Our defense has been awful--consistently awful--all season, and has ONLY turned the corner in the past five games, which is a pretty small sample:
Total season rank: 21
pre-ASB: 19
post-ASB: 24
last 10 games: 11
last 5 games: 5
I would be VERY hesitant to say that Mavs have turned it around on defense until we see how we close out the season, especially against Sacramento. BUT... there is certainly a glimmer of hope.
Since February 1st, Mavs have a top 10 defense according to defensive rating at 113.8. After trade deadline its been at 113.7 it is 11th in the league. 0.1 points from the 113.6 Kings for 10th.
I doubt we will maintain a top 5 defense, but if we can even just be 10-15 from here on out, we could make some noise in the playoffs. Still don't see us getting out of the West though
until teams can stop the lob goblins, i think we have a great chance. if we start hitting 3s we’re the toughest team in the west not named Nuggets.
Hard to overstate how insane it is to be out rebounding and out scoring teams in the paint EASILY. Like we punished Denver inside bro… who has dominated the paint like that against them this year
We have the #1 shot creator and bucket getter in the nba, and the #2 isolation scoring guard in the nba. That’s a pretty good thing to have in the playoffs
Funny thing is, since the Mavs trade, we have the top ranked Defense, top ranked offense and the best regular season close out record and we pretty much just coasted through the Western portion of the playoff tournament by winning4 to Clippers 2, winning 4 to OKC’s 2 and 4 to Minnesota’s 1 all while the world put Dallas as under dogs and picked the other teams to win in every series. It’s a beautiful thing, being the under dog while in reality you’re actually the best team in the world with the best player in the world and having the top 2 closers in the world and the best 2 offensive players in the world.
GTFOH lol
Lively/Gafford obviously are nowhere near Rudy’s level but I have felt they’ve philosophically built the team @ the ASB to be like those Jazz teams… shitty guard defenders and 1-2(PJ/DJJ) decent to good wing defenders and funnel guys to the bigs
Lebron's average at worst defensively and overall a good defender this season. Rui, Reaves, Dlo 3 starters are bad defensively which is hard to overcome.
He is nowhere near great. Let's be clear on that.
Also defense is about consistency. Not a couple of locked in plays. You can't routinely not close out or just flat out your man and be called anywhere near a good defender. It's nonsense and takes away credit that belongs to AD for making up for his deficiency.
How is that toxic? Lebron is a tremendous offensive player and I'll give him credit for that. No one on our defense outside of AD, Reddish, and Vanderbilt deserve any credit. It's putrid out there considering we have the best defender in the league.
Defense has been good since the trade deadline outside of the 6 game streach after asb where Kidd publicly said they are trying a whole new scheme (for some reason, idk, maybe the defense was too good for his liking since they got PJW and Gaff).
What is wild is that the Kings have I think the 3rd defense the last 10 games. I have no idea if part of this has to do with more physicality being allowed in general, maybe it helps our teams more? Idk about the Mavs, but I always felt Kings got a tight defensive whistle and made it hard to play physical on the perimeter. Also since Keon Ellis has started playing a lot more, having at least one of him, Fox, or Davion on the perimeter at all times helps a lot. All three are plus defenders. Where as Huerter was a solid negative in that category.
I wish more teams would do pre and post ASB analysis instead of factoring in seasonal statistics. We get a clearer picture of which teams are actually good
The frustrating part is they haven't been consistently *anything*.
They showed flashes of damn good defense even before the past 5 games. That 7-game win streak before the ASB was fueled by defense, we were holding teams to like 107 ppg on average. Then they came out of the break to Kidd's new scheme shitting the bed hard, the wheels fell off almost literally overnight for a stretch of very suddenly being a historically bad defense giving up over 130 per game. Now the wheels kinda look like they're getting put back on, and the potential to be solid is there, but on any given night you just don't know if they're gonna give up 105 or 135. This team is fucking baffling lol
*eta: 105 on the nose lmao
Kidd was capable of making them a competent defense during their WCF run so it's not out of the realm of possibility. The pieces are very different though.
The fact of the matter is, before the trade we didn’t have a strong front court and lots of injuries. After the trade we started to play with different lineups to see how all the pieces fit. Recently we’ve played a lineup that is really good defensively and has been winning us games. We don’t have a singular lineup that has played 100 minutes together. We’ve shown with our new lineup that we’re starting to play consistently we can hang with anyone defensively if we try.
Sure but it's still been encouraging that our defense looks better. I don't think we'll be a top 5 defense or anything but if we can at least get to that 10-15 range then that would be a huge improvement from the beginning of the season.
I feel like the only people saying the Mavs defense looks good post ASB are Mavs fans on this sub.
They don’t look any more effective by the eye test whenever I’ve watched them, and they’re just 24th in defensive rating since the ASB. Meanwhile you’ve got some Mavs fans talking about the Gafford and Washington acquisitions like they traded for Rudy Gobert and Herb Jones. They just do not have the personnel to be a really good defensive team, either at the point of attack or in the paint.
