Erick Blasco's Sunday Review: Dallas Gets Boston Massacred

“Allas” victim of Boston Massacre

It’s one thing if a bad NBA team gets blown out by a superior one.

Bad teams are usually devoid of the type of talent needed to compete with the very best the league has to offer. Besides that, bad teams are usually very young and don’t understand the details needed to give a team a competitive edge on the court. Or bad teams are crippled with injuries and are forced to play lesser players.

However, none of those three describe the Dallas Mavericks, making their performance in their 124-100 loss to the Boston Celtics an absolute joke. Unlike bad teams, the Mavericks have no excuses.

What did the Mavericks do wrong?

Details.

Why is Josh Howard giving separation to Ray Allen before Allen starts running through off-ball screens? Once you give a player six inches, it’s already too late, especially against a team that screens as well as Boston does. All Ray Allen had to do was run to spots, catch, turn, shoot, and stroll back on defense.

That’s the kind of detail-deficient mistake you expect to see from high school, college, and young NBA players, not a six-year vet like Howard.

When the Celtics are using on-ball screens, why aren’t Dallas’ big men showing at all to prevent the ball-handler from going wherever he wants to go with no resistance? And why aren’t their big men offering any help on Boston’s off-ball screens either?

Surely, as a former MVP, Dirk knows enough about team defense to show for a beat before his teammates can recover after the screen? Oh yeah, but like Howard, Dirk is less than meets the eye.

Oh and back to Dirk, shouldn’t MVPs take absolute control of games like MVPs are wont to do? Boston didn’t send any double teams his way and let Kevin Garnett single-handedly force Dirk into an 0-7 shooting first half.

Even when Boston substituted in lesser defenders like Brian Scalabrine, Dirk was so castrated by Garnett’s defensive effort, that he let himself become a non-factor. Plus, on one early inbounds play under the basket after a made Celtics basket, Dirk threw the ball straight into Garnett’s hands, mere feet away from him. Clearly Dirk wasn’t focused for the challenge of meeting the Boston Celtics.

Dirk ended up with 18 points but over half came in the third and fourth quarters after the Mavericks were already down by 30 points.

It would be easy to declare the performance as a bad game. No, that’s taking the easy way out. Had Dallas missed wide open shot after wide open shot, you can declare it a bad game. Had Dallas forced Boston to make a huge number of difficult contested jumpers, you can declare their loss as a residue of bad luck.

But Dallas came out completely unprepared to play the kind of defense a team needs to play to beat the Celtics. They didn’t recognize what the Celtics were doing, they didn’t make any effort to stop the Celtics, and they were caught with their pants down.

While the Celtics were often using 20 seconds of the shot clock to generate open layups and jumpers, the Mavericks’ first option was a Howard or Jason Terry jumpshot with about 18 seconds remaining.

While the Celtics were wiping people out with screens, the Mavericks wanted no part of physical contact. While the Celtics were looking like the best team on the planet, the Mavericks were looking like a lottery team lucky that the Jazz are crippled, and the Suns hate their head coach.

Boston shot 64 percent for the first half. They scored 74 points in the half. They were up 64-33 with four minutes to go in the half. They shot 16-27 from the three-point line. They massacred Dallas in every way a basketball team can be massacred—four days after having the very same exact thing happen four days previous in a 34-point loss in Milwaukee. Do the Mavs have any pride?

The worst part is, it’s what they want. The Mavs’ players hated former coach Avery Johnson’s nagging and attention to detail and basically mutinied with a vote for his ouster after last season’s playoff elimination. This is exactly what they wished for.


Lakers Remind Spurs Who’s Top Dog

It wasn’t the Lakers’ offense that beat the Spurs 99-85, it was their own defense, and San Antonio’s bad shooting.

Phil Jackson gameplanned for his troops to live with the Spurs taking long contested jumpers, and that’s how they won. The Spurs shot 5-23 from downtown, most of them wide open looks, and that was that.

