Unfair But I'm freaking out.
A lot of disconcerting things reared their ugly heads last night and it would all be OK if it were a rookie coach instructing a bunch of rookie players.
But we're beyond all this. The Mavs lost thanks to:
Defense
I love Jason Kidd. I really do. It broke my heart when the Mavericks traded him in the first place. The guy is the starting point guard here. He's all we got, and we win or lose with the guy. Unfortunately, the Dallas Mavericks will never make it any where close to the NBA Finals with him as the starting point guard. Chris Paul the last two games:
34.4 MPG - 17-29 - 4-7 3PT - 30 assists - 5 turnovers - 3 steals - 21 PPG.
That's five turnovers in 68 minutes of play, 2.5 turnovers per 34 minutes. Jason Kidd's inability to guard faster, younger point guards is no mystery. But that doesn't explain the stark reality that in April he's still not going to be able to guard Paul, Tony Parker and Monta Ellis.
Also, the zone doesn't work. Good teams kill the zone. Teams that play solely zone defense is telling you that they can't guard you one-on-one and that they have to run flea flickers on every play to beat you.
J.J. Barea
I used to think you could survive with Barea as your No. 9 guy. However, Barea must have sex-with-clowns photos of Rick Carlisle because there's little reason why Barea's getting crunch-time minutes with the Mavericks. When teams want to, they can stop Barea. I don't know Carlisle's fascination with Barea. He's limited in just about every way and playing him in the third quarter of a blow-out is one thing, but on the road against a good New Orleans team in a one-point game is another. The Mavericks will never sniff the second-round of the playoffs with Barea getting anything more than 10 trash-time minutes twice a week.
Rick Carlisle
Seriously? You've been in the league for 30 years and you in-bound the potential game-winning possession to Dirk Nowitzki a billion miles from the basket forcing him to go one-on-one against David West, a smaller, quicker, blacker defender who has given Dirk fits for five seasons? Who the fuck is coaching this thing?
