Playoffs 20/21 - G6 - Mavs vs Clippers (Friday, 9PM EST)

[Mavrelous]

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I hope Cuban calls Silver, another similarly outrageous call was made against Dwight in game 5, and the refs feel more whistle happy against Mavs in gneeral.

[GeorgeGervin]

Look, right now KP is playing in a disciplined manner and does exactly what RC wants him to do in the interests of the team. Casual fans will look at his stats, grab their heads and call him out. This is happening right now, btw. Now, can one expect that KP will be happy about this role of stretching the floor and doing nothing else on O forever? Unlikely. And would there be any other player in his position who you could trade for who would be happy? I doubt it. And the bigs are not really an issue for the Mavs. The issue is defensive wingers capable of creating their own shots. Mavs have two good defensive players on the perimeter. One of them has been benched and DFS is inconsistent on O as well. This simply not enough. To me, this should be the priority for the Mavs, not all this KP talk.

Yeah because KP's weak defense (to be fair he was better yesterday), very poor rebounding, lack of effort, weak picks, inability to play in the low post and in the paint and to create his own shots aren't a problem at all.

1) Does Carlisle like a low-post game at all? 2) Where have you seen the lack of effort during this series? 3) Weak picks like sliding picks? Yes, but many do it like that in this league. I don't know why. A good point. 4) Rebounding? it is kind of hard to rebound from the D position he is at. To judge the rebounding impact you should be looking at the overall team rebounds. Last night Clippers 36: Mavs: 34. Not a decisive factor. But yeah, he should improve his positioning if he cares about his stats. EDIT: If rebounding is a sole priority: how was Drummond or Kanter for that matter doing during the first round and what was their overall impact on the team? There were folks on this board who desperately wanted to trade KP for Drummond....

1) Well despite limited playing time, Boban gets several low post touches per game, so yeah RC can use the low post, it looks like a KP problem right here, not an RC one. And it's not only about the low post, it's also about getting deep position to get close shots.

2) Mostly on defense and on rebounds, I'll get to rebounds later.
Examples of low effort :

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1 : 22 : great sprinting by KP, even Boban runs faster on that play
2 : 46 : gives Batum 2 points by not seeing the backdoor cut
5 : 30 : very weak rotating
7:06 : not even trying to prevent a wide open 3.
9 : 22 : Well that speaks for itself...
9: 30: Low effort on KP, he should be the one sprinting to protect the rim, not Luka.
9:37 : We're lucky Mann panicked but KP should have been helping Doncic to prevent a wide open layup
Here at 4:26:

Watch on YouTube

Everybody's rotating expect KP who jogs and lets DFS guard 2 players. That's not acceptable.

3) Well sliding picks can get open looks but still, Dwight Powell sets more effective picks than KP.

4) Well KP's not the only one guarding perimeter players, in fact when Zubac is on the bench the Clippers have 5 players outside, yet even guards are able to grab more rebounds than KP despite having the same position on D. He's 7th in the team in rebounds per 36 despite being the 2nd tallest player in the team. He gets outrebounded by DFS and Doncic, this should not happen. Concerning effort, he rarely crashed the offensive board, he should do that more often given his size advantage. I know it could put him in a bad position to get back in defense but still he should try more, he's 9th (for the Mavs) in offensive rebounds per 36 Jesus. A few extra possessions per game could actually be a decisive factor. Nobody said that rebounding is a sole priority but we need our tallest guy on the floor to do better than being outrebounded by Nicolas Batum.

To me, it looks like you're trying too hard to defend KP. Sure he's not put in the best position to suceed but still, he's playing terrible for someone supposed to be a star.

[JD45]

That was a poorly officiated game, but I don't think that's why the Mavs lost.

The Mavs had several open 3s in the 4th that they just missed. That's the nature of the 3pt shot. Randomness is always a factor. They were 11 of 34 from 3pt, which is 32% and a little below their season average. If they went 14 of 34 it would have been 41% and a little above their season average and they would have won the game. So the Mavs executed their offense and it gave them a chance to win. The dice just didn't roll their way.

