Where are we after one game in the books and 81 of these things remaining, Mavs fans?
Have all our suspicions about mystifying roster construction been confirmed, or are we still clinging to the front office’s crystal clear “defense wins championships” vision, firm in pre-established conclusions that this team just has to be good this year?
Well, perhaps the Washington Wizards’ Friday date with the Dallas Mavericks at American Airlines Center will illuminate us all a little further. Or, maybe a better
result against a perennial NBA cellar dweller will let those of us clinging to preconceived notions do so a little while longer.
As of the NBA’s 8:30 p.m. Tuesday injury report, Daniel Gafford has been upgraded to questionable for Friday’s game against the Wizards. Washington will be without the services of guard Bilal Coulibaly in Dallas, while he recovers from hand surgery.
Foul trouble
Dereck Lively II picked up his third foul before the end of the first quarter in Wednesday’s season-opening loss to the Spurs. Anthony Davis followed him to the bench when he picked up his fourth before halftime. Yes, it would have been great to have Daniel Gafford in off the bench when Lively picked up his second with 1:15 left in the first, but regardless of Gafford’s injury status, there is no reason on God’s Green Earth that Lively should have been in the game to pick up his third 40 seconds later. Looking squarely in your direction, Jason Kidd.
Where Gafford’s absence really made an impact was when Davis picked up his second with 7:40 left in the first half. Kidd’s hands were more tied in that situation, with Lively already saddled with three. Davis went on to pick up two more fouls in the half’s final 2:47 to swing the doors wide open to a second half chock full of small-ball minutes from the biggest roster in the NBA.
There is enough blame to go around here. Without Gafford, the Mavs’ other big men have decidedly less room for boneheaded mistakes on the defensive end. Kidd also has to think inside the box more and get these guys out of the game when the situation on the floor calls for it. He wants to trust his guys, and he trusted them to a fault in the season opener. That can’t happen against a Wizards team that will force both Lively and Davis to defend smaller, more agile guys (aside from the 7’0” Alex Sarr) with its roster makeup.
Ball security
Cooper Flagg and Ryan Nembhard, the two rookie ball-handlers the Mavs featured instead of relying more on the historically unreliable D’Angelo Russsell, turned the ball over three times apiece in their respective NBA debuts, accounting for six of the team’s 16 turnovers on the night. Russell played just 15 minutes in the season opener against the Spurs.
Our own Kirk Henderson noted in his recap of the Spurs’ runaway win over the Mavericks on Wednesday that the significant role that Nembhard was forced into on Night 1 of the season points to greater problems with the team’s roster construction, and I can’t agree more. Again, sure, if would have been nice to have Dante Exum around as another option in the backcourt against the Spurs, but Exum is not the solution to this team’s problems. All Exum would have been is just “another guy.”
The guard positions are a problem for this team. The fact that Kidd didn’t have more trust in the veteran Russell than for 15 minutes on the floor is another head-scratcher. Because even if you don’t like his game or didn’t like him as an offseason addition, which I did not, he’s a better option in the short term than throwing an undrafted two-way rookie to the wolves to start the season.
Passing and cohesion
This one may take a little longer, or a roster move, to address. It points back again to roster construction.
The Mavericks’ starting five combined for a whopping six assists in the team’s 33-point loss to the Spurs on Wednesday. To me, fixing the lack of quality shot creation we saw on Wednesday isn’t as simple as just starting a true point guard and ball distributor instead of Cooper Flagg at the point guard position.
The obvious choice for starting point guard if that’s what you’re trying to accomplish would, again, be Russell. He’s established. He, at very least, knows what he’s doing at that position. But he’s never been an assist machine at point guard in his 10-plus-year NBA career. He’s always been more of a scoring point guard, averaging in the five-to-six assist range for the last several years. He managed three in his 15 minutes on the floor against San Antonio.
So, we’ve arrived back at roster construction. Kidd can call the fix a “simple” one all he wants. To me it doesn’t seem so simple if the solution does not currently exist on the team’s roster. The Mavs need a distribution hub to make this offense move, but who on this roster can they turn to for that very necessary skill? At present, the team is searching.
How to watch
The Mavericks host the Wizards on Friday, with the game set to tip at 7:30 p.m. CDT. The game will be broadcast locally on KFAA Channel 29 and streamed on MavsTV.