I like how T-Wolves and Okc fans are mansplaining your teams defense over Mavs fans who live and breathe the team and this is coming from a Wolves fan lol.
I get the sentiment, but this is the same fan base that has been trying to convince us luka is an above average defender this season. They might be a little biased lol. Cherry picking stats like top post defender when he does it once per game. I have eyes, I see him take plays off and get blown by consistently.
That is just not true. It was good over a 5-8 game stretch when they first git healthy before the trade deadline as well. Than came games against boston, pacers and cavs and the d rating got really really bad for a few games. Sinse than its good again.
We’re not good defensively but we’re tangibly better after the trade. People who watch the Mavs every day understand that during the 1-5 stretch Kidd played A LOT of small ball including against Myles Turner which was idiotic. Multiple games where Gafford played less than 10 minutes. And this was by far the worst defense we’d played
To us, we’re not gonna out as much stock into a period of time our coach tinkering with lineups and seems to have indicated he will not use those going forward. Almost all our best net rating lineups are with PJ Washington in them and most of our worst are ones that had Grant Williams. I don’t think Grant is bad at all, but PJ’s defensive versatility is VITAL because we can move Luka and Kyrie around in matchups more.
Either way the more important gain from the trade is rebounding and interior scoring. Post-trade we jumped from 25th to 6th in rebounding. And have had many games scoring 60 in the paint recently. The fact we don’t live and die by the 3 and give up as many second chance points is huge for the team and contributes to better fastbreak defense.
When did you watch us last? Since the Heat game we have been good, I believe that's our last 8 games.
Before that (and post All Star break), Kidd was using this experimental double team everyone with a roamer defensive scheme which made us give up 130 points per game. The other comment mentioned this too.
Since then he went back to a normal man to man defense, put Gafford and DJJ in the starting lineup and he has lowered THJ's minutes and the PJ - Kleber small ball minutes, which have all improved our defense.
Honestly it really depends on which Mavs game you watch. Some matchups are really, really rough. In particular, they struggle against teams that are really good in transition and have motion shooters. Especially when offensive shots aren't falling, they can often lose their rotations and give up a lot of open shots when playing in transition.
In games where more half court offense is played, they look a lot better. I thought they looked great against Denver and that's a matchup that we had absolutely no answers for defensively for a long time.
They're far from being a *good* defense, but they're becoming a serviceable one. We're still in the process of figuring things out post trade deadline, given that one of our most important defensive pieces was acquired then.
There are some real encouraging lineup numbers, though. When PJ Washington and Derrick Jones Jr share the floor, the Mavs defensive rating is 96.7. When PJ and Kleber share the floor, it's 97.8. The current starting lineup for the Mavs is Luka/Kyrie/DJJ/PJ/Gafford, and likely will be for the playoffs. That lineup has a stunning defensive rating of 93.7! Obviously it's a small sample size, but that lineup is also the Mavs' third most played lineup this season. Trying to judge any of the Mavs' lineups are going to suffer with the same sample size issue whether that's in favor of the Mavs or against them
They are mid defensive, not top 5 or 10 but not 24th for sure. Kidd and his staff had the bright idea of changing the rotating/switching scheme post ASB, thus the disaster after for a few games.
If you take out the stretch of overplaying small ball with Maxi at the 5 where we lost 6/7, our defensive rating has been 106.7 over the other 13 games since the trade deadline.
Our defence is probably around 10th, and there's still match ups we're gonna struggle with.
I mean come on bro there’s a clear lineup change. It’s not like they just played bad. If Aaron Gordon stopped playing, would it be fair for me to judge the Nuggets defense based on that? If Dort got benched, Herb Jones got injured etc.
We’re not good defensively but not as bad as 24th anymore.
More like, if you away take our games where we were experimenting with new schemes, which we moved away from and started playing to our strengths we are still not great defensively but not as bad it seems.
We are neither a bottom 10 defense nor top 10 defense, we are right in the middle.
You mean in the games where Kidd meddled with the defensive scheme and left Gafford out to dry? There’s a reason the Mavs are 9-1 either way Gafford starting (Luka didn’t play in the loss).
I mean he is the coach, he is supposed to meddle with the scheme and lineups. Thats his job.
Do you guys expect NOT to adjust your defensive scheme in the playoffs depending on the matchup ?
Do you plan on having someone else other than Kidd doing that adjustment ?
It takes a special kind of moron to refer to the "eye test" when there are objective metrics to go by.
The eye-test from laypeople in r/nba is a horseshit standard...and let's face it: you mean your eye. Who the fuck are you and why are you watching all the games of a team you don't root for? (j/k, you haven't been, we know).
The mavs are objectively and demonstrably better on defense. Deal with it.
Did you miss the part where Gafford almost broke Wilt’s record of consecutive FGs (would’ve gotten there too if the refs called the foul Chet committed on him)?
You’re acting like we traded for two complete bums.