But the KP issue is different. His shooting percentage has been fine and his TS% is very similar to the regular season (57.1% vs 58.2%). but his usage rate has fallen to 16% from 26%. He is playing about the same minutes as the regular season as well, but is clearly out of the offense. Rebounding % also cut in half from his regular season. I think its very unlikely that any team can win a series against a good opponent if their (max contract) 2nd best player's productivity is cut in half. We don't know what is happening behind the scenes. Maybe they are hiding a KP injury to make him a decoy. Maybe Tyronne Lue has come up with a defensive plan that RC just can't solve. Or maybe KP has this hole in his game that can't be schemed around. But if they can't solve this issue, they will need a lot of luck to win game 7. And going forward, they have no chance of being a championship contender if the problem isn't solved in the offseason.

[Bob8]

The difference between this year's and last year's playoffs KP is huge and cannot be explained only by his injury. His regression is just unexplainable. He has basically quit playing.

https://www.nba.com/stats/player/204001/

[GeorgeGervin]

The difference between this year's and last year's playoffs KP is huge and cannot be explained only by his injury. His regression is just unexplainable. He has basically quit playing.

https://www.nba.com/stats/player/204001/

Exactly, I keep reading that this series is a bad matchup for him but yet he was able to play great against the same team last year. Motivation plays a big part in that regression.

[JD45]

The difference between this year's and last year's playoffs KP is huge and cannot be explained only by his injury. His regression is just unexplainable. He has basically quit playing.

https://www.nba.com/stats/player/204001/

I think it is more complicated than that. Why would he suddenly lose motivation in the playoffs? His defense during the regular season was poor, but he scored efficiently and rebounded. Now that's collapsed. Motivation problems should be worse during the grind of the regular season, not the playoffs. And I don't think it is inability to deal with pressure, as he performed well against the same team in the playoffs last year. Even if he had lost interest in playing for the Mavs, this performance has to be personally humiliating for him, which should be motivation enough.

[Apz]

Shooting was bad ladt minutes yesterday. We had like 4-5 tries that we missed and clippers scored instead. Kawhi was great yesterday. Off to game 7 we go

[Bob8]

The difference between this year's and last year's playoffs KP is huge and cannot be explained only by his injury. His regression is just unexplainable. He has basically quit playing.

https://www.nba.com/stats/player/204001/

I think it is more complicated than that. Why would he suddenly lose motivation in the playoffs? His defense during the regular season was poor, but he scored efficiently and rebounded. Now that's collapsed. Motivation problems should be worse during the grind of the regular season, not the playoffs. And I don't think it is inability to deal with pressure, as he performed well against the same team in the playoffs last year. Even if he had lost interest in playing for the Mavs, this performance has to be personally humiliating for him, which should be motivation enough.

Look at DFS. It's obvious that he's lacking talent, plays for 4 mio per year, but is somehow more important than KP in this playoffs. How is that even possible? One is giving everything, other just cruising around. We can find excuses for KP in offense, but D is about effort too, especially rebounding is a lot about effort. I don't know what is going on, but KP's performance is not something normal.

[boogiezen]

The problem with people demanding Luka to be aggressive is that he will be called as a ballhog. Heck he took 37 shots in Game 5, so he took less in Game 6.

Again, I don't think we have enough talent to win Game 7. We just don't have the answer to Kawhi. We sacrificed Seth's shooting for the 3&D Jrich and yet he's useless. Trading James Johnson for shooting of Reddick and yet he is out. This management mannnn.

[SOUNDCHASER]

Boban clearly was having an impact against the Clippers and should have been in the game at crunch time.

His impact at the rim was obvious and with his rebounding we solve a lot of issues with letting the clippers get second chance opportunities.

That impact also allows our smaller guys to focus more on defending the perimeter much better.

