The First second round matchup determined as Suns, Mavs go home.

One matchup is set in the Western Conference, and that is Hornets-Spurs. One team a perennial powerhouse, the other a “suprise” to the whole sports world. On the way to determining this second round matchup, both knocked off two teams who made desperate, midseason trades to try and win it all. And the Hornets and Spurs rewarded them with early exits(fairly easy ones i might add). So now for the Hornets and Spurs they have a series to look forward to and an oppourtunity to continue their journey to the NBA finals. Now, if your the Mavericks and the Suns the question is, What now?

    Lets start with the Suns. They trade away Shawn Marion, a great all around player, I believe the only player on the suns who could play both sides of the floor on an all star caliber level. They get in return Shaquille O’ Neal with promises of an NBA finals trip. That clearly doesnt work out as you get bounced in 5 games in the first round. So now do you blame the coach? Possibly. I believe the problem is more then that. The Suns lost in the first round because they simply couldn’t contain Tony parker and Manu Ginobli. Why is that? They played poor defense. That’s a problem they’ve always had, even before the O’ Neal trade. So now, you ship out your best defender in Shawn Marion, and that problem becomes even worse. Then you throw on top of it the fact that Mike D’antoni is strictly an offensive minded coach. And you have a serious problem. High Tempo teams never win in the playoffs, they can make runs and upset teams because of there explosiveness. But the fact of the matter is, they can’t get the stops they need to make a full playoff run. With Steve Nash getting older as well as Shaquille O’ Neal, the Suns need a change in philosophy and a change in personel. Sorry, but D’antoni has to go. Not because, hes a bad coach but because he simply doesnt implement a style of basketball that wins in the postseason. However getting rid of D’antoni won’t solve all of the Suns problems. To become a solid defensive team you need to players to do it with, the Suns simply dont have that. Besides Raja bell, nobody on that team is a solid defender. Once again not a recipe for success. So in summary I believe this team needs to totally change there philosophy and start looking at life after O’ Neal and Nash.

 Now, the Mavericks. Like the Suns they make a midseason gamble on an aging player and get bounced in the first round. They give up Devin Harris, half their team and half the cheerleading squad just to get Kidd. Things dont work out they way they planned and now theyre golfing. Do i Believe the Mavericks should replace Avery Johnson? Yes. Definetly. From what i saw in that first round series just giving away games due to poor matchups he didn’t do a good job at all. And calling off practice before an elimination game? Sorry, dont believe thats a good strategy. All the X’s and O’s aside it just seems to me like his routine is tired. He doesnt seem to have the same connection with his players he once had, or the ability to motivate them and get them going anymore. The players had to call for there own practice just to get themselves going before Game 5. So yes, I believe Avery has to go. Possible Candidates are Jeff Van Gundy and Mike D’antoni. Besides the coaching the Mavericks are an old team. Devean George, Eddie Jones, Juwan Howard, Jamal Magloire and Tyron Lue are all free agents this year. Personally i wouldnt resign any of them. None of them had any impact what so ever on this team. The Mavericks need desperately to get younger. They have a mid level exception, i would try and use that and whatever money they gain from the expiring contract of Lue, Jones etc. to mayb pick up a younger player or two. Namely and good post defender and shot blocker, as well as a quick, athletic guard because speed was clearly a problem the Hornets exposed. Some potential pickups could be Chris Duhon, Devin Brown, Beno Udrih etc. Some bright spots for Dallas, Brandon Bass looks to be a promising young player, i would give him more minutes next year and i’m gonna be interested to see how Antoine Wright develops.

Both of these teams are going to have a lot of thinking to do and decisions to make this off-season. We can only wait and see how it plays out.

 

Game 5: Mavericks @ Hornets.

Game 5 of the first round series between the Mavericks and the Hornets tips off at 7pm on TNT. The Mavericks are facing elimination and its not a suprise due to the way they’ve played. There are some major concerns i’d like to point out that the Mavericks will have to change if they want to have any chance of coming back in this series.

