around John Collins. Don't let Trae shoot us out of the game trying to prove he was the right pick for the Hawks.
I want to see Trae set the offense for others.

[Jamaaliver]

Preview: Hawks travel to Dallas for intriguing showdown

Back after a three-day break



It feels as if a lifetime has passed since Oct. 24.

On that particular evening, the Atlanta Hawks overcame a 26-point deficit against the Dallas Mavericks and, when the dust settled, Lloyd Pierce’s team picked up a rather stunning win in its home opener. Since then, the Hawks own an ugly 4-18 record and on the other side of the floor, the Mavericks have surprised to the tune of a 12-9 mark since that game and a 14-11 overall performance in the early going.

That sets the stage for what should be an intriguing rematch, as the Hawks travel to Dallas on Wednesday evening. The Mavericks are riding a stretch of seven victories in the last nine games but, on the optimistic side, Atlanta performed well in a win on Saturday evening and enters this game on the heels of three days rest.

...the headline match-up of the evening isn’t really a head-to-head match-up at all, with Mavs rookie Luka Doncic and Hawks rookie Trae Young on the floor at the same time. Doncic is the front-runner for Rookie of the Year at this juncture in helping to lead Dallas to a playoff-worthy resume, while Young has struggled with his jump shot this season despite intriguing counting stats and world-class passing. Quite honestly, the hype will likely exceed what it should for this individual battle but, any time Doncic and Young get together for the foreseeable future, the spotlight will be bright on both sides.

Peachtree Hoops

[Spud2nique]

Agree with Trae setting the table for others tonight...but those “others” need to finish!!!! That’s a huge part of why Trae doesn’t have better numbers it’s because Len is getting blocked by the rim, Baze has crap hands, Dedmon is trying to do the splits in the air...

I prefer Trae’s stats tonight to be:

14 points 14 assists 4 rebounds 2 steals
( 5-8 fg) (2-3 3pts) 1 turnover

Rather than:

22 points 4 assists 5 rebounds 2 steals
(8-22fg) (3-11 3pts) 4 turnovers


Luka is a great player no doubt, but he absolutely has better teammates. I’m not sure why this is even an argument.

[Spud2nique]

Let's be honest here. If I would've said we win big, you would've gone opposite.

I'm mainly just surprised so many fans here keep praising the caliber of Mavs talent. Dallas has put together an underwhelming collection of players.

Luka is the reason they are winning so much. Plain and simple.

I'm optimistic for this game as it's a huge showdown for Trae and we're very well rested. If we come out after 3 straight days off and wet the bed -- it's a full indictment on the coaching staff. We should be in this game easily through the first 2 quarters.

Underwhelming?

So De’Andre Jordan and Alex Len are equal talents to you?

Comon man you gotta know that’s bs!

Trae and Luka are both amazing players but one is able to show it while the other has the worst roster of vets ever...no offense to Vince but he’s old, Baze is trash, Lin is hurt..

Yet Jamaal believe Justin Anderson is as good as Harrison Barnes (I’m not even a Barnes guy lol) still tho.

[Spud2nique]

Let's be honest here. If I would've said we win big, you would've gone opposite.

Jamaal the master de bater...

[jayu70]

Can we fix this please!!!

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[Jamaaliver]

I'm mainly just surprised so many fans here keep praising the caliber of Mavs talent. Dallas has put together an underwhelming collection of players.

Underwhelming?

So De’Andre Jordan and Alex Len are equal talents to you?

Comon man you gotta know that’s bs!

Trae and Luka are both amazing players but one is able to show it while the other has the worst roster of vets ever...no offense to Vince but he’s old, Baze is trash, Lin is hurt..

Yet Jamaal believe Justin Anderson is as good as Harrison Barnes (I’m not even a Barnes guy lol) still tho.

If you take Luka off this team...they are easily a lotto team again.



IDK about Justin Anderson.

But I'd say Bazemore and Wesley Mathews (as hard as it is to admit) are pretty even.

I'd say Harrison Barnes is a better player than Taurean...but it's not too far off.

John Collins is a better player than anyone on Dallas who doesn't hail from Slovenia.

The real difference is Luka and Rick Carlisle.

Spoiler:

Jeremy Lin is better than JJ Barea.

D Jordan is certainly better than any single Center we have. But he's been comically bad on defense.

