Letting a 19-point lead slip away Friday night was a reminder that the Mavericks still have work to do on their roster, writes Tim Cato of The Athletic. Dallas controlled much of Game 2 after building an early 26-10 lead, but couldn’t stop the Warriors when it mattered and now faces a 2-0 deficit in the Western Conference Finals.
Coach Jason Kidd only has six players that he can trust for significant minutes, Cato notes. Frank Ntilikina played just four minutes in Game 2 and didn’t score. Kidd tried Josh Green in the second half, but he missed the only shot he took in five minutes. Spencer Dinwiddie had four points and four turnovers as the Mavs’ bench was outscored by Golden State’s 36-13.
Having a healthy Tim Hardaway Jr. might ease the problem, but he’s still recovering after having foot surgery in February. Cato adds that Dallas needs another two-way wing who can match up with the Warriors’ collection of talent at that position, but the team doesn’t have a good option currently on the roster.
There’s more on the Mavericks:
- Kidd believes his team helped Golden State by taking too many three-point shots, per Tim McMahon of ESPN. Friday’s game turned around in the third quarter as the Mavs scored just 13 points and shot 2-of-13 from long distance. “If you make [threes], that’s great, but you just have to understand, if you miss four in a row, you can’t take the fifth,” Kidd said. “You’ve got to make it. That just puts too much stress on yourself and on your team because, if you’re not getting stops on the other end, it turns into a blowout.”
- The Warriors won by controlling the area near the basket on both ends of the court, according to Eddie Sefko of Mavs.com. Dallas was outscored in the paint, 62-30, and was out-rebounded by a 43-30 margin. “Small, small-ball,” Kidd said. “When you say the overall playoffs, we did start off without Luka (Doncic), who is our best rebounder. But just being small. Sometimes, we’ll give up the rebound to take advantage of the offensive side. But when we do win, we rebound the ball, and we have to do a better job of that.”
- Hardaway is the only player listed on the Mavs’ injury report for Game 3, tweets Callie Caplan of The Dallas Morning News, who adds that the stitches Reggie Bullock received in his right eyebrow and the lingering pain in Doncic’s right shoulder don’t appear to be serious concerns.
They went away from what worked in the first half. That and Kevon Looney played great, as usual.
Might wanna (at least) TRY Trey Burke… would help more than Frank Ntilikina.
Everyone knew that they would not keep up the scoring they had in the first half. That is why GSW win is because they never gave up and knew Mavs shooting would come down to earth.
I don’t know if I agree with that – I mean you could say Poole and Looney shooting over 70% in game 2 is unsustainable equally if not more unsustainable than Dallas’s 1H shooting in G2.
Luka, for his part, was still scorching them in the second half – I think it was more of a defensive loss for Dallas. They just ran out of gas on that end by the 4th.
If Looney continues to play this well I wonder if Kidd will give Powell more run – having a dive guy could mitigate GSWs ability to switch w KL and also just adds another guy to a very thin rotation.
Frank N was Frank the Tank jr when he was in NY
Sometimes he can shoot 3
Dallas just looks gassed in Game 1, I don’t put a lot of stock in that loss – they played on a Tuesday after a Sunday night Game 7, whereas Golden State had, what, 3-4 days off after winning G6 at home??
Then Game 2 they came out great but again looked gassed by the end. The defense down the stretch was the polar opposite of what they’ve done down the stretch here.
But still: Golden State just did what they were supposed to do – defend their homecourt. If Looney regresses to the mean at all in Dallas, I still think this is a series that goes the distance.