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We’re in the preseason here, too, and we’re trying out different Mavs bloggers and features to entertain you during the season. Right now Zac and I are trying to figure out what our regular after-game analysis will look like. Until the season starts, it feels like you’ll want no more than five observations/opinions/ramblings from the night before. That might not allow me to get all my notes in (examples: “Dirk going more to the up-and-under move after his baseline spin … McHale’s influence?” or “Bob Sturm and Drew Gooden … separated at birth?), but that’s okay. Let’s call it Five on Five, because I can’t think of anything else right now.

1. Seeing Matt Carroll start last night was a bit of a shock, mainly because I had just finished reading John Hollinger’s take on him as I was perusing his 2010 player predictions: “If Carroll wasn’t the worst player in the league last season, he was certainly on the short list.” And if this was an audition for someone other team looking to add a sharpshooter who can’t defend, can’t rebound, and has no handle, mission accomplished. Although Carroll did get frisky with Matt Barnes at one point. What’s the over-under on Barnes dropping Carroll if it came to blows? Six seconds? Four?

2. Speaking of guys who are what we thought they were, Quinton Ross is as advertised: outstanding perimeter defender who can’t shoot. He threw up at least three ridiculous wide-open shots that had not a prayer of going in. But he has incredible lateral movement and can stay in front of quick wings, something no one on this team can do. In one sequence in the second quarter, Ross made tremendous play to get in front of Vince Carter, who was trying to drive to the right baseline. This frustrated Carter, who, Jerry Stackhouse-like, decided he wasn’t going to give up without a fight. So he allowed Ross to funnel him to the lane, where Carter was double-teamed, which led to two more passes late in the shot clock, and Mickael Pietrus ended up having to take a 25-foot heave at the buzzer. This is why Ross was such a nice pickup: late in close games, don’t be surprised if you see Ross on the other team’s best player, trying to prevent what happens so often to the Mavs: one guy beating them in crunch time (see: Denver, JSmith). This is Ross’s value.

3. Kris Humphries is freaking hot.

4. Everybody talks about how smart Orlando was this off-season. Really? Okay, signing Brandon Bass for $18 million was very smart. The Mavs are going to miss him. Trust me. He works hard, he’s a great teammate, and he is a warrior in crunch time. (The team’s recurring flaw in its approach is that it overpays for people who aren’t stars — the list is too long; see the Internet for details — and tries to get too cute by squeezing “value” out of people they underrate, like Nash, Raja Bell, Bass). But that move aside for Orlando — what’s so great about letting one of the game’s great glue guys walk (Hedo) so you can acquire the ghost of Michael Finley (Vince Carter, now hoisting threes at an arena near you) and an athletic center who will get 15 minutes a game and no looks from your three-point-happy team (Gortat)? I know they’re trying to replicate the Hakeem-Rockets model (a dominant big man, surrounded by three-point shooters), but Dwight Howard, beastly as he is, isn’t the low-post offensive force that Hakeem was. That team will live and die by the three, and haven’t we all seen how that turns out?

5. For one night anyway, the knock on Drew Gooden (space cadet, forgets assignments, frustrates coaches and teammates) seemed not applicable. Late in the game, he showed on a high screen, making Carter go around him so that Ross could catch up, another possession that ended in an Orlando miss. (BTW: Skin pointed this out on TV. He’s a good. Second only in game analysis to my daughter Madcat, who noted “Dirk looks like a hippie German,” and “Why do women want to become sportscasters? Unless it’s to marry an athlete. I would do that.”) And Gooden’s low-post offense, always solid, seemed a revelation on this team. Damp, consider yourself a crunch-time cheerleader, please. Thank you.

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24 hours after the end of the Mavericks season, and I cannot quite move on just yet.  I understand why the season ended, but one thing that I don’t understand is why the Mavericks have been committed to the same strategy year after year on offense.

They built a team around Dirk.  That makes sense on a number of levels, because for all of his flaws, he may just be one of the most unique talents in NBA history.  A 7-foot perimeter sniper who can also perform some McHale-like post moves when he is interested.

The problem, to me, comes back to the way they build the rest of the team.  If you are going to build around a perimeter shooter, you must vary the rest of your 5.  You should have a penetrating guard and you would prefer to find a post presence.  If you did, then a Dirk-team would be more dangerous.  But building a team is a little more difficult than simply realizing what you need. You have to figure out a way to get it.

The trouble is, the Mavs have not had a penetrating guard who could also defend and run the team.  Nash could penetrate, but he would get abused by Mike Bibby or Tony Parker in the playoffs on defense.  Devin Harris did not demonstrate a very promising ability to distribute the ball and run the offense, so the Mavs gave up on him and traded him for Jason Kidd.

Kidd does run the offense well, but he never gets to the rim (it is quite maddening that he appears to have no desire to take and convert a layup) and doesn’t seem to defend Point Guards much at all.  Jason Terry almost never gets to the rim as he loves to launch and appears to be a liability on defense.  Erick Dampier has no post presence on either end and if you ever count on him, his foul trouble or lack of interest will disappoint you.  And Josh Howard is Josh Howard.  So, you get the Mavericks.  A real good team with real big flaws.

The Mavericks are a successful NBA team, and they are such because they have figured out how to play a style that works for them most of the time.  The problem, as I have been harping about for years now, is that there is a certain game of percentages when relying on a 23-foot shot.  Whereas, when you take 2-foot shots, the percentages greatly improve.   And there are the Mavs in a nutshell:  They take 23-footers and give up dunks.  If you make enough of the 23-footers, you win any game you play.  If you miss those shots, your run comes to an end.

Don’t believe me?  Let’s examine the best example of this on record, the 3rd Quarter of Game 5 in Denver.  What you are about to see is every shot the Mavericks took in the entire quarter:

And there it is.  Look at that.  That is every single shot of the 3rd Quarter, and we wonder why people see the Mavs as a jump shooting team.  You are what you are.

Here is the ESPN shot chart for the 3rd quarter (Dallas is on the left). It is enough to make John Wooden cry.

So, what do they do about it?  We shall see.  But, I believe the definition of insanity is repeating the same process and expecting a different result.  It starts and ends in the off-season.  The 2008-09 Mavericks were the best they could be.  But they weren’t built to be the best.  If you want them to be the best, then Donnie Nelson and Mark Cuban must begin to change the fatal flaws in this team.

Defense and lay-ups win championships.   Beautiful jump shots are the frosting of a good team, not the cake.

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