![]() Thank you for supporting local journalism.Mavericks: So … Luka Doncic is as dangerous as ever. This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only.But after such a promising playoff run last year, losing Jalen Brunson and following it up with these moves could easily turn an upward-trending future into a “what if” disappointment in record time. Trading assets and going all in on a two-star core to figure it out over two months just seems so unwise to me.Īh well - it’s not the team I cover. It’s also just a shortsighted trade, I thought, given Irving’s impending free agency and the very real likelihood he leaves Dallas in the summer. Are they really going to be able to stop the Nuggets, or the Kings, or the Grizzlies? They stopped the Suns last year - now they have Kevin Durant to fix that problem, so good luck with that. More importantly, they let this Jazz team score on them. ![]() (The Luka minutes are much harder to gameplan for than the Kyrie minutes, though - Irving can be goaded into some tough shots.) That’s especially when you consider that for about 20 minutes per night, only one of them is going to be on the floor. But to a very real extent, playoff defenses are going to be able to key in on those guys. Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving are both incredibly hard to guard. In the end, I’m just selling a team that is soĪnd B) oriented to only one end of the floor. Of course, only winning in the final seconds tonight against the very shorthanded Jazz is a pretty awful sign, especially given that they won the 3-point luck game by a significant amount, too. They’re 5-6 since the Irving trade - they’ve had a relatively tough schedule, but lost some games you probably would expect a true contender to win. Uh, the Dallas Mavericks might not be very good. ![]() It’s been only two months he’s in the rotation, and for him to have obviously changed mentalities since then in such a short amount of time is pretty impressive and a good sign for his future. That means more of a probe than a full-on attack - in this case, a shifty move or finding Horton-Tucker in the corner would have been the right option. ![]() You may well be able to beat that help guy, but you have to be aware that he’s likely coming. In halfcourt? You have to get that flyby, and expect someone to help. In transition, being a bulldog pays off nearly all the time - it’s nearly impossible to legally defend in the NBA while backpedaling without help. How do you have one without the other? Essentially, situational awareness. This was dumb, because then Markkanen could just shoot over the top of Kyrie Irving. That being said, he’s not just finishing these plays, he’s creating them, too.įor some of the night, the Mavs switched screens on defense. Basically, if the Finnisher was Finnishing a play, the Jazz were elite if anyone else was, they’re the 9-win Charlotte Bobcats but worse. Everyone else in the starting group had 45 points in 60 possessions, for 0.75 points per possession. Markkanen had 33 points in 25 possessions, for 1.32 points per possession. The Jazz’s starters had 78 points in 85 possessions. I’ve probably led 20 Triple Teams off with Lauri Markkanen this season, but it never really gets tiring talking about what this guy has found this season. Even when he’s basically the only guy on the opposing team’s scouting report, he’s scoring efficiently anyway. It’s because Lauri Markkanen, even without a high level point guard to feed him the ball, still is finding ways to get it done on the offensive end.
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