MVN - Most Valuable Network

From Pieces to Weight- Warriors Waste Mavericks

Jackson rises. Dirk falls.

You want drama. You got it. Don Nelson took a team of pieces - to weight. What a great series.

Basketball can still be an unpredictable game. That’s a very good thing. In a league where you can pick the top teams before the year begins, Dallas was on everybody’s screen as a likely title game candidate, or at least a Final Four team. The Mavericks are gone.

First round loser to a 42-40 team of reconstructed, rejuvenated bad boys Stephen Jackson and Baron Davis. Add in a 2002 2nd rounder who couldn’t make daylight on 4 previous teams - Matt Barnes - and you’ve got the top 3 Warrior scorers of the game that iced the 67 win Dallas Mavericks for the year. Likely MVP Dirk Nowitzki iced himself. 

It will be a long and contemplative off season for both the Mavs and Dirk. We can finally put to rest for all time, all of the comparisons of eDirk to Larry Bird. In the tone of Senator Lloyd Bentsen as he infamously said to Dan Quayle in that legendary national debate….”Dirk Nowitzki - you are no Larry Bird.”

Dirk, as leader of the Mavericks must get the most blame. In fairness, the whole Dallas team was out played last night and for the series. Jason Terry was kept in check after having a great post season last year. Desagana Diop was nullified. Howard was 8-19 with 6 boards in a game that required more. Stackhouse started out on fire (4-4 from 3 pt land in the first quarter) and scored 8 more over the last 3 quarters. Devin Harris did hold his own (13 pts - 9 assts) in an effort to pick up some of the slack.

Dirk made exactly 4 three pointers in the 6 games. Dirk’s  performance dysfunction (read that: MIA leadership - not a viagra commercial) was highlighted by a lack of a serious post game. He was guarded by smaller men most of time and wasn’t able to use his size effectively against them. He was a 7 footer shooting fade aways over 6′7″ opponents. If I’m Dirk, I go straight to the gym and start playing with contact around the hoop for hours on end. Either that, or I admit I will always be limited in how well I will do in the play-offs. When you rely solely on a jump shot, you live and die by it. Dirk died by it.

The boxscore certainly doesn’t tell the whole story but the smaller Warriors (Barnes played PF), outrebounded the Mavericks 53-38. That tells you just about everything. Golden State simply wanted it more.

Here is a question to ask Avery Johnson:

With Stephen Jackson exploding from downtown, why not use one of the defensive specialists you procured specifically for this season’s championship run? Devean George and Greg Buckner saw a total of 13 minutes. Jackson blew up the Mavs chances as they watched.

Of course, for some reason, line-ups shorten as the play-offs get going. Coaches rely on the top 6 or 7 guys that got them there. Sometimes it isn’t good reasoning. Often a play-off series will have an unsung hero. Dallas needed defense on Jackson. 7-8 from 3pt. land is defensible. Rather, letting Stephen go for 7-8 is ‘indefensible’.

All hail the Golden State Warriors - giant killers. Don Nelson’s team brought down Goliath in the form of Dirk Nowitzki and an even bigger national icon in Mark Cuban. He is probably the only NBA team owner who overshadows his own team in the nation’s eyes. The giant killer, a former Maverick employee, who has some weight himself is……a “quitter” according to Mark. But it looked like the quitters last night were on his own team.

Where the Warriors go from here is up in the air. They are a flawed team. Their starting center is a skinny 21 yr old who can’t shoot. I doubt they will get far with Matt Barnes playing PF for the rest of play-offs. Al Harrington played 8 minutes last night. Genius? It must have been. The score wasn’t even close. 111-85 was the final score with the 3rd quarter being the devastator (36-15)

The question going foward is - Will this be the best we will see this Warrior team play? Was this simply Don’s way of giving Mark the proverbial middle finger?

The chance of beating his former team must have been palpable for Don Nelson. Plus he knew the Mavericks personel better than they knew themselves. Can Don keep making the right line-up moves and motivate this team of Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, Jason Richardson, Stephen Jackson and everyone else?

Tune in next series for another fun-filled adventure of…From Pieces to Weight.

T

This entry was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 10:19 am and is filed under Celtics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.