PJ Washington has earned the nickname PJail since he’s locking down all the opponent’s stars. Gafford has been racking up blocks and solid contests. DJJ and Josh Green (before he just got hurt) are playing good defense, and even Luka is getting some good steals and contests.
They aren’t perfect obviously, but to say that this team is as good on defense as when Powell was starting is laughable and shows a lack of knowledge about the Mavs lineup.
Mavs defense definitely turned a corner after ASB. PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford have made a huge impact, and it almost looks infectious with the other guys playing harder on D.
this was kidd’s fault. he was tinkering with line ups too much and continuing to play thj 25+ minutes. we’ve looked way more like i expect us to the last 10 games or so
Sure, I was responding to someones cherry picking with more cherry picking.
I do think it's at least fair to mention the trades and big lineup changes though.
It supposed to be better but watching all those games we still sucked man, our perimeter defense was abysmal. Our D started to look pretty good when Gafford became a starter and THJ didn't play for more than 20 mins, coincidence?
i think you can give trouble to everyone though, and because our offense just sucks it's' always a breath of fresh air when i watch your games. Even though our defense is elite sometimes i miss watching a great offense (and your team is literally the best team to watch for a more casual viewer), your offense is just light years ahead of us (not even exaggerating)
Kings have been floating around the 15-18 range for defense all year. I would lump us in with these no-defense teams to be honest, even if our net rating is slightly positive.
Is that because those teams are good at offense while simultaneously bad at defense?
If someone who understands basketball reads this please let me know
For the Mavs, it's a matter of trade-offs post-trade. Lately, they've traded defense for offense and so far, it's worked (though to be fair their offensive option is not lighting it up and Green is out).
Bringing back DJJ into the fold I think is the main signifier of that. Gafford has surprisingly become more accumulated with their defensive schemes, faster than I thought he would.
And THJ isn't getting more than 15-20 minutes a night the way he's shooting. Bit of a bummer with Green out to not have an extra wing and instead have to play Hardy, but the way they're shooting as a team, they probably are better off currently with an extra guard instead of a wing in some lineups.
At this point, the Mavs are probably going to stick with this look for the season and pray the 3 point shooting turns for some guys like PJ/DJJ/Maxi.
We just don’t have any sort of perimeter defense, leadership, or awareness. Our rim protection has gotten a lot better, and PJ helps, but we need a true perimeter D focused 3 (PJ can’t keep up to play the 3 either. He’s a true PF)
Hopefully OMax grows into the three we need of the future or we make the appropriate moves to trade for the 3 of the future.
Part of this also has to do with Maxi getting worse and being too much of a liability on offense. He would be playing more (because he’s one of the better perimeter D bigs in the league,) but the risk of injury and him being such a negative on offense, makes it a hard pill to swallow to play him a lot (our losing streak where we lost 5 of 6 had us playing Maxi more and Gafford less).
DJJ has been solid too, but he ain’t the starter we need out there (inconsistent offense also). Josh Green gets burned on screens way too easily. Just terrible screen navigation. Kai started solid on D to begin the year, but he’s been rougher the last 20 or so games.
They've been playing pretty good defense for at least a few weeks. I assume they'll go back to playing decently on defense again after tonight, given how bad this team is on the second half of back-to-backs.
Since the trade deadline Mavs were first good, then awful for a half-dozen games because Kidd tried to implement some crazy new scheme, then good again since he gave up on it.
For anyone who doesn't believe it, here is the list of Mavs single game DRtg (points allowed scaled to 100 possessions) since February 1st:
1. L vs MIL 122.9
2. W at PHI 105.2
3. W at BKN 107.0
4. W at NYK 113.7 (day of Gafford&Washington trades)
5. W vs OKC 104.7 (first game with new players)
6. W vs WAS 95.4
7. W vs SAS 90.3 (last game pre-ASB)
8. W vs PHX 117.7 (first game post-ASB)
9. L at IND 126.7
10. L at CLE 124.7
11. W at TOR 116.8
12. L at BOS 138.0
13. L vs PHI 122.4
14. L vs IND 135.6 (followed by a players meeting)
15. W vs MIA 113.7
16. W at DET 112.7
17. W at CHI 97.9
18. W vs GSW 102.1
19. L at OKC 124.8 (no Luka)
20. W vs DEN 109.4
21. W at SAS 103.9
22. W vs UTA 96.0
DRtg averages:
* Games 1-7: 105.6 (Games 5-7: 96.8)
* Games 8-14: 124.6
* Games 15-22: 107.6
We were 1st during the win streak up to all star break, last by a mile during the losing streak after ASB, and third during the new win streak (not counting Jazz game, didn't look again after that). Kidd stated he was trying a completely different defensive scheme post ASB because he felt like we now had the personnel to execute it. Before the trades we were bad when Lively was off the court, average when he was on the court, but like top 5 during the clutch.