The way the game has shifted to a non center league is stupid and when you have a big that can protect the rim and get rebounds like Boban does then you can show them just how stupid it is by learning to use him so you can focus on the perimeter D and shutting them down.

Boban is not even that great but he still has a huge impact.

His mobility is a major weakness but his stats always are great.

Knowing this RC tried it and it worked but he gave up on it in crunch.

Boban is a resoruce that allows us to give Luka a second scoring threat that is inside and ready to dunk it when they double him.

That helps to keep the double teams off of him and stop the clippers from focusing their defense on our perimeter players so much.

Powell next to Boban would help to cover up his weaknesses on mobility because Powell has been the energizer bunny on loose balls and getting out faster to take guys on with defense. That makes sense so RC needs to do more of that.

[agentofatlas]

The difference between this year's and last year's playoffs KP is huge and cannot be explained only by his injury. His regression is just unexplainable. He has basically quit playing.

https://www.nba.com/stats/player/204001/

Well he just got back from knee surgery. I've noticed that players sometimes take 2 seasons to trust their body again. Maybe that's the case with KP.

[RingColluder]

Your team has already exceeded expectations taking this to 7 with us, and I still think it's highly possible you win the series.

If you just traded KP for a strong average Center and defensive SF you'd have won this series in 5.

You're probably going to have to overpay for Hardaway, but I've loved how he looked.

When Kawhi is on like game 6, nothing you can do. Difference is with Luka is that Kawhi stopped him which PG, Morris, anyone else just couldn't do.

Batum never looks this good or Reggie who have been outperforming most of your role players. But Morris who usually has bene lights out has vanished this series for us.

Nothing would surprise me but we are awful in early day games, so that's your advantage. I'd probably give the odds 60-40 you win bc Carlisle is a much better coach than Lue imo, but as said we have more talent.

[Bob8]

The difference between this year's and last year's playoffs KP is huge and cannot be explained only by his injury. His regression is just unexplainable. He has basically quit playing.

https://www.nba.com/stats/player/204001/

Well he just got back from knee surgery. I've noticed that players sometimes take 2 seasons to trust their body again. Maybe that's the case with KP.

He looked better in RS. You would expect that players give everything in playoffs, not KP. And there's where I have problems with KP, his effort just isn't there. 7'3 player averaging 4.5 rebounds in 32 minutes, as a starter? I would have said impossible before this series. Apparently not.

We should look at per 36 numbers to see how bad KP really is. KP per 36 14.4/5.1; Boban 22.8/15.2. Boban, who barely moves, totally outplaying KP. 3x more rebounds.

[DJ_3_Ball]

Kawhi locked up Luka and scores 45points on 18/25. He was the best.

28/11/8 is now "locking up" I see.

He scored 3 cheap, uncontested baskets at the end. Not very representative of the Clippers defense on Luka to include that 7 points in his total. Think he had 29 pts & not 28 pts tho

[Pg81]

Your team has already exceeded expectations taking this to 7 with us, and I still think it's highly possible you win the series.

If you just traded KP for a strong average Center and defensive SF you'd have won this series in 5.

You're probably going to have to overpay for Hardaway, but I've loved how he looked.

When Kawhi is on like game 6, nothing you can do. Difference is with Luka is that Kawhi stopped him which PG, Morris, anyone else just couldn't do.

Batum never looks this good or Reggie who have been outperforming most of your role players. But Morris who usually has bene lights out has vanished this series for us.

Nothing would surprise me but we are awful in early day games, so that's your advantage. I'd probably give the odds 60-40 you win bc Carlisle is a much better coach than Lue imo, but as said we have more talent.

On the poll I voted for Clips in 7 and I do think that the Clips have the clear advantage though the Mavs have a shot to win the final game today.

[xinxin]

Before the first round started, I had the Mavs in 7. Changed it to Mavs in 4 after game 2.

Now it looks like I was right the first time around.


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