Luka Doncic poured in 40 points in Game 3 but he still had a team-worst plus-minus when he was on the floor. Doncic admits the Western Conference Finals has turned into a learning experience for him and his Mavericks teammates, Tim MacMahon of ESPN writes.
“I’m still learning,” Doncic said. “I think the first two quarters, I played very bad. That’s on me. But I’m still learning. I think after this season is done, whatever we are, I think we’re going to look back and learn a lot of things. It’s my first time in the conference finals in the NBA. I’m 23, man. I’m still learning a lot.”
Jason Kidd had a similar take on his team falling behind 3-0 in the series.
“This is just the beginning of this journey,” Kidd said. “I know you guys had us winning the championship before the season started. And that’s a joke if you didn’t get it. But this is a lot bigger than just this one game or this one series. This is huge for our franchise because none of you guys had us here.”
We have more on the Mavericks:
- The franchise has racked up $175K in fines for bench decorum violations during the postseason. The league believes the conduct of the Mavs bench impacts player safety, competitiveness and fan consideration, Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today reports. After the season, the NBA will explore ways to address bench decorum during games in real time, Zillgitt adds. Dallas bench players standing up for long periods of time and an incident in which Stephen Curry made a turnover because the Mavs’ Theo Pinson was wearing a white shirt on the bench were particularly irksome to league officials.
- How can Dallas reach Golden State’s level in the future? One area to upgrade is center, Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer opines. Dwight Powell and Maxi Kleber have been unable to stop the Warriors from attacking the basket. The Mavericks also needs more perimeter threats around Doncic, according to O’Connor, who believes the Mavs should pursue the likes of Rudy Gobert, Jusuf Nurkic and Deandre Ayton at center and/or consider a sign-and-trade for Zach LaVine. They also shouldn’t rule out a sign-and-trade involving Jalen Brunson, O’Connor writes.
- The Doncic-Curry matchup is an apples to oranges comparison because they’re at different stages of their careers and play in different systems, Kevin Sherrington of the Dallas Morning News writes. Doncic is also surrounded by mainly spot-up shooters while the Warriors have a multitudes of creators around Curry in their rotation.
Talk is easy
Mavs have no assets to acquire Gobert, Ayton or LaVine
Other teams have better trade offers
Jalen Brunson in a sign and trade
4 cap space teams are not interested in Brunson.
Knicks offer 4-year $80 million contract.
Mavs have made it clear that they don’t want to sign and trade him to Knicks.
Mavs want to keep Brunson at 4-year $56 million
They don’t want to do SNT.
Gotta love the NBA blaming the mavericks for this when it was the entire league that decided to decrease court space around the sides in lieu of more front row seats for fans.
You want them further back you have to actually create space back there.
The white tee shirt thing is valid though.
theo looks very bad when he refused to change a shirt. He is seen standing up and waving his arms around like he wants to be passed to. Seriously that is pure Bush league and bad sportsmanship. They should make him be no closer than 20 feet from the sideline or suspended rest of playoffs.
Yeah that was problematic for sure. But as long as they are wearing the right colors I’m good with the rest of their antics. We need more antics in the NBA that stuff makes it funny
Good points about antics and the lack of floor space for the game.
No point in rooting for easier corner shooting either… It’s easy enough already.
Maybe set up a dugout for the players?— dugouts keeps baseballers from wandering around out there lol… Or standing on the foul line to appear more involved.
The view is pretty much the same!
You can change coaches or give them Popovich, Red Auerbach, Coach K, AND Thad Matta… Dallas isn’t winning any championship with that offensive scheme of Luka goin 1v5.
Unfortunately for Dallas, that style of play probably gives them their BEST chance to win and get as far as they have, but there’s no way they’re gonna beat the other division’s champion like that.
To play more “traditionally” would take the ball out of Luka’s hands to the point where neither he nor the team would be as good. Other players may prefer it, but the team, strange as it sounds, wouldn’t be as successful. And, that would also alienate Luka. You lose Luka and you, obviously, lose your job.
Carlisle knew it.
It’s funny because I didn’t hear this critique of Giannis when Middleton went out this postseason.
Were you saying that Giannis should have been sharing the ball with Grayson Allen more as well?
Dallas – much like the Bucks without KM – just has inferior talent to most any other team left. Wiggins or Poole would be the 2nd best player on Dallas – they’re (arguably) the 4th and 5th best on GSW.
In addition, Dallas’s second highest player (THJ) is on the sidelines. Their starting center (Powell) has been unplayable and his backup (Kleiber) inconsistent.