I don't even know who else is on that team? Jalen Brunson? Dwight Powell? DSJ?

[graymule]

Someone here said, If the Hawks lose, It's Trae's fault. If we win, who gets all the credit? It must work both ways...

[lethalweapon3]

These days? Where In The World Isn’t a Luka Doncic Fan?

“Some of you teams out there, you coulda had him,” chastised Scott Van Pelt. A lot of eventful things in the world of athletics preceded the Monday night edition of SportsCenter. But SVP chose to lead off his midnight Eastern show by showcasing the wizardry of the Dallas Mavericks’ new wunderkind, the best things he saw that day.

Those shots! Those passes! Look at the young man, jumping like he’s half his age after a made lob! Look at DeAndre Jordan, pretending to care! “Either via drafting him outright, or a trade,” the host concluded before moving on to Monday Night Snoozeball, “you could’ve had him… okay!”

Van Pelt’s tsk-tsking through Doncic’s highlights had everyone thinking this was another double-double special from the Slovenian Sensation – what would be his second of the young season. He came close in Dallas’ pasting of the visiting Orlando Magic, with a career-high 11 rebounds and nine assists. Alas, all the finger-wagging obscured a 2-for-11 field shooting day, including bagel-for-5 on threes. We could’ve had that, you say? No worries, SVP, we already do.

“OMG, Luka Doncic!” was the refrain on Saturday night, as the world stopped on its axis. Luka went off in the final three minutes of play, three triples and 11 total points, as the Mavs rocketed past Houston for the 107-104 victory. Good thing he went off because, before that display, he was off: 0-for-3 on treys, five missed bunnies around the rim.

Up-and-down play is to be expected of the blue-chip rookie class, and Doncic, TV producers fear to acknowledge, is no exception. Before the Houston game, Luka went 2-for-8 from the field in a 26-point loss at New Orleans. 21 points and 9 boards in an impressive home win over the Blazers, six points on 2-for-13 shooting (0-for-5 on threes) during 31 minutes of a losing effort in LeBrongeles, the latter ending a 19-game double-digit scoring streak to start his NBA career.

If I’m being a bit nitpicky, allow me to clarify that Doncic is doing exactly what his team expects of him. Further, as a result of his play, the Mavericks (12-4 in last 16 games) are winning games, in all the ways they haven’t since Dirk Nowitzki’s heyday reached its sunset. Also, having selected him as the first rookie taken in the Hawksquawk Fantasy Draft, I tend to be a bit more big-picture than the video snippers out there.

The Four-Letter Network was quick to cobble together the upcoming slate of Mavs games as the Luka Doncic Revenge Tour. Dallas leaves after tonight’s game versus our Atlanta Hawks (8:30 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, Fox Sports Southwest) to visit the charred remains of Phoenix tomorrow. Then, it’s back home to host Sacramento, who is doing just swell without him. But can somebody alert The Worldwide Leader that the Hawks (6-20) played this so-called “payback game” already? A primetime showdown, aired on their own network?

The Western Conference Rookie of the Month-and-a-Half already came at the Eastern Conference winner, and he missed. Doncic’s Mavs blew a commanding 51-25 first-half lead, Luka’s 12 first-quarter points matched by Trae Young in the final frame as the Hawks prevailed, 111-104, on October 24. So whether Luka goes bananas at some point tonight, or not, this is just an ordinary Wednesday night game for the rookies and their competitor colleagues.

Atlanta has had a rough history with drafting, or keeping, Europeans. Age ain’t nothing but a number if you’re R. Kelly, but it suddenly became a matter of utmost importance to NBA honchos when the Hawks plucked 20-ish Arvydas Sabonis in the 4th round of the 1985 Draft. Apparently, 21 means 21, so the league voided Atlanta’s pick. The next year, Portland used the Celtics’ pick at the end of the draft to snag him, then had the presence of mind to stash his rights for a decade while walls were coming down and stuff. A 7-footer behemoth that can pass the ball like a point guard? Where they do that at?

While we’re quick to kick ourselves, there’s no certainty we’d have a statue of Domantas’ pops outside of State Farm Arena right now. Nor, for that matter, would there be any local sculptors working on Pau Gasol. The allure of getting an already-groomed, homegrown 20-point scorer with All-Star potential was too good a chance to pass up during 2001’s Draft. We got our one-time All-Star appearance out of Reef Abdur-Rahim, while the Grizzlies got up off the NBA doormat, however briefly, with Gasol.

