Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks in May 2009: the Nuggets' Defense Keeps the Mavericks' Offense in the Barn, Part 6

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the early May 2009 second round, West semifinal round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. This content was put on the independent Dallas Mavericks forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM MAY 6, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets took a 2-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win.]

Posted by Usually Lurkin
THey'd already shown that they could blow open a game by taking advantage of a few possessions of sloppy ball.

I've lost count of how many games the Nuggets have won this way. Sloppy or even just casual = automatic free points for them.

To defeat the Nuggets, you have to have the same kind of intensity on offense that is usually reserved for playoff defending. No casual and no sloppy. In other words, the first priority is to contain the Nuggets' defense, strange as that may sound.

FROM MAY 6, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets took a 2-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win.]

Posted by rakesh.s

Billups > Kidd
Anthony > Howard
JR Smith > Terry
Nene (in this series) ~ Dirk
Andersen >>>>>>>> Dampier and Hollins combined, and Andersen comes off the BENCH.

Kidd > Billups (but some of Kidd's passes have been horrible in this series)
Anthony > Howard but Howard is good and the Mavs can not possibly win this series without him.
Terry > JR Smith, almost >>
Dirk > Nene; but don't ever be without even for a minute a quality defensive big guarding him.
Dirk >> Kenyon Martin normally and >>+ in this game. This alone tells you the Mavs are guaranteed one win in Dallas and can easily get both of the next two games.
Nene > Dampier

Andersen seems to be from another planet, so why bother comparing him to Earthlings? Why was Andersen not being paid by another team at the time the Nuggets with no money came looking for roster fillers? Why did no one know how good Andersen could be? Why? How could so many GMs have left Andersen unemployed as of the summer of 2008, allowing the Nuggets to get him for next to nothing.

FROM MAY 6, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets took a 2-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win.]

Posted by ray_sir_6
...and what's with the "Everyone go for a 3!" mentality that the Mavs get when they get behind? Or when another team makes a big 3? When you get behind, you drive, and drive and drive. Eventually you'll get a three, but you need POINTS, and the long ball (hailmary 3s) aren't the fastest way to get them. That pissed me off all season, and now in the playoffs. Drive, get fouls, get into the penalty, get the points. It hardly ever works just tossing the 3s up.

Exactly. In football you have to gamble on offense when you are way behind but in basketball you drive more and grind your way back in the game. Because paradoxically, the more you think you need threes, the fewer of them you will actually be able to make. Only when the margin is huge (>25) or time is running out do you shoot desperation threes.

Also, your backcourt is not inferior to the Nuggets backcourt. Yours is better. I don't know why Kidd especially has been bad in this series.

The much bigger problem for the Mavs in this series though is the inability to do anything about Nene. When you can't slow down Nene, the Nuggets get a free pass on their cheap, unstructured offense. If you do not slow down Nene, then you do not get to see how Chauncey Billups is not Jesus and how Carmelo Anthony is still not good in the playoffs and how JR Smith is half crazy.

Someone else on the subject of the "everyone going for a three" (the ray_sir6 post above):

Posted by rakesh.s
you're right..the other thing that it does is slow the game down -- denver won't be getting long rebounds and throwing outlet passes for easy dunks.

again, this is why denver will not be able to beat a team like LA who can throw the ball into Pau and Bynum to slow the game down and get quick fouls on the denver bigs.

Or Houston if the Lakers blow their series.

FROM MAY 6, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets took a 2-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win.]

Posted by Lor20
We did a few things beter than in game 1 (mostly bench play) but there are still 2 big things that have been issues for a long time.

1.)Why do we still play the 3 Guard Terry,Barea Kidd lineup?
we played it for like 6 minutes yesterday and our line was -13 with us getting outscored in 5 of the 6 stretches - the last one was even.

Yes, you can not ever use this lineup and expect to not pay hugely against these Thuggets.

2.) Our interior defense is just too slow. 96 minutes without drawing a charge now and letting them get half their points in the paint (if you include the FT's which were almost all coming from fouls in the paint. WE let them shoot like 20 FT's in the first half - if we manage to play some D without fouling we'd be up by 15 by the end of the third.