That leaves them essentially with 5 guys they can count on: Luka, Brunson, Dinwiddie, Bullock, DFS. Then they’re relying on Frankie Nicks and Davis Bertans as “depth”.
Not sure how any of that is on Luka.
Get the guy better teammates and then if he doesn’t moderately adjust his usage down at that point then the criticism is valid. But it’s hard to criticize him for doing too much when his best teammate to date was the corpse of Kristaps.
As I stated, sure, playing this way gives them their BEST chance to win! And yes!….. they’ll win GAMES like this – Luka is that good!
Unfortunately, they won’t win a CHAMPIONSHIP this way this year or any year.
Carlisle knew that.
I told an nba assistant coach (during last season’s playoffs) that as great as Luka is, Dallas won’t win big playing this way. He responded, “They’ll figure it out.”
Now HE’S beating them 3-0 as we speak.
I would have liked to see Dallas use a couple of different guys off the bench in this series. Instead of Kleber, and maybe even Bertans, a bench unit of Dinwiddie, Ntilikina or Sterling Brown, Chriss, Green, and maybe Bertans matches up better,in my opinion, although could impact spacing a little
I agree just from the standpoint that Dallas has looked completely gassed all series.
Relying more on Frank or Sterling Brown very well may have cost them the series, but riding guys like Bullock and DFS down the bone more or less did the same.
To be fair to Kidd, with Powell basically unplayable and THJ injured, his rotation is razor thin compared to other teams. I mean even if Dallas had a guy like Oladipo at the end of their bench this could have been a different series.
I dont think Hardaway being out matters as much in this series, with Brunson and Dinwiddie playing well. I think they need more length, disruptiveness/defense, playmaking, and shooting out there, and I think those guys I mentioned could have helped
True true but just in the sense of having another dude who’s playable would be a big help – ramping down Bullock, Brunson, and Dinwiddie’s minutes down 5-7 mpg might have been what they needed.
Not sure I buy into any of Frank, Brown or Green (or Bertans) being playoff rotation guys
People have said the same about so many players I’ve talked about, only for them to prove it when they get opportunities. I personally disagree, but I can see why you might think that
“I mean even if Dallas had a guy like Oladipo at the end of their bench this could have been a different series.”
Hahaha. there you go again, saying things you don’t mean to mess with people.
Good one bro.
Of course the league is irked… I mean if their darling Curry has an unforced turnover, ofc they will hate DAL for that & fine them, right?
The cheek of Luka & Co. to make Curry make a mistake is an unforgivable sin in the eyes of the league!
Lol the Mavericks are on the verge of getting swept.
Keep crying EL Don. As if it’s going to change anything. This is what happens when you have a ball hog like Doncic.
Luka and the tradeables have gone as far as they’re going to go… Way, way, over achieved. Can’t complain about the way Luka or rest have played in these playoffs. Really!
This is the 2nd time in the last couple of weeks a coach tried to say a team that should be there shouldnt have, or that nobody picked them. I’ll give Jason Kidd more of a pass than Doc Rivers b/c I didnt see many others besides me pick Dallas to get to the conference finals, and he made adjustments in previous series. He is also one of my all time favorite players, but I do wish he would have done some different things during this series to make it more interesting.
IMO I’m not sure I want Brunson on the Knicks taking up all that cap space. I would like to see what McBride or someone else is capable of doing first.
I think they need shooting around Randle and Barrett and fewer guys that need the ball in their hands. I like their young guards too. They need to replace defense they lost on the wing without Bullock, in addition to Reddish, and they could use a floor spacing big that can play next to Randle
They also should have played more with Randle at the 5, and Quickley shouldnt be on the floor without at least 1 of Randle, Barrett or Rose
I like what I’ve seen out of Brunson in the playoffs but I also agree that he’s a terrible fit with Randle.
Brunson’s game is basically Randle’s game, just more efficient and about a foot shorter. Don’t see those two meshing particularly well.
I’d love them to give RJ some more point forward reps – see if he can develop some more court awareness. Might be a bumpy ride, but it’s worked for Tatum in Boston.
The Dallas 5-out offense ran its course in earlier rounds. It took the spark out of them. Compare to Bobby Knight avoiding the zone defense— he wanted his guys to be sharpened by going man.
Next year they will have Dinwiddie better integrated. He did not mesh with Doncic like I anticipated, and Brunson included, on offense it was all about one player or the other.
GSW can be hard on a defensive team.