First off, they’ve got to show more fire. Besides Dirk and Terry, nobody seems to be playing with passion and tenacity that we saw them play with during the 2006 playoff run. The only time we’ve seen that was game 3 which the Mavericks won at home. In order to try to steal this game tonight from New Orleans they’re going to have to want it more to have any chance of winning. Every game they seem to come out with necessary passion to win , but as soon as the hornets make a run they lose all fire and will to fight. It’s the NBA teams are going to make runs, especially in the playoffs . You can’t expect to come out with fire, and control the entire game and limiting the other team to no scoring runs of bursts of energy and fire. They’ve got to be able to bounce back from those runs and make runs of there own to protect there lead. You can’t just mail it in because the other team got on a little bit of a roll. Once you do that, the little roll becomes a double digit loss (Game 1 @ New Orleans, Game 4 @ Dallas). 

My second point is the play of Josh Howard. Josh Howard is in my opinion the second most important part of this team. Dirk being the first. If they want to win tonight Josh Howard has to start hitting some shots. He’s shooting 25 percent from the field and 12 percent from 3 point range this series. Thats not going to get it done. Howard is the guy they look for to score some points when Dirk isn’t hitting his shot or the defense is throwing a lot of pressure at him. That’s been a major problem this series. When Dirk’s shot isn’t going down the Mavericks have struggled mightily offensively leading to Hornets runs and eventually wins. If Howard hits his shots that opens up Nowitzki’s game, gives the Hornets defense another much needed threat to worry about, as well as keeping the mavericks in the game during key stretches. If they want to win tonight Howard has to perform. Period.

Third, Jason Kidd. I’ve been saying since the beginning of the series that they should post jason kidd on chris paul. They’ve done that and one of two things has happened. Jason Kidd drew a foul on chris paul and/or scored, but then the Mavs failed to follow through and get the ball back to him. Or Kidd got into the lane, had an open layup attempt and passed the ball out to a contesed shooter. If the Mavs want to win Kidd has to be more agressive and take the point blank shots when he has them, and i believe he has to get more touches on the block against paul. This will wear out paul on defense, possibly get him in foul trouble as well as make kidd into a scoring option which he hasn’t been all series.

Avery Johnson. Avery Johnson. Avery Johnson. I’m not an NBA coach, ive never played in the NBA, ive never won a ring or any of that. But i severely disagree with some of these moves and choices hes made. First off , i believe they gave the first two games away by trapping and doubleteaming paul. They were trapping paul with kidd and dampier most of the time. Two people who are not known for the quickness versus one of the quickest players in the league equals splitting the doubleteam and carving the defense apart. In addition to that even when the doubleteams and traps were succesful your forcing Paul to do what he does best which is pass the ball and get good looks for other players. Heres a stat for you first two games with trapping paul Tyson Chandler averaged 10 points and 13 board with 8 attempts two games since Chandler is averaging 4 shots with 3 points and 7 1/2 rebounds. And when they weren’t trapping they had jason kidd playing him on defense? why would you do that for two straight games? thats giving chris paul the lane. I said at the beginning of the series that terry was the best option to guard him and hes proved to be, not stopping chris paul, but keeping him from playing like magic johnson. And now two coaching moves that i believe lost game 4 for the Mavs. First, JJ Barea being in the game in the second quarter with the mavericks up by 9 guarding Jannero Pargo, who just went off for 30 points last game. During the 1 minute 32 seconds that Barea was in the game Pargo hit a 3 and dished out 2 assists and was responsible for the 7 straight unanswered points by the Hornets to tie the game and shift the momentum. Barea had no buisness being in that game. Period. Then we move to the 3rd Quarter. The Mavericks open up with Dampier on West. So, in the first 3 minutes 15 seconds of the fourth the Hornets increase their lead to double digits due to West’s 10 points and an assist to peja for 3 in that timeframe. From that point on the Mavericks never had control again. Oh, and i’d just like to add that once avery johnson did decide to take dampier off West, West only scored 2 points the whole rest of the game. So in essence, those two moves, both responsible for the run that tied the game for the hornets, as well as the run that gave the hornets a double digit lead essentially lost the mavericks the game.

And Last but not least, Jump shots. Too many. Way too many. When the Mavericks are at theyre best theyre driving, scoring buckets in the paint and getting to the free throw line(where they led the league in free throw percentage.) Game 3 Mavericks 38 freethrow attempts they win the game. Game 4 Mavericks 16 free throw attempts they lose the game. Stop falling in love with the jump shot. thats it.

Personally I believe the Mavericks can win game 5 in new orleans if they succesfully change these things ive mentioned. if they can get back home i believe its puts a lil bit of pressure to close out the series in dallas, if the mavs win that game in dallas. Well you all know.