Hollins, Bass and Damp again picked up 13 fouls (14 last game) and none of them was a hard one. If you are going to make them shoot freethrows at least make them earn it instead of basically having them go to the hoop and then walk to the stripe

True, if the refs are against you and calling touch fouls against you then foul harder. Stop letting Nene and the Nuggets as a whole make everything look sooo easy.

I suppose it comes down to Howard. If he can't play in the second halves we haveno depth and the other guys don't get quite enough rest or we fall behind too much during those stretches. If we dont get Josh for 4 quarters we can't steal one in Denver - and I##m not sure if we can win without him at home either.

True again. It is uncanny how this series is roughly an instant replay of the Hornets-Nuggets series. Although the Mavs are not as banged up as the Hornets were, they are banged up.

FROM MAY 6, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets took a 2-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win.]

Posted by jthig32
Oh, and the TNT guys kept fawning over Duante Jones creating two turnovers on Dirk by "pulling the chair" from him, without ever noting that he was BLATANTLY FOULING HIM!!!

A double arm bar, or a double hand check on a player in the post is a FREAKING AUTOMATIC FOUL!! I was screaming at my tv last night. Then they finally called it on him in the second half which just further confuses everyone watching.

*sigh*

Dahntay Jones is a punk but kind of a smart punk.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks in May 2009: the Nuggets' Defense Keeps the Mavericks' Offense in the Barn, Part 5; and Updates on Correct Fouling

Editorial Notes: A small part of the following was written during the early May 2009 second round, West semifinal round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. This content was put on the independent Dallas Mavericks forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

For this particular part of the Mavericks-Nuggets review, most of the following was written on the same day this Report was posted. This is due to the importance of the fouling topics.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM MAY 5, 2009, JUST AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets lead the series 2 games to 0.]

Posted by ray_sir_6
Please tell me that was sarcasm. Even the announcers are pointing out the blatantly bad calls. "I could hear that foul from here" when they stole the ball from Terry. This was when they were either tied or within 2pts, so BIG SWAY in momentum courtesy of the refs.

"He made tons of contact, pushed the defender 6ft away." when Carmelo rammed Wright out of the way. And then they T'd up the Mavs coach for complaining.

"I see why Dirk is upset, that was clearing off the Nuggets" when the refs screwed yet another call.

The refs can control the flow of the game with their calls, and they were making the 4th quarter impossible for the Mavs to get going.

Oh, and the charge Damp took in the first half on the fast break wasn't in the protected area. He had both feet in front of it until he was contacted and he put his foot back where his heel was bearing on the line. It's a tit-tat call, but one I rewatched a few times, cause it looked to me that he was well out of the blocking circle....and he was.

I wish there would be more fairness in the calls the refs are making. I was thinking it was going well until the 4th started, and they weren't calling anything on Denver, but the Mavs seemed to be getting called on tit-tat fouls that wouldn't have been called earlier. Like Dampier getting a block on the baseline that they called a foul. It was a bad camera angle, but it didn't show any body contact, and if Damp got part of the hand, is was barely his pinkie, and 99% ball.

All very true.

The refs were horrible in game one and merely bad in game two. In game two they were better than game one, but don't be fooled, they were still bad in game two. Deserving special mention is that the touch fouls against Dallas have been out of control in this series.

The moral of this story is not that most or that even many games are going to be decided by the referees. The moral has to do with when one of the teams has a radical "fouling policy" that by definition the referees are not used to seeing. The moral is that it is possible for referees to be "steamrolled" by a team that is using a lot of intensity, energy and effort to partially camouflage a high fouling policy.

You don't normally have to be worried about and on the lookout for the referees calling a game very unequally. But you have to be worried and on the lookout when you know that your opponent plays fast and loose with the rules and intentionally operates a high fouling rate. So check the fouling rate stat of your opponents, and get ready to force the referees to call the game fairly if you have to, by having your team intentionally start fouling more (and harder) than usual, and/or by complaining up to and including getting a technical or two or three.