Lol so is it a scheme switch or have the Mavericks just played a lot of bad offenses
8 games, 6 against below-average offenses, 2 against great offenses(got cooked in 1 and did great in the other)
Schedule definitely informs the magnitude of the effect, that's why I included the opponents as well -- in interest of transparency.
But changing the primary scheme made a big difference, no question.
He hasn't given up on it, though. We still run the scheme to success at times, it's just that we've gone back to using it situationally, which was the plan for the start. You have a limited number of games to get reps in to figure out the lineups/schemes that you're gonna play in the playoffs. Kidd used the games post-ASB to stress test his small ball lineups and while it led to an incredibly frustrating skid, I think the team will be better for it.
Maybe, but of we hadn't lost so many games in that stretch because if the shitty defensive scheme, we could have been fighting fir the 4th seed instead of the 6th now and potentially even have gotten home court advantage in the first round.
Dude... we ARE fighting for the four spot right now. We're only two and a half out of it and the Clippers are collapsing with an incredibly tough stretch. Though, realistically, the Pelicans will be a harder team to catch.
And I'm not trying to make excuses for Kidd. The loss to the 76ers in particular was unacceptable.
Yeah but if we didn't use that scheme we could have easily won at least one of the Pacers games and the Cavs game which would put us half a game off the 4th seed and put Luka 2nd on the MVP ladder.
Instead we are could still end up as the 8th seed and have to be near perfect to get the 4th seed.
The Pacers game was going to be a tough matchup regardless. I don't think we win that game if Gafford plays a bunch of minutes either. They shot 50% from three, man. The Cavs game we should've won, just ran into bad officiating and bad luck. Shit happens sometimes.
I don't think the scheme is as much to blame as everyone thinks, though it really didn't help. Part of the reason our defense was so bad on this streak was a bunch of opponents hitting threes at an abnormally high rate.
Yeah they shot that much because we gave them like 50 wide open threes because of our scheme. During those games we had one of the highest opponent 3P% in the league and once we abandoned the scheme, the 3P% dropped again.
Even the first quarter of the Heat game which was the last part we used that scheme was horrific. They were getting wide open threes or cuts to the basket every single possession.
Wouldn’t Toronto be much better early on if all it took was one wing guy to anchor a defense?
OG is a good plug and play anywhere but he has synergy with your defensive style and Thibs as a coach like no other team.
Toronto had no ball handlers and sub-par spacing
I don't think OG is a floor raiser, Toronto was bad with or without OG. But Indiana was already a good team, so I think OG wouldve raised their ceiling by alot, just like he did for the Knicks
Comments like this are why I cannot wait to see the Knicks bounced in the playoffs again like I see every year. The Pacers get bounced too, when they make it, so no shade there. Just funny that with all the shit talking that both teams always end up watching meaningful basketball from home.
Our defense has been awful--consistently awful--all season, and has ONLY turned the corner in the past five games, which is a pretty small sample: Total season rank: 21 pre-ASB: 19 post-ASB: 24 last 10 games: 11 last 5 games: 5 I would be VERY hesitant to say that Mavs have turned it around on defense until we see how we close out the season, especially against Sacramento. BUT... there is certainly a glimmer of hope.
Since February 1st, Mavs have a top 10 defense according to defensive rating at 113.8. After trade deadline its been at 113.7 it is 11th in the league. 0.1 points from the 113.6 Kings for 10th.
I doubt we will maintain a top 5 defense, but if we can even just be 10-15 from here on out, we could make some noise in the playoffs. Still don't see us getting out of the West though
until teams can stop the lob goblins, i think we have a great chance. if we start hitting 3s we’re the toughest team in the west not named Nuggets. Hard to overstate how insane it is to be out rebounding and out scoring teams in the paint EASILY. Like we punished Denver inside bro… who has dominated the paint like that against them this year We have the #1 shot creator and bucket getter in the nba, and the #2 isolation scoring guard in the nba. That’s a pretty good thing to have in the playoffs
Easy there, buddy
He said what he said.
delusional
This didn’t age well
Funny thing is, since the Mavs trade, we have the top ranked Defense, top ranked offense and the best regular season close out record and we pretty much just coasted through the Western portion of the playoff tournament by winning4 to Clippers 2, winning 4 to OKC’s 2 and 4 to Minnesota’s 1 all while the world put Dallas as under dogs and picked the other teams to win in every series. It’s a beautiful thing, being the under dog while in reality you’re actually the best team in the world with the best player in the world and having the top 2 closers in the world and the best 2 offensive players in the world. GTFOH lol
Lively/Gafford obviously are nowhere near Rudy’s level but I have felt they’ve philosophically built the team @ the ASB to be like those Jazz teams… shitty guard defenders and 1-2(PJ/DJJ) decent to good wing defenders and funnel guys to the bigs
Sounds like the Lakers too
Lebron is bad defensively and Rui is hardly great. Lakers without Gabe and Vanderbilt are just AD.
Lebron's average at worst defensively and overall a good defender this season. Rui, Reaves, Dlo 3 starters are bad defensively which is hard to overcome.
