Clemenza wrote:Great adjustments from Ty Lue. Only negative is that he should've made them for game 2 but we're back in it. Now this is the Kawhi I've been waiting to see. Absolutely stellar every game. PG has been the perfect #2 so far. Both of these guys have to keep attacking the paint and we should close them out. Batum has been great. Morris is back hitting shots. Rondo, Mann, Reggie have been good. Somebody in the series thread in the General Board made a good point about Zu.. he doesn't lift weights. He has the same body as when he was drafted. He's got to hit the weight room in the off season if he's serious about making some type of leap in his game. I think Pat Bev is almost done as a player.
And to think we were down 0-2 and down 19 in the first quarter of game 3 to now tying it all up. Lets hit 'em hard on Wednesday
Yup. This is “Step on their necks and kill them” time.
Loved when Boban came in because, well, Boban—but, yes, that’s largely a desperation move. Boban gives some of the pluses of Zubac with a lot more negatives—and this series is not the one for Zu, as we’ve seen. The Mavs (smartly) used Porzingis in more of a facilitator/secondary passer in the first games. Zu actually defends Porzingis as a shooter relatively well straight up—but when Dallas increased their ball movement and we tried to stay with the same defense--just didn’t work. We didn’t switch enough—or quickly enough. (Basically, as esqtvd might say, we were playing on the back foot defensively.) Zu is not the player to do that. He actually was terrific against Dallas last year, but the shifts Carlisle have put him have reduced his effectiveness.
(OTOH, it’s true to say that Zu has made fairly small, incremental improvements since becoming a Clipper—if he wants to be more of a force in the league and get more minutes, he needs to improve something. Not sure if the weight thing is true, or the right thing—maybe he needs to be 15 pounds lighter and quicker. Maybe he needs to develop more of an off hand low post offensive game. But I’d like to have something we could say “Zu has clearly improved at ___.” Still, like I said, this series is just wrong for him, match-up wise.)
And og15 is right—it’s not just the defense. It’s who’s shooting—and catching us off guard to get perimeter players better looks. Dallas decided to trade a chunk of Porzingis’s shooting for the shooting of Hardaway, Brunson, and Smith. The increased passing gave them better looks and they capitalized. When we started Batum, and played more tight man, the Mavs couldn’t get as many open looks.
My guess is that, if he’s healthy, the Mavs will go back to having Porzingis shoot more in Game 5. (He’s down 4 FGA and 2 3PA in the series, and is playing higher up in the post so his rebounds are down as well.) Looking to pass and playing a little deeper in the post, he can capitalize on his height—and his quickness is decent. If he’s healthy. And that’s a big if. And it may not be enough.