Jackson also switched Lamar Odom onto Tony Parker for several possessions in the game with outstanding results as Odom was quick enough to stay with Parker off the dribble, and long enough to contest everything Parker threw at the basket.

Jackson also had his players force Manu Ginobili into traffic where they crowded him and neutralized his patented long-two step to the hoop and finish.

The Spurs became Tim Duncan and a bunch of jumpshooters, and since Roger Mason had a bad game (1-7 FG, 1-5 3FG), and Matt Bonner continued to prove that he doesn’t have the confidence to shoot well in big games (0-4 3FG), the Spurs’ offense was non-existent.

Defensively, they did everything they had to do to win. They held the Lakers under 100 points, which is all a team can ask for against the Lakers’ firepower. They held the Lakers to 46 percent shooting. They allowed only six offensive rebounds.

But quite frankly, if the Spurs aren’t shooting well enough, they don’t have the talent to beat the Lakers.


Rockets New Deck Comes Up Aces

The Houston Rockets shuffled Yao out of their lineup, and shuffled Tracy McGrady and Ron Artest back in.

Whatever the combination, the Rockets are winning, as their 108-105 victory over Detroit was their seventh in their last nine games.

Even though Houston’s offense sputtered late into a number of empty one-on-one trips, their three-point shooting was superb, as the Rockets went 12-25 from downtown for the duration.

Detroit struggled defensively, and even when they picked it up late, they allowed three Rockets’ offensive rebounds culminating in a McGrady driving layup with 1:10 to play that gave Houston a six point lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

And because Detroit’s offense flowed best when Rodney Stuckey was breaking down Houston’s smaller point guard duo of Rafer Alston and Aaron Brooks (eight points, four assists in the fourth quarter), and Rip Hamilton was curling around off-ball screens, Allen Iverson only played the first minute of the fourth quarter. No surprise that Detroit only allowed 16 points the rest of the way.

Notes:

    * Phoenix came up with a much needed defensive effort against the Hawks, holding Atlanta to 99 points on 42 percent shooting in their 104-99 win. Shaq continued to make a case for the All-Star Game with 19 points on 7-9 shooting, and 11 rebounds. He’s been the best player for the Suns this season, consistently drawing double teams and punishing single teams from the post.
    * Sacramento continues to throw its name in the hat for worst team in the league, losing to the Raptors 113-97. At least the Thunder and Timberwolves have a plan to play a whole bunch of youngsters and build for the future. At least the Clippers had a plan of signing and trading for a bunch of selfish, overhyped, but talented veterans in the hopes of making the playoffs—a flawed plan, but a plan nonetheless. What has been the Kings’ plan this season, and what is there plan for the future? Kevin Martin isn’t a franchise player, and the team has too many project youngsters and over-the-hill veterans. What a decrepit franchise.
    * Kudos to the Pacers for starting to win some close games, this time, 98-93 over Charlotte. With the Nets a question mark, and the Bucks receiving crippling news about Michael Redd missing the rest of the year, Charlotte and Indiana still have fighting chances of making the playoffs. Indiana took one step further behind Danny Granger’s 27-point performance, while Charlotte could have used more than 10 points and 1-8 shooting from Gerald Wallace in the defeat.
    * The resurgent Timberwolves carved up Chicago from the inside out in a 109-108 overtime victory. Al Jefferson and Kevin Love combined for 58 points on 24-40 shooting to bulldozer Chicago.
    * The Nuggets took a huge step in winning the Northwest Division by blasting the Jazz 117-97. When the Nuggets are focused, they create so much chaos that they force their opponents out of their comfort zones. They forced Utah into 40 percent shooting and 19 turnovers and cruised in the fourth quarter.
    * The Warriors beat the Clippers’ D-League team 107-92 behind 20 points from Corey Maggette. The youngsters are playing hard for Los Angeles, but the veterans gave up ages ago. There are rumors circulating that Baron Davis is healthy enough to play but is simply relaxing while his team spirals into oblivion without him. While rumors are only rumors, Davis tanked in Charlotte so it won’t surprise anyone if he’s tanking in Los Angeles.