The Hustle and Flow has Moved from Denver to Dallas

We thought it would happen and now it has: the Dallas Mavericks have the capability to beat the Denver Nuggets whenever and wherever. Last year, with everything going for them including the power of good luck, the Nuggets made Mavericks owner Marc Cuban ballistic when they swept the Mavericks 4 games to 0 in the regular season and also beat them in a playoff series, 4 games to 1.

But on Sunday night Dec. 27, things done changed. The strikingly and expertly revamped Mavericks came to the Mile High City where supposedly no one but Denver wins anymore and, playing on back to back nights, defeated the rested Denver Nuggets in their own building 104-96. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

It was the kind of win that was much, much bigger than the score indicates; Denver has enough raw offensive talent to keep a score respectable even when they lose big. And they lost very big in this one.

Make no mistake, it was a very, very big Dallas win and, unless things radically change or unless injuries mess things up, you can expect that Dallas will defeat Denver in the playoffs should they play. But that is NOT an official prediction or a “guarantee;” don’t expect me to apologize if somehow Denver beats Dallas in the playoffs; but do expect me to explain it.

The Mavericks have a very solid, very dependable veteran team that is one of the deepest rosters in the NBA. The 8th best player on the Mavericks is better than the 8th best player on almost all of the other teams, maybe all of them. Mavs Coach Rick Carlisle has his hands full making sure he shares the available playing time well and making sure he has the best 5-man combos out there. He is very, very good at this.

The reason I really loved this game enough to write a Report about it is that Dallas is doing most of the most important things Quest recommends for winning the Quest, namely, they are running a semi-organized, well disciplined, well designed offense that has playmaking identity, good passing, good balance between paint and outside scoring, and good balance between the scorers. The easy offensive shortcuts (like over weighting fast breaks, fast pace in general, and too many isolations by volume scorers and star players) that hurt your chances to win playoff games later are being avoided as a result of the expert coaching from Rick Carlisle and the intelligence and heavy experience of the Mavericks players. You could not ask for anything more from a pro NBA offense than was shown by the Mavericks in this game.

The Dallas offense was so good that superstar Dirk Nowitzki did not even have to play a leading role in that offense. The best offenses feature a superstar who can take charge and play a dominant role, but also feature enough other good offensive players and enough optimal strategy and tactics that the team can sometimes win with the superstar playing a much smaller role. It’s like an on-off switch: you can set that switch according to what is best for the team for any particular game. Nowitzki was just 6 of 15 overall, 1 of 2 on threes, and he scored 13 points in 39 minutes of playing time, which is small potatoes for him.

Dallas is also playing smart, energetic defense game after game; maybe not as energetic and certainly not as aggressive as the Nuggets’ defense last year, but energetic enough to get the job done. Unlike last year, the Mavericks this year are leading with their defense. On defense, Dallas is so far the 5th best defense in the league, versus only the 17th best last year. After their excellent off-season acquisitions, which included underrated Shawn Marion and underrated Drew Gooden, the Mavericks have changed their stripes and have defensively become more than good enough to contend for a Ring.

You would think the Mavericks are a top five offensive team from this game, but they are actually only 12th so far. In fact, it was last season that they were the 5th best offense. Look for this year’s Mavericks’ offense to rise a few ranks before this year is done. If the offense does in fact improve during the rest of the season, expect the Mavericks to be not only able to defeat Denver relatively easily, but expect them to be a dangerous opponent for the Lakers in the 2010 West final.

For more information about the improved and dangerous (to the Lakers) Mavericks, see this report and also this report.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets have the 3rd best offense in the NBA so far, one fueled mostly by raw talent, but only the 17th best defense. Last year, the Nuggets had the 7th best offense and the 8th best defense. The Nuggets have dropped off a lot defensively this year and they are not quite good enough so far to have any chance at all to compete for a Championship.

NUGGETS’ DEFENDING HAS SEEN BETTER DAYS
Why have the Nuggets dropped off defensively? The main thing seems to be that they simply are not playing with as much energy and athleticism on defense as they did last year. Players such as Chris Anderson and Nene have lost a step or two. When we see the Real Player Ratings for the Nuggets, we'll find out more about which players are most responsible for the drop-off by looking closely at and comparing last year's and this year's defensive sub ratings and the hidden defending ratings.

Apparently, the Nuggets think that they learned enough and achieved enough last year that they can substitute smart defending for very energetic defending to some extent. However, this switch is seldom more than an even exchange, because high energy on defense is the single most rare and prized thing you can have for defense and you should never give it up if you don't have to. This is sports; you can’t accomplish everything by outthinking your opponents, even though you might think that if you read enough Quest for the Ring!