He’s got a surefire, can’t miss ticket to Springfield now. But are we sure Pau would be regarded any higher than the incoming G-League President by now, had he stayed in Memphis and not been traded for his little bro? Would he have fared any better sticking around here in Atlanta, under the watchful eyes of Lon Kruger and Pete Babcock? We will never know for sure, but it’s healthy to suspect the worst. I mean, Pau was no Dirk Nowitzki.

Boris Diaw? That guy only passes all the time, psshh, nobody’ll ever win with that guy. With apologies to Hanno Mottola, the most successful Euro-raised baller that the Hawks drafted and kept was Dennis Schroder and, well, yeah.

So aside from sportscaster-salivated highlights, what are the Hawks missing out on by passing Luka on to Dallas in favor of Young? So far, a couple extra points, three or four extra rebounds, two or three fewer assists, a modicum of defensive awareness. Likely, we’d still have 82 games of Dennis going gung-ho to the hoop while Doncic (37.1 3FG%) stands in the corner, hands out.

We’d also have quite a handful more victories, which in the East imperils any plans to use 2019’s pick on a lottery talent – three games below .500, right now, has you selling playoff tickets. On the tank-mill for a minute (three seasons, to be exact), Dallas has little time to trifle with the long game.

Even Jennifer understands Mark Cuban’s club has been trying for some time. They’ve stuck to coach Rick Carlisle all these years, and they’ve gambled in free agency every single summer – DeAndre Jordan, everybody! Wesley Matthews! Harrison Barnes! DeAndre Jordan, again!. The Mavs are turning to youngsters like Doncic (team-high 32.3 MPG) and Dennis Smith to help them turn the corner now, “development” be d@mned.

Dallas (14-11) has gone on this big winning tear for over a month, and it has brought them… a half-game ahead of 9th-seeded Sacramento (14-12) for the final playoff spots in the NBA West. While 4.5 games are the difference between 1st and fifth in the East, six games separate 1-through-14 in the Western Conference. So a two-week skid at any point in the season would return Dallas, and the top-5 protected pick that Atlanta could also have foregone by latching onto Luka, back into lottery land.

The loss to the Hawks is one of six Dallas has suffered at the hands of teams currently below-.500, second-most among all Western Conference clubs, including the Suns. So the narrative that Dallas is on the verge of a feast in the upcoming week, led by a vengeance-minded Doncic, probably needs to be viewed in hindsight.

The Mavs will want to cut down on the turnovers (16.1 TO%, 28th in NBA), which come at a rate very close to Atlanta’s league-worst 17.2%. Smith’s absence, due to a lingering wrist injury, and Dirk’s slow return for his season debut is the reason Carlisle is putting the ball more frequently in the hands of Doncic (4.3 APG, 3.5 TOs/game).

Atlanta will prefer Doncic experimenting on the fly to getting picked apart by J.J. Barea (team-high 5.5 APG, 1.7 TOs/game), who is also most capable of operating at a halfcourt tempo more amenable to Carlisle’s preferences.

While Jordan (15 double-doubles) is crashing the offensive boards and lob-hunting, coach Lloyd Pierce’s Hawks (4th in fastbreak points per-48, 8th in points per-48 off turnovers) will look to build another advantage, over 48 minutes, by pushing the ball in transition.

Young will benefit by having a rim-running John Collins (last 3 games: 26.7 PPG, 12.3 RPG, 68.6 FG%, 5-for-11 3FGs) and a corner-sniping Kevin Huerter (12-for-21 corner 3FGs) at his disposal. Getting support off the bench, once again, by DeAndre’ Bembry (18 points, 5 assists, 3 blocks vs. DEN) and former Mav Vince Carter (3-for-7 3FGs vs. DEN; one big assist with getting Wesley Matthews off Young’s case back in October) won’t hurt, either.

Coming off a home win and the only three-game siesta before the All-Star Break, the Hawks have a chance to trip up a team or two in this upcoming three-game road trek. But what’s this, SVP? You’re saying we’d already be a peripheral first-round exit with Luka Doncic in tow, right now? Doggone, it looks like we sure missed out. Be sure to make room for all of his SC Top 10 plays tonight. You may want to expand to 20, just to be sure!

Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3