Keep in mind that it is a well known "secret" in basketball that getting a second technical (which throws you out of a game) is a long shot, since referees know they will come under a lot of scrutiny if they throw someone out of a game. So you have to be prepared to "use your free technical" by calling the referees out if your team is being steamrolled by the referees due to them having been steamrolled by a high fouling team.

That the Nuggets in 2008-09 operated a high fouling rate defense, and on offense a high "fouls obtained" policy, both of which on purpose, is obvious:

2008-09 DEFENSE: OPPONENT FREE THROWS / FIELD GOALS ATTEMPTED RATIO
--The NBA average in 2008-09 was .236
--The NBA overall average in the last 30 years is .241
--The 30 Championship winners of the last 30 years average .220
--The defensive FT / FGA "safe range," the range that almost all Quest winners are in, is .200 to .240
Denver Nuggets: .259 (6th highest in the NBA)
Dallas Mavericks: .225 (21st highest in the NBA)

2008-09 OFFENSE: FREE THROWS/FIELD GOALS ATTEMPTED RATIO
--The NBA average in 2008-09 was .236
--The NBA overall average in the last 30 years is .241
--The 30 Championship winnters of the last 30 years average .239
--The offensive FT / FGA "safe range," the range that almost all Quest winners are in, is .217 to .257
Denver Nuggets: .290 (highest in the NBA)
Dallas Mavericks: .224 (23rd highest in the NBA)

The prior year, 2007-08, the Nuggets defensive FT / FGA was only .203, which was way below the League average of .231. And this was just barely inside the low end of the safe range. The Nuggets were 26th on this in 2007-08 but then, as we have seen, they were 6th on this in 2008-09. So their policy was reversed, and they went from one extreme to the other. In other words, the Nuggets strategically and intentionally went from being an overweight on skilled defending to one overweight on aggressive and fouling type defending.

For the Nuggets, the two years were a tale of two completely different defenses, which by the way, regardless of which defense is more right and more wrong, is a sign of a franchise that is not sure of what it is doing and/or what it wants to be doing, which of course is a very large down signal with respect to whether that franchise could ever win the Quest.

Offensively, the Nuggets were completely consistent from 2007-08 to 2008-09. Unfortunately, they were consistently wrong! They were both years too much overweighting the importance of driving into the paint and getting fouls. In 2007-08, the Nuggets offensive FT / FGA was .259, second in the NBA whereas, as we have seen, in 2008-09, the Nuggets offensive FT / FGA was .290, the highest in the NBA. Since the Nuggets got a lot of uncontested fast break scores, ones where they could not possibly be fouled, the .290 number is especially extreme and radical. The Nuggets were literally off the deep end.

Folks, this is mostly if not entirely the handiwork of George Karl. Either because he is unable to coach a professional flow type of offense, or because he actually believes that flow offenses with some organization and consistency do more harm than good, he is constantly preaching to his players to drive the ball into the paint. Nuggets players under Karl are under fair warning that if they take as many jump shots as the average NBA player takes, they are subject to loss of playing time on the Nuggets. J.R. Smith in particular had to make radical changes in his playing style to accommodate the Karl demands.

In summary, the Nuggets were outside of the safe ranges three out of four times, and they were barely in the defensive safe range in 2007-08 when, given their lack of offensive quality, they should have fouled more than they did.

DALLAS MAVERICKS
As for Dallas, defensively they were .252 (9th in the NBA) on the FT / FGA in 2007-08 and, as we have seen, .225 (21st) in 2008-09. So they switched in the reverse direction that Denver did. But not only was the Dallas change in the reverse direction, it was much less radical a change than was the Denver change. And Dallas had less radical fouling policies than did Denver both years.

The Mavericks could have been a little less aggressive defensively in 2007-08, but regardless of that relatively minor complaint, it doesn’t seem that the Mavs were off base to any big extent either year.

Offensively, the Dallas Mavericks were .259 (7th in the NBA) on the FT / FGA in 2007-08 and, as we have seen, Dallas was .224 (23rd in the NBA) on the FT / FGA in 2008-09. So offensively, Dallas went from slighly overweight driving into the paint to slightly underweight. Both years, Dallas was in the offensive safe range.