The Nuggets’ defense last year was truly very good, and it won some games in both the regular and in the playoffs that would have been losses if the defensive approach had been different. The main bad thing about it was that the Nuggets reserved the right to more or less foul on purpose in some games, but even that turned out to be much less of a bad thing than was thought. Apparently, if you get lucky, fouling at will if you think you have to backfires only when and if you reach a Conference Final, when all such childish games are finally penalized if they were not before then.

For the Nuggets, the attempt to substitute smart defending for last year’s ultra high energy defending has so far amounted to a net loss. This is because the Nuggets are really not playing much smarter on defense this year than last. One tactical shortfall is that the Nuggets are doing too much defensive coverage switching. The big players are switching out off of screens and pick and rolls and leaving lanes and gaps open in the paint too often.

The Nuggets are over thinking and overdoing the switching thing and are underestimating the importance of avoiding large match-up gaps, such as a guard trying to guard a center. Whoever is closest to the rolling player should defend that player more often rather than mandating that some specific player based on the pick and roll itself cover him. There is only one thing worse than excessive reliance on man to man defending (and refusal to play zone even when it is called for) and that is when on top of man to man your players are over switching (or switching without regard to match-up gaps) off screens and pick and rolls.

Instead of being obsessive about making sure there is a man on every offensive player at all times, even if your bigs end up out of paint defending position so you get burned in the paint all the time, you need to know where the ball is likely to go and you need to defend the ball where it is going. The objective is to stop the ball from going in the hoop, not to earn style points for maintaining very nice looking switching off pick and rolls.

The Nuggets do not have a single outstanding rebounder, so unless they make it a team priority to improve defensive rebounding, they are not going to be a very good rebounding team. Rebounding is low hanging fruit: if you intend to compete for a Ring, you usually have to accomplish the relatively easy task of having above average defensive rebounding. George Karl and the Nuggets have been unable so far to get the defensive rebounding to the minimum level it should be at for a credible attempt to win a Ring.

GEORGE KARL IS BLOWING IT BY NOT PLAYING RENALDO BALKMAN
(How is that for an honest sub header, laugh out loud). Poor tactics on some of the defensive plays are one thing; perhaps coaches and/or players will correct this later on. But not having a very important defensive asset in there is most definitely a serous mistake.

This season we have George Karl, after being surprisingly generous last year with playing time for reserves, returning this year to his traditional stingy ways. Last year, defensively skilled and very defensively dedicated Renaldo Balkman was given a good deal of playing time, which helped Denver be great on defense. But this year, Balkman is riding the bench as Denver’s defense suffers the big drop-off. Even by Karl’s standards, this is becoming a bigger and bigger blunder with each passing game that Balkman does not play; Balkman is the guy who we know for a fact can cut the Nuggets’ big paint defending and defensive rebounding problems down to size. But he can’t do that sitting on the bench.

At 2-guard, Daunte Jones was traded to Indiana and Aaron Afflalo was acquired from Detroit to take his place as “The guy who will start in front of J.R. Smith at all costs” (laugh out loud). Even though Jones was not a very good rebounder, and even though his man to man defending was and is overrated, he did have this knack for disrupting the flow of the other team’s offense. If there was an “assists prevented,” stat, Daunte Jones would be right there near the top. Same thing for “shots never attempted because Daunte Jones is all up in the shooter's face.” He would lead in that, too.

The bottom line is that Afflalo for Jones is a big net loss for Denver on defense, even though Afflalo is a decent defender. Unlike Jones, Afflalo doesn’t have any hidden defensive qualities: what you see in the box score and by watching the game is what you get from Afflalo, whereas with Daunte Jones there was other interesting defensive stuff going on behind the scenes. Jones was (and I assume still is) able to get under the skin and disrupt the thinking and actions of guards that he guards.

As for offense, due to being chock loaded with raw talent the Nuggets are doing well in the regular season this year. However, as we have stated in numerous reports, the Nuggets’ offense is not well designed for winning playoff games.

All in all it was a fantastic game for the Mavericks and it has been a fantastic start for them this season. Dallas is the surprise upside team of the West this year, whereas the Atlanta Hawks are the surprise upside team in the East. In the Dec. 27 game, the Mavericks shot 50% from the field, made 25 assists, had extremely excellent playmaking identity from Jason Kidd and Jason Terry, won the rebounding battle despite not needing many offensive rebounds, and earned more than their share of free throws.

Who cares that Dirk Nowitzki did not get a single free throw if Josh Howard earns 10, Drew Gooden earns 7, Eric Dampier earns 5, Jason Terry earns 2, and Jason Kidd earned 2. This is not your grandfathers' Mavericks we are talking about.

Hustle on defense plus flow on offense eventually leads to playoff wins. I see a lot of playoff wins in the Mavericks’ near future.