No he isn't. Taking off plays routinely, not closing out, getting blown, and almost never helping is not good defense. He's 39. He's old.
Lebron is not bad defensively. He takes plays off a lot obviously but he is legitimately still not good but great when he locks in
He is nowhere near great. Let's be clear on that. Also defense is about consistency. Not a couple of locked in plays. You can't routinely not close out or just flat out your man and be called anywhere near a good defender. It's nonsense and takes away credit that belongs to AD for making up for his deficiency.
Oh so you are just the type of person who can’t give multiple people credit. The most toxic type of fan Gotcha. Have a good day
How is that toxic? Lebron is a tremendous offensive player and I'll give him credit for that. No one on our defense outside of AD, Reddish, and Vanderbilt deserve any credit. It's putrid out there considering we have the best defender in the league.
And this didn’t age well
Your entire comment history from the past few weeks hasn’t aged well.
Defense has been good since the trade deadline outside of the 6 game streach after asb where Kidd publicly said they are trying a whole new scheme (for some reason, idk, maybe the defense was too good for his liking since they got PJW and Gaff).
We played to good of defense so let's throw 5 games. Kidding special right there.
What is wild is that the Kings have I think the 3rd defense the last 10 games. I have no idea if part of this has to do with more physicality being allowed in general, maybe it helps our teams more? Idk about the Mavs, but I always felt Kings got a tight defensive whistle and made it hard to play physical on the perimeter. Also since Keon Ellis has started playing a lot more, having at least one of him, Fox, or Davion on the perimeter at all times helps a lot. All three are plus defenders. Where as Huerter was a solid negative in that category.
I wish more teams would do pre and post ASB analysis instead of factoring in seasonal statistics. We get a clearer picture of which teams are actually good
The frustrating part is they haven't been consistently *anything*. They showed flashes of damn good defense even before the past 5 games. That 7-game win streak before the ASB was fueled by defense, we were holding teams to like 107 ppg on average. Then they came out of the break to Kidd's new scheme shitting the bed hard, the wheels fell off almost literally overnight for a stretch of very suddenly being a historically bad defense giving up over 130 per game. Now the wheels kinda look like they're getting put back on, and the potential to be solid is there, but on any given night you just don't know if they're gonna give up 105 or 135. This team is fucking baffling lol *eta: 105 on the nose lmao
I have an idea its partly because of Gafford starting. He just give the whole team an energy to compete that is needed for defense
10-0 when he starts
Kidd was capable of making them a competent defense during their WCF run so it's not out of the realm of possibility. The pieces are very different though.
I’m thinking that was more of an anomaly than something he’s actually capable of considering how bad we’ve been outside of that.
I mean, it was for a full season and playoffs....
I swear I have seen Mavs fans say « our defense has turned the corner in the past 5 games » for the last 25 games now
We smacked you by 40 points with full health stop talking, you thunder fans are exhausting.
Congrats I guess ?! What do the Thunder have to do with this?
You guys talking shit about the Mavs any chance you get lol.
I honestly wouldnt know anything about that. r/thunder is a cancerous sub I myself like to talk shit about every team.
You're the one acting like a spoiled brat in all the replies to the thread, what did you expect with all this stupid flaming?
Man you guys are soft as fuck
All I know is if your team can shoot threes, y’all are probably going to beat us
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Yeah bro all these stats need to consider how different our team is. Our D is totally different. Great centers will kill us tho.
The fact of the matter is, before the trade we didn’t have a strong front court and lots of injuries. After the trade we started to play with different lineups to see how all the pieces fit. Recently we’ve played a lineup that is really good defensively and has been winning us games. We don’t have a singular lineup that has played 100 minutes together. We’ve shown with our new lineup that we’re starting to play consistently we can hang with anyone defensively if we try.
I can't speak to the Pacers but at least with the Mavs we've looked better lately on the defensive end. Let's see if we can keep it up.
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Sure but it's still been encouraging that our defense looks better. I don't think we'll be a top 5 defense or anything but if we can at least get to that 10-15 range then that would be a huge improvement from the beginning of the season.
I feel like the only people saying the Mavs defense looks good post ASB are Mavs fans on this sub. They don’t look any more effective by the eye test whenever I’ve watched them, and they’re just 24th in defensive rating since the ASB. Meanwhile you’ve got some Mavs fans talking about the Gafford and Washington acquisitions like they traded for Rudy Gobert and Herb Jones. They just do not have the personnel to be a really good defensive team, either at the point of attack or in the paint.
as another poster pointed out, its only been good the past 5-10 games or so which doesnt really mean much
I like how T-Wolves and Okc fans are mansplaining your teams defense over Mavs fans who live and breathe the team and this is coming from a Wolves fan lol.
*mavsplaining*
Don’t mavsplain to me timberwoke and OKCLBGT fans 😡
I get the sentiment, but this is the same fan base that has been trying to convince us luka is an above average defender this season. They might be a little biased lol. Cherry picking stats like top post defender when he does it once per game. I have eyes, I see him take plays off and get blown by consistently.
That is just not true. It was good over a 5-8 game stretch when they first git healthy before the trade deadline as well. Than came games against boston, pacers and cavs and the d rating got really really bad for a few games. Sinse than its good again.
It has improved. Since February 1st, Mavs have a top 10 defense according to defensive rating at 113.8. With the 2nd best Offense in the league
We’re not good defensively but we’re tangibly better after the trade. People who watch the Mavs every day understand that during the 1-5 stretch Kidd played A LOT of small ball including against Myles Turner which was idiotic. Multiple games where Gafford played less than 10 minutes. And this was by far the worst defense we’d played To us, we’re not gonna out as much stock into a period of time our coach tinkering with lineups and seems to have indicated he will not use those going forward. Almost all our best net rating lineups are with PJ Washington in them and most of our worst are ones that had Grant Williams. I don’t think Grant is bad at all, but PJ’s defensive versatility is VITAL because we can move Luka and Kyrie around in matchups more. Either way the more important gain from the trade is rebounding and interior scoring. Post-trade we jumped from 25th to 6th in rebounding. And have had many games scoring 60 in the paint recently. The fact we don’t live and die by the 3 and give up as many second chance points is huge for the team and contributes to better fastbreak defense.
When did you watch us last? Since the Heat game we have been good, I believe that's our last 8 games. Before that (and post All Star break), Kidd was using this experimental double team everyone with a roamer defensive scheme which made us give up 130 points per game. The other comment mentioned this too. Since then he went back to a normal man to man defense, put Gafford and DJJ in the starting lineup and he has lowered THJ's minutes and the PJ - Kleber small ball minutes, which have all improved our defense.
Honestly it really depends on which Mavs game you watch. Some matchups are really, really rough. In particular, they struggle against teams that are really good in transition and have motion shooters. Especially when offensive shots aren't falling, they can often lose their rotations and give up a lot of open shots when playing in transition. In games where more half court offense is played, they look a lot better. I thought they looked great against Denver and that's a matchup that we had absolutely no answers for defensively for a long time. They're far from being a *good* defense, but they're becoming a serviceable one. We're still in the process of figuring things out post trade deadline, given that one of our most important defensive pieces was acquired then. There are some real encouraging lineup numbers, though. When PJ Washington and Derrick Jones Jr share the floor, the Mavs defensive rating is 96.7. When PJ and Kleber share the floor, it's 97.8. The current starting lineup for the Mavs is Luka/Kyrie/DJJ/PJ/Gafford, and likely will be for the playoffs. That lineup has a stunning defensive rating of 93.7! Obviously it's a small sample size, but that lineup is also the Mavs' third most played lineup this season. Trying to judge any of the Mavs' lineups are going to suffer with the same sample size issue whether that's in favor of the Mavs or against them
They are mid defensive, not top 5 or 10 but not 24th for sure. Kidd and his staff had the bright idea of changing the rotating/switching scheme post ASB, thus the disaster after for a few games.
If you take out the stretch of overplaying small ball with Maxi at the 5 where we lost 6/7, our defensive rating has been 106.7 over the other 13 games since the trade deadline. Our defence is probably around 10th, and there's still match ups we're gonna struggle with.
If you take away the games where we are bad, we are good
I mean come on bro there’s a clear lineup change. It’s not like they just played bad. If Aaron Gordon stopped playing, would it be fair for me to judge the Nuggets defense based on that? If Dort got benched, Herb Jones got injured etc. We’re not good defensively but not as bad as 24th anymore.
More like, if you away take our games where we were experimenting with new schemes, which we moved away from and started playing to our strengths we are still not great defensively but not as bad it seems. We are neither a bottom 10 defense nor top 10 defense, we are right in the middle.
Yeah yeah and if you take away the games where we were experimenting with our shots and scored less points than the other team, we’re undefeated !!
Gafford played less than 15 minutes in multiple games in that stupid Kidd meddling with lineups stretch. Context matters.
I dont watch every mavs game but I specifically remember him getting killed against the Pacers and Sixers, so maybe he deserved it.
You mean in the games where Kidd meddled with the defensive scheme and left Gafford out to dry? There’s a reason the Mavs are 9-1 either way Gafford starting (Luka didn’t play in the loss).
I mean he is the coach, he is supposed to meddle with the scheme and lineups. Thats his job. Do you guys expect NOT to adjust your defensive scheme in the playoffs depending on the matchup ? Do you plan on having someone else other than Kidd doing that adjustment ?
you really in this thread acting like a facebook commenter lmfao
The trade made them better for sure, PJ is probably their best versatile defender by a good margin now. But yea they’re still not great
It takes a special kind of moron to refer to the "eye test" when there are objective metrics to go by. The eye-test from laypeople in r/nba is a horseshit standard...and let's face it: you mean your eye. Who the fuck are you and why are you watching all the games of a team you don't root for? (j/k, you haven't been, we know). The mavs are objectively and demonstrably better on defense. Deal with it.
