Why Mess With The Mavericks’ Amazing Historical Offense?

Previews/Recaps Leave a comment

Welcome to the NBA Hangover. We jot down NBA stuff mostly from last night that we want to talk about. Check it out.

Luka Doncic returns to man the best offense in NBA history.

(PHOTO CREDIT: Smiley N. Pool/Dallas Morning News.)

Luka Doncic made a return to the court and promptly went for 24-10-8 in a Mavs win over the Spurs. But what the oldheads from Turner said was what interested me more.

Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley are legends and we will never take away from what we did. But they are also stars from a different era. As time goes on, the NBA game evolves. While they prefer putting their backs to the basket, we didn’t know how inefficient that type of play was until much later.

O’Neal and Barkley decidedly went after Kristaps Porzingis (yeah, yeah, I know) about his play. Porzingis is 7’3″ but not a very good post player. But the 90s stars insist he get down there and put his back towards the basket.

Mavs coach Rick Carlisle was NOT having it:

This is Carlisle, someone who played in the 80s with Larry BIrd but who has also coached in the last 30 years. He’s watched the game evolve to what it is now. Also, he’s won an NBA championship as a coach. Oh, yeah. The Mavericks offense is currently the BEST in history.

Data from Basketball Reference.

Let me explain offensive rating again because, honestly, everyone just throws it out there like everyone knows what it is (they don’t). I always explain what it is because of that aspect. It’s points per possession. You know how a possession can end on a missed shot, a made shot (two or three-pointers), free throws (zero, one, or two points), or a turnover. Also, the rating is based on 100 possessions because NBA games are usually close to that number.

This year’s Mavericks are the best in NBA history. But Shaq and Charles insist they go with a more inefficient attack. The Mavericks play five-out. Everyone’s on the perimeter so their point guard (especially Luka) can attack the seams or probe while everyone either attacks the basket by cutting or finding a spot behind the arc to get open. Parking a gigantic man inside the paint just clogs that space and it helps get that defense set on what the Mavs want to do. It’s just so much easier to play five-out and the Mavs roster isn’t cut out to do post moves, anyway.

And do you really want to cut that pick-and-roll action their stars do? Which could become completely unstoppable when they hone this play?

Also, let’s take something from Coach Dan D’Antoni, who helms the Marshall Men’s Basketball Team and the brother of Rockets Coach Mike D’Antoni.

This was three years ago. And YOU KNOW the NBA has increasingly played more of a perimeter game since then.

So here are the individual rankings for post-ups in the NBA. Only 25 players score a point per possession, which is equivalent to… 100 points per 100 possession. By the way, the Bulls are last in offensive rating at 104.2 points per 100 possessions. So a post-up is NOT conducive to today’s basketball.

Now I also get that the closer you are to the basket, the better. You can use the post-up not as a means to score but to make plays out of it. The threat is enough. That might work for other teams but not for Dallas. Dallas is going to stick with what got them there. After all, it’s the BEST FRIGGIN’ OFFENSE IN NBA HISTORY.

I also still say that you go with what you’re comfortable with. It’s fine when Joel Embiid does it because he does have a power game (as you saw in that link, 7th in points per possession while posting up 35 percent in possessions). But while this humongous human being for the Mavs played the triple post offense (triangle offense) in New York, it’s something he wasn’t very good at (below a point per possession throughout his career). He’s clearly more comfy in the perimeter.

So let’s look at what the good players are doing instead of picking apart something they’re not good at. It’s why it gets on my nerves when people (especially some of the writers) call Ben Simmons a coward for not shooting a three (which I confess I was guilty of once, too; well, I used the word “poltroon”).

(Poltroon is quite a good word, by the way.)

Bullet Passes

Jordan Clarkson made his debut for the Utah Jazz. He sure went to work as he put up 12 shots (only scored 9 points).

He’ll always be my dude, though. Filipinos stick together.

The Thunder were on such a roll, too, but their four-game win streak was snapped by Memphis.

The Nets only scored 82 points in their loss against New York. Ugly.

SPEAKING OF UGLY.

An NBA game in 2019 where two teams barely broke a hundred each that went two overtimes. But we gotta show you two of the three out-of-bounds plays that happened in 0.5 seconds.

First, with 0.5 left, Jeff Teague bounces the ball off Robert Covington’s leg:

Then, with 0.2 left, Justin James’ inbounds pass from full court NEARLY went in the basket:

Yikes.

Also, both teams shot under 35 percent. Gross.

It somehow reminded me of this game from early in the 2013-14 season between the Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks:

I just remember it involving a series of clanks and mishaps at the end. There was a shot clock violation that involved Kirk Hinrich going under the basket and then losing the ball. The Bulls didn’t score in the last three minutes of the game other than a giveaway Marquis Teague lay-up. Woof.

Anyway, long live the bad NBA games.

The Scoreboard

WAS 102 (9-21) @ DET 132 (12-20)
NY 94 (8-24) @ BRK 82 (16-14)
MEM 110 (12-20) @ OKC 97 (15-15)
SA 98 (12-18) @ DAL 102 (20-10)
MIN 105 (11-19) @ SAC 104 (12-19) (2OT)
POR 115 (14-18) @ UTA 121 (19-12)

Watch This Play

Mitchell Robinson was angry at the rim.

(VIDEO CREDIT: NBA BandWagon Fan.)

He had malice on his mind.

Rey-Rey is on Twitter at @TheNoLookPass.

TNLP on FaceBook.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *