High percentage It's about showing your utter superiority over bad or mediocre teams. It's about giving guys a rest in the third and fourth quarters.
The Mavericks haven't done it in three years. I can't remember the last 15- or 20-point win the Mavericks had.
The Mavs had a 25-point lead, shot 50 percent, had 25 free throws and just nine turnovers and somehow the Houston Rockets were down by one with a minute left. Yes, the Mavericks won 111-106, but it was embarassing watching Houston chip away at that lead.
The big reason is that the Mavs don't have a ton of guys that play great defense. Two, they play zone and teams can figure out how to beat a zone. Three, the bench has ZERO defensive presence. Basically, if J.J. Barea, Jason Terry, Brendan Haywood, Ian Mahinmi and Brian Cardinal played a lick of good defense (I don't mean effort, I mean being a good defender), they'd be able to hold these teams down.
And it's not getting better. Peja Stojakovic and Sasha Pavlovic aren't exactly lock-down defenders. In fact, I wouldn't call them defenders at all. As both are considered to be high rotation guys, it's not going to get better.
Speaking of, Barea put together his two best games of the year adding 19 last night to the 25 he notched against the Clippers.
Suddenly, the Barea supporters are crawling out of the woodworks. They'd been mysteriously missing the previous three months when Barea was shooting 30 percent and sucking ass. Welcome, Barea supporters. You've been missed.