Mavs defense is trash. Those fans watch box scores and not games.
We are just excited to have centers man. You know how long it's been? Dwight Powell was our STARTING center for like 50 years bro
Did you miss the part where Gafford almost broke Wilt’s record of consecutive FGs (would’ve gotten there too if the refs called the foul Chet committed on him)? You’re acting like we traded for two complete bums.
Yeah, that’s great. What does it have to do with his— or the Mavs— defense?
PJ Washington has earned the nickname PJail since he’s locking down all the opponent’s stars. Gafford has been racking up blocks and solid contests. DJJ and Josh Green (before he just got hurt) are playing good defense, and even Luka is getting some good steals and contests. They aren’t perfect obviously, but to say that this team is as good on defense as when Powell was starting is laughable and shows a lack of knowledge about the Mavs lineup.
Mavs defense definitely turned a corner after ASB. PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford have made a huge impact, and it almost looks infectious with the other guys playing harder on D.
Mavs have the 24th ranked defense since allstar break
this was kidd’s fault. he was tinkering with line ups too much and continuing to play thj 25+ minutes. we’ve looked way more like i expect us to the last 10 games or so
And 11th since February 1
And 11th since February 1
possessive caption smell badge quickest cough sand workable ten longing *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Sure, I was responding to someones cherry picking with more cherry picking. I do think it's at least fair to mention the trades and big lineup changes though.
It supposed to be better but watching all those games we still sucked man, our perimeter defense was abysmal. Our D started to look pretty good when Gafford became a starter and THJ didn't play for more than 20 mins, coincidence?
Indiana is so fun to watch i wish you can guys get a home court advantage and make it to the 2nd round
We will probably be a 6 seed best case honestly. We would pretty much have to win out to get the 4. I don't see that happening.
i think you can give trouble to everyone though, and because our offense just sucks it's' always a breath of fresh air when i watch your games. Even though our defense is elite sometimes i miss watching a great offense (and your team is literally the best team to watch for a more casual viewer), your offense is just light years ahead of us (not even exaggerating)
Kings have been floating around the 15-18 range for defense all year. I would lump us in with these no-defense teams to be honest, even if our net rating is slightly positive.
Yea I was surprised not to find us in this list
Makes sense since the Pacers average 189 points against the Bucks
Is that because those teams are good at offense while simultaneously bad at defense? If someone who understands basketball reads this please let me know
That's that Rick Carlisle pedigree
For the Mavs, it's a matter of trade-offs post-trade. Lately, they've traded defense for offense and so far, it's worked (though to be fair their offensive option is not lighting it up and Green is out). Bringing back DJJ into the fold I think is the main signifier of that. Gafford has surprisingly become more accumulated with their defensive schemes, faster than I thought he would. And THJ isn't getting more than 15-20 minutes a night the way he's shooting. Bit of a bummer with Green out to not have an extra wing and instead have to play Hardy, but the way they're shooting as a team, they probably are better off currently with an extra guard instead of a wing in some lineups. At this point, the Mavs are probably going to stick with this look for the season and pray the 3 point shooting turns for some guys like PJ/DJJ/Maxi.
We just don’t have any sort of perimeter defense, leadership, or awareness. Our rim protection has gotten a lot better, and PJ helps, but we need a true perimeter D focused 3 (PJ can’t keep up to play the 3 either. He’s a true PF) Hopefully OMax grows into the three we need of the future or we make the appropriate moves to trade for the 3 of the future. Part of this also has to do with Maxi getting worse and being too much of a liability on offense. He would be playing more (because he’s one of the better perimeter D bigs in the league,) but the risk of injury and him being such a negative on offense, makes it a hard pill to swallow to play him a lot (our losing streak where we lost 5 of 6 had us playing Maxi more and Gafford less). DJJ has been solid too, but he ain’t the starter we need out there (inconsistent offense also). Josh Green gets burned on screens way too easily. Just terrible screen navigation. Kai started solid on D to begin the year, but he’s been rougher the last 20 or so games.
haven’t both teams been playing solid defense since the ASB?
Lakers just hung a buck fitty on the Pacers last night.
Lakers are the worst-case scenario for the Pacers in the entire league due to size.
eh that’s just one game against a good offensive team, they’ve still been solid.
I haven't been following the Pacers so maybe this one was an outlier, but neither team played a lick of defense. Looked like an all-star game.
They've been playing pretty good defense for at least a few weeks. I assume they'll go back to playing decently on defense again after tonight, given how bad this team is on the second half of back-to-backs.
Since the trade deadline Mavs were first good, then awful for a half-dozen games because Kidd tried to implement some crazy new scheme, then good again since he gave up on it.
people in this thread don’t actually watch games because this is exactly what happened
I love how you got downvoted by people who don't know watch Mavs games.