It's interesting to note that from 2007-08 to 2008-09, the Mavericks offensively became less aggressive about driving into the paint, and so they got fewer free throws, whereas defensively, the Mavericks also reduced aggressiveness, in the sense that they fouled the opponent less than the year before. But these were not radical changes and, unlike the Nuggets, the Mavericks were within the safe range offensively both years.

Since I am not a Mavericks expert at this time, I can not exactly evaluate the Mavs' changes from 2007-08 to 2008-09. However, I can say that the Mavericks have been much less radical than the Nuggets have been, both defensively and offensively.

Amazingly, in terms of ranking, the Nuggets have been among either the top six teams or among the bottom six teams in the NBA on BOTH offensive and defensive foul policy BOTH years. So clearly they (incorrectly) think that extreme fouling / getting fouled policies might produce a Championship. Or else they are doing this for marketing reasons, trying to get more fans this way.

By contrast, the Mavericks have avoided the highest or lowest ranking extremes of the NBA both offensively and defensively both years.

CORRECT DEFENSIVE FOULING POLICY: A NUMERICAL UPDATE
The important thing is that if you want to win the Quest, you should avoid a high fouling defense, because although that will get you a few extra regular season wins, and it might possibly get you a few extra playoff wins, you will most definitely be toast should you (fortunately) reach a Conference Final with a high fouling defense.

Specifically, to have any chance at all of winning the Quest, your defensive FT/FGA should NOT be among the eight highest in the NBA, and it MUST be less than .250. On the other hand, unless you have a truly high skill defense, one like the Spurs did when they won several Rings in the last decade, you probably don't want to be among the ten lowest FT/FGA teams either. Therefore, unless your team is very highly skilled defensively, you want your team to be balanced and "middle of the road" with respect to fouling rate.

Numerically, you want your team to be between about .200 and about .240 on defensive FT/FGA. If you are above .240 you are fouling too much and if you are below .200 you are probably not fouling enough. If you are above .250 you have essentially zero chance of winning the Quest for the Ring. If you are below .190, you have zero chance unless you are one of the most skilled defenses in history.

For much more information about this important topic, see this Report. The two paragraphs immediately above is merely an extension of that Report.

CORRECT OFFENSIVE DRIVING INTO THE PAINT POLICY
I am going to quote from my own recent report on this:

Some basketball people simply believe that on offense, the more free throws earned, the better the offense. However, looking at this objectively, there is not anywhere near enough proof that this assertion is always or automatically correct. It is very clear that you should try to avoid being well below average in this, but whether you should be above average depends on your playmaking and shooting.

The reason you should avoid being substantially below the League average on this is simply that any offense, regardless of quality, is easier to defend the more predictable it is. And if you are below average in the free throw versus shot attempt ratio, it means you are not aggressively driving into the paint enough to test the interior defenses enough, which makes your offense too predictable and therefore makes it easier for the opponent to defend your playmaking and shooting.

However, if you are an above average playmaking and/or an above average shooting team, you will be to some extent shooting yourself in the foot and squandering your offensive edge if you overweight driving to the rack for fouls. So, if you have a high quality offense in general, you are advised to keep your offense between a little below average and a little above average in the free throw attempts versus field goal attempts ratio.

Always remember, do NOT attempt to be way above average in free throw attempts versus field goal attempts if you have a high quality offense. And remember the other side of that coin: you can not simply by overweighting driving for fouls achieve a high quality offense. This is actually a dumb mistake. You can't depend on a combination of interior defending lapses, referees calling every foul, and making most of your free throws to make up for a general lack of offensive quality. To have any chance at all to contend for a Ring, you MUST have a high quality offense that is NOT dependent (for scoring) on driving into the paint a lot more than other teams do.

On the other hand, if you have a poor point guard, and/or you have poor playmaking, and/or you have poor shooting, you can make up for one or more of these deficiencies to some extent by overweighting driving into the paint and earning more free throws. The worse the quality of your offense, the more you should resort to driving to the rack and trying to earn free throws more than most teams do. But again, although if you are a medium or lower quality offense overall you can force a better offensive result by overweighting drives to the rack, and although you might possibly win an extra playoff game or two by doing so, you can not and will not become a contender for a Championship just by doing this.