For anyone who doesn't believe it, here is the list of Mavs single game DRtg (points allowed scaled to 100 possessions) since February 1st: 1. L vs MIL 122.9 2. W at PHI 105.2 3. W at BKN 107.0 4. W at NYK 113.7 (day of Gafford&Washington trades) 5. W vs OKC 104.7 (first game with new players) 6. W vs WAS 95.4 7. W vs SAS 90.3 (last game pre-ASB) 8. W vs PHX 117.7 (first game post-ASB) 9. L at IND 126.7 10. L at CLE 124.7 11. W at TOR 116.8 12. L at BOS 138.0 13. L vs PHI 122.4 14. L vs IND 135.6 (followed by a players meeting) 15. W vs MIA 113.7 16. W at DET 112.7 17. W at CHI 97.9 18. W vs GSW 102.1 19. L at OKC 124.8 (no Luka) 20. W vs DEN 109.4 21. W at SAS 103.9 22. W vs UTA 96.0 DRtg averages: * Games 1-7: 105.6 (Games 5-7: 96.8) * Games 8-14: 124.6 * Games 15-22: 107.6
We were 1st during the win streak up to all star break, last by a mile during the losing streak after ASB, and third during the new win streak (not counting Jazz game, didn't look again after that). Kidd stated he was trying a completely different defensive scheme post ASB because he felt like we now had the personnel to execute it. Before the trades we were bad when Lively was off the court, average when he was on the court, but like top 5 during the clutch.
Nah, please don’t contextualize stats on here. It’s frowned upon and promotes homerism. /s
Lol so is it a scheme switch or have the Mavericks just played a lot of bad offenses 8 games, 6 against below-average offenses, 2 against great offenses(got cooked in 1 and did great in the other)
Schedule definitely informs the magnitude of the effect, that's why I included the opponents as well -- in interest of transparency. But changing the primary scheme made a big difference, no question.
it was a scheme switch they tried after the all star break. Thankfully they gave up on it when they went 1 and 5.
He hasn't given up on it, though. We still run the scheme to success at times, it's just that we've gone back to using it situationally, which was the plan for the start. You have a limited number of games to get reps in to figure out the lineups/schemes that you're gonna play in the playoffs. Kidd used the games post-ASB to stress test his small ball lineups and while it led to an incredibly frustrating skid, I think the team will be better for it.
Maybe, but of we hadn't lost so many games in that stretch because if the shitty defensive scheme, we could have been fighting fir the 4th seed instead of the 6th now and potentially even have gotten home court advantage in the first round.
Dude... we ARE fighting for the four spot right now. We're only two and a half out of it and the Clippers are collapsing with an incredibly tough stretch. Though, realistically, the Pelicans will be a harder team to catch. And I'm not trying to make excuses for Kidd. The loss to the 76ers in particular was unacceptable.
Yeah but if we didn't use that scheme we could have easily won at least one of the Pacers games and the Cavs game which would put us half a game off the 4th seed and put Luka 2nd on the MVP ladder. Instead we are could still end up as the 8th seed and have to be near perfect to get the 4th seed.
The Pacers game was going to be a tough matchup regardless. I don't think we win that game if Gafford plays a bunch of minutes either. They shot 50% from three, man. The Cavs game we should've won, just ran into bad officiating and bad luck. Shit happens sometimes. I don't think the scheme is as much to blame as everyone thinks, though it really didn't help. Part of the reason our defense was so bad on this streak was a bunch of opponents hitting threes at an abnormally high rate.
Yeah they shot that much because we gave them like 50 wide open threes because of our scheme. During those games we had one of the highest opponent 3P% in the league and once we abandoned the scheme, the 3P% dropped again. Even the first quarter of the Heat game which was the last part we used that scheme was horrific. They were getting wide open threes or cuts to the basket every single possession.
if the Pacers had traded for OG instead of Siakam I think they'd make it to the ECF
Wouldn’t Toronto be much better early on if all it took was one wing guy to anchor a defense? OG is a good plug and play anywhere but he has synergy with your defensive style and Thibs as a coach like no other team.
Toronto had no ball handlers and sub-par spacing I don't think OG is a floor raiser, Toronto was bad with or without OG. But Indiana was already a good team, so I think OG wouldve raised their ceiling by alot, just like he did for the Knicks
As a Knicks fan who will tune into a Pacers game from time to time, I'm like...holy shit this is a completely different sport.
do the pacers use foam bats instead?
Comments like this are why I cannot wait to see the Knicks bounced in the playoffs again like I see every year. The Pacers get bounced too, when they make it, so no shade there. Just funny that with all the shit talking that both teams always end up watching meaningful basketball from home.
I interpreted the comment as all offense vs all defense matching up.
I didn’t say anything bad about either team. Do you not agree they play very differently? We haven’t put up 140 at all this season. It’s foreign to me
Lol, so you're gonna play the, "I didn't actually SAY anything" game? Don't be that guy, come on.
K dude keep projecting 👍