The important thing is to calibrate the overall quality of your "field goal offense" with to what extent you drive the ball into the paint. The higher the quality of your overall and of your field goal offense, the less you should overweight driving into the paint.

OFFENSIVE DRIVING INTO THE PAINT STRATEGY NUMERICALLY (NEW):
If you are a Quest contender overall, you honestly rate the real quality of your offense. In most cases, if you are a serious contender in the Quest, your offensive FT/FGA should be between .217 and .257, and your NBA rank should generally be between #10 and #20. The higher the quality of your point guard and your offensive flow, the lower you should be in that range, (and the lower you should be ranked) and vice versa.

You can NOT expect to gain more than a trivial number of extra regular season wins by overweighting driving into the hoop and by having an offensive FT / FGA higher than .257. So on offense, unlike on defense, you can not substantially change your regular season result, let alone your Championship chances, simply by ramping up the “aggressiveness factor”.

GENERAL SUMMARY
You should avoid being radically high or radically low on either offensive FT / FGA or on defensive FT / FGA. At a bare minimum, you almost always need to avoid being in the top six or the bottom six teams on either. In most cases, you want to be within the numerical ranges indicated above. Exactly where in those ranges you want to be depends on quality assessments of your offense and your defense that have been described.

REAL TIME MONITORING
You can real time monitor the crucial FT / FGA ratios for NBA teams in 2009-10 here. This page is not active yet, but it will presumably become active no later than when the season begins.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks in May 2009: the Nuggets' Defense Keeps the Mavericks' Offense in the Barn, Part 4

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the early May 2009 second round, West semifinal round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. This content was put on the independent Dallas Mavericks forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM MAY 4, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME ONE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game One was won by the Nuggets 109-95.]

Posted by GoNugs
The Nuggets are a sound defensive team. Last time I looked, that was part of the game...no?

Yes, you have one hell of a defensive team. If you think you can win a Championship without any offensive focus or schemes other than the fast break, with your offense based entirely on your defense, then go for it. You have almost unbelievable defensive intensity and speed. So take your best shot. Basing every last thing on defense is way out there on the edge, but it is interesting to watch, and it's like a scientific experiment: how far can a team go if it does this?

All I and others here I think are saying is that the referees had better not be steamrolled by your defense along with the other team! If that happens the game of basketball is damaged.

Imperfect referees? Inevitable. Steamrolled referees? No way. That spoils the game and starts to turn it into football. We want and expect the referees to keep their focus and make sure they keep the rules in mind as they watch the Nuggets' "outstanding and intimidating" defense.

FROM MAY 4, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME ONE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game One was won by the Nuggets 109-95.]

Posted by longsufferingmavsfan
Hey folks check this play out. Fast Forward to the 1:53 mark of the video, the "FOUL" on Hollins. Tell me thats not a horrible call.

What a joke of a call, but I'm not laughing.

From his statements we know that Rick Carlisle knows exactly what is going on here. This is good. Now if he can figure out the best way to contain the Nuggets defense the Mavs are in business. (Normally you are talking about containing an offense, but in this case the objective is to contain the Broncos' defense. I mean the Nuggets defense.)

So far Coach is saying the Mavs need to increase aggressiveness to close the gap in that area. I agree 100%.

It is a paradox and may not seem logical: why would you want to become more aggressive when the refs are calling more of your fouls than the other teams' fouls? Because think about it: you don't have much to lose! You are already in the hole already in the fouls.

If there ever was a series where you have to "increase aggressiveness" to get fully competitive and to wake up the referees, this is that one you have been waiting for. The objective is to eliminate any excuse the refs have for calling a game unevenly.

FROM MAY 4, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME ONE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game One was won by the Nuggets 109-95.]

Posted by joemoeschmoe
If we hadn't been so sloppy (especially in the 4th), we might've been able to win the game despite the officiating disparity.

Yes, the Mavs were very much in this game. A writer for the Denver post claimed that the Nuggets "dismantled" the Mavs in this game, and nothing could be farther from the truth than that. It was not a rout in any way, shape, or form. Kidd's crazy turnovers alone gave the Nuggets roughly 8 points for free.

This means the Mavericks can win this series and that no one should be shocked if they do win it.

FROM MAY 5, 2009, JUST AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets lead the series 2 games to 0.]

I'll be dangerously honest and admit my primary objective in this game besides rooting for the Mavs was to decide once and for all whether the Nuggets pose any serious threat to the Lakers.

Note: I am NOT a fan of the Lakers, I'm not really a fan of any one team anymore. I'm just a fan of basketball, and of basketball being different from football, that is it.

The Nuggets are winning on the cheap and they are winning without any offensive scheme other than easy, cheap points off fast breaks. This is exactly like a football team relying on its defense to get some stops (yielding better field position) and a turnover or two or three. Then the offense of that football team has very little to do to win the game. Many, many games in football are won this way, maybe as many as 1/3 of them.

Although everyone knows defending is more intense and more important in the playoffs than it is in the regular season, it is not true that Championships or Conference finals have been won to any extent at all by teams doing what the Nuggets are doing. Were the Nuggets to beat both the Mavs and the Lakers, it would truly be a science fiction type of event.

So all the Lakers (or the Mavs, still) have to do is to man up and take care of the ball. This is not as difficult for a team to do as it may seem from watching the Nuggets games lately. The Nuggets have temporarily created an alternate universe here, where basketball is different than in our universe.

So I am confident that even if the Mavs keep turning it over, even if the Mavs keep being heavily victimized by the free points of the fast break, and even if the Mavs keep being hammered by the referees, so they lose this series 4-1 or whatever, that the Lakers will defeat the Nuggets and restore my faith in basketball.

Go Mavs, you have a good, quality team regardless of what happens in this series. Your team looked great for three quarters (again) and then the 4th turned goofy and didn't seem like basketball anymore.

FROM MAY 5, 2009, JUST AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets lead the series 2 games to 0.]

VERY IMPORTANT BACKGROUND INFORMATION
In this game, game two in Denver, the Mavs and Nugs played almost even through three quarters; it was 86-83 Denver after three. Mavericks superstar Dirk Nowitzki asked for and received extra rest time at the beginning of the 4th quarter.

The problem was that Rick Carlisle installed a small lineup at the start of the 4th, which was promptly routed by the Nuggets due to the Nuggets' relentless driving into the paint, mixed up nicely with a fast breaking attack. The Mavs super small lineup to start the 4th was:

--JJ Barea PG, 6'0"
--Jason Terry PG, 6'2"
--Antoine Wright SG, 6'7"
--Brandon Bass PF, 6'8"
--James Singleton PF, 6'8"

We need to take a time out from our regularly scheduled posting of past writing.

If you are a coach or manager and you are reading this, learn this right here and now: Never, ever ever put a small lineup on the floor in the 4th quarter of a tight game against a hard charging, aggressive, athletic team that is favored to win the game. Never, ever do it; this is an obvious blunder against a team that is relentlessly driving the ball into the paint on offense and is relentlessly fouling on defense. The more aggressive your opponent, the more your opponent is relying on getting fouled on offense and on fouling on defense, the more you MUST NOT late in the game put a small lineup into a close game. Don't ever make a fool of yourself the way Carlisle inadvertently did here.

After Dallas mistakenly inserted the much too small rotation at the start of the 4th, the Nuggets took full advantage. They scored the first nine points of the fourth to take a 95-83 lead. The Nuggets then scored 7 of the next 9 points, and took an insurmountable 102-85 lead with six minutes left in the game. The Mavericks had been demolished by an incredible 16-2 in the first half of the fourth quarter!

The quote and response below refers to the fatal mistake of the too small Mavs lineup that went in at the start of the 4th.

Posted by CadBane
Don't try to be clever, because you're not. Yes, it still only has one, but it also isn't a HUGE liability on D like the lineup sporting JJ Barea and NO center. And it at least gives Kidd a guy to get dunks on (Damp or Hollins).

That lineup was a big mistake, very true. The Nuggets will usually eat alive any team that tries to play small. I have to respect Dirk needing rest, and I don't know enough about the Mavs players to say who should have been in early in the 4th, but there no doubt should have been another big man in there. Having two small point guards in there was an absolute killer.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv