Clutchfans Game Thread: Rockets @ Mavericks 7/31/2020

That game was sick I hope we're not too exhausted/ sore on Sunday.

 

Previously, Houston has capela to help harden to break the double team defence. Now, it relies on other shooters like westbrooks or other teammates performance. Houston wins today is due to the opponent does not have energy to shoot in 4th quarter.

 

Fchowder never shows his face here after a good harden game. Only comes here puffing his chest out after a bad game. Same with other lin trolls lie ashleym, cheek and smoothie king

 

Chowder to busy promoting cancel culture in the D&D when Harden plays well

 

Harden is a basketball god.

 

High volume player. Poor shot selection, several 4th Q turnovers. A key steal and some huge work on thr glass for rebounds. Pretty neutral game for him overall.

 

No kidding. I hope the Rockets are OK, too.

 

Spoiler

In the paraphrased words of the late NFL coach Dennis Green, the Mavericks “are who we thought they were. What we thought they were.”

149 points. Missed critical free throws. Clutch time disappearance.

It’s like we never left. Mavericks basketball officially returned Friday night when they “hosted” the Houston Rockets in the first game of their NBA restart. There’s no true home and away team, as everybody plays in the Orlando bubble, but the Mavericks were labeled the home squad. Fitting, given their chronic issues at home this season and how this game turned out. You probably felt the extra buzz of excitement as Kristaps Porzingis and Robert Covington stood at center court to tip things off. Surely, players felt it as well. After a full month of training camp and exhibition games, it was obvious coaches and players were tired of talking and just wanted to play meaningful basketball. But aside from that extra bit of anxiousness, you probably wouldn’t know if this was the first game in 142 days or just a few days removed from March 11.

There were good things, offensively, on display from Dallas in the 153-149 loss to the Rockets. Trey Burke was signed to his second stint in Dallas as a replacement player after Willie Cauley-Stein opted out, and Burke played lights out. He scored 31 points off the bench on 11 of 16 shooting, including an astonishing eight for 10 from 3-point range. Luka Doncic had another triple-double, 28 points, 10 assists and 13 rebounds. Porzingis led the team in scoring with 39 points. Tim Hardaway Jr. did everything you could want from your No. 3 option.

This is a historic offense, No. 1 in NBA history in offensive rating. Head coach Rick Carlisle mentioned time and time again over the past month that he wasn’t worried about if they would be rusty. News alert: He was right. They’re not rusty. Carlisle also reiterated that improving the defense was the primary focus throughout training camp. He said the goal was to elevate from middle-of-the-pack to a top-10 unit. News alert: Giving up 153 points is not going to do that.

Before we embark on this Orlando bubble journey, allow me to issue a reminder. This is a special year for the Mavericks. This is that strange year that comes maybe once every decade or two, if that. The team is winning, they’re fun and loaded with hope. The engine of this team is 21 years old and his partner in prime turns 25 years old on Sunday. The goal was never a championship parade in 2020; it was to get some postseason experience. With the Memphis Grizzlies losing early Friday to the Portland Trail Blazers, the Mavericks’ magic number is down to one. They haven’t officially cliched a playoff spot but it’s essentially a sure thing. This team is going to play a playoff series for the first time since 2016. They’re a wildly entertaining basketball team that’s actually pretty good and has no expectations. That’s the sweet spot. Enjoy this run because very soon, perhaps as early as 2021, there are going to be higher expectations attached to this Doncic-Porzingis Era; Western Conference championships, NBA Finals appearances, and yes, that parade through downtown Dallas.

With that being said, if you went to Friday night screaming into a pillow, it’s understandable. Heck, if you even just rolled your eyes and reminded yourself of the bright future to sidestep the agony of the moment, I don’t blame you. Had the Mavericks lost to the Rockets, a team squarely in their championship window with prime James Harden and prime Russell Westbrook, 113-101 in regulation, it might be easier to stomach. Chalk it up “it’s just their time right now” and move on to the next game, right? But this is a game the Mavericks had. They should have won this game against a team they are chasing in the standings in order to avoid the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round. That makes the silver linings, at least in the immediate aftermath, a bit tougher to see.

So, how did the Mavericks score 149 points and lose this basketball game? Let’s examine.

Defense (or lack thereof)

Yes, Harden is an NBA MVP who is about to capture his third consecutive NBA scoring title. Yes, Russell Westbrook is somehow always plugged into an electric outlet and never runs out of energy. But you can’t give up 153 points in an NBA game. The winning team in the NBA All-Star game in 2018 scored 148 points. This was a game with playoff positioning on the line.

In 44 minutes, Westbrook finished with 31 points on 13 of 30 shooting. For a team like the Mavericks, already shoddy on defense, you can live with those numbers from an opposing team’s superstar. Harden scored 49 points on a much more efficient 14 of 20 shooting. A large part of that was thanks to 21 trips to the charity stripe, knocking down 18 free throws. That’s less than ideal but maybe you reason your way to understanding that as well. The 21 free throw attempts (we’ll get there), poor defense and some of it, just Harden being Harden.

What absolutely can’t happen is the likes of Danuel House Jr. and Ben McLemore. House found his way into the starting lineup because of the vacancy left by the injured Eric Gordon. McLemore is a solid bench piece who played 14 minutes. Those two combined to shoot a deadly 10 of 16 from beyond the arc, including McLemore a perfect four-for-four. Too often in the game, the Mavericks were left trying to fly out to the perimeter to hopelessly close out on shooters and it never seemed like they got there on time.

For example, this is how the play developed on House’s first 3-pointer.



All House needed was a rack next to him and it’d look more like the 3-Point Contest as opposed to an actual game.

Vid

Credit the Rockets, too. Harden and Westbrook make it difficult to not overcompensate and help out on them. Both made some pretty passes out of traffic, including a gorgeous behind-the-back pass from Harden. The Mavericks somewhat got a dosage of their own medicine. Doncic and Porzingis often have the same effect on opposing defenses in luring players into them, creating open looks for guys like Seth Curry, Dorian Finney-Smith or others. That’s why these two offenses are the best in the NBA. But if the Mavericks are going to have success against teams like this, they’re going to have to find a way to remain a little more disciplined and make the other team work a little harder for their points.

As far as defensive issues at the rim, Mavericks seemed to have some communication issues on switches and awareness of where the help defense was behind them. That’s in large part due to the wonky system the Rockets run.

“That’s a really weird team to play against,” Porzingis said. “The way they play and the way we have to defend them is completely different from any other team.”

The lineup is loaded with shooters throughout and the opposing defenses have to respect that. Porzingis is the Mavericks’ rim protector but he was on the perimeter so much that when the Rockets would attack the rim, the Mavericks’ big man wouldn’t be there because he was pulled out by his man and out of position to make a play. Porzingis is right, the Rockets are a weird team to play against. But some of the holes exposed in the Mavericks defense can be exploited by other contenders as well.

“I think we can still work to be a better defensive team, even when there are guys like Harden and Westbrook out there,” Carlisle said. “We just got to decide that that’s the most important thing.”

 

Spoiler

Clutch time and free throws

These two factors go hand-in-hand for the Mavericks’ demise in this game.

Dallas missed 10 free throws Friday night, going 28 for 38 from the line. Seth Curry, an 84 percent free-throw shooter on the season, missed three of his six attempts while Doncic missed four of his nine attempts. Aside from the sheer number of misses, the timing was particularly bad. Of the 10 missed free throws, four came in the final quarter. Two of them may have shifted the outcome of the game. Doncic missed a free throw with 97 seconds left in regulation that could have extended a six-point Dallas lead to seven points and Curry missed one with five seconds left in regulation that could have helped bump an eventual three-point lead to a four-point cushion.

On July 8 in Dallas, Carlisle answered a question about the offense by saying he was more focused on improving in two other areas. The first was defense. The second?

“The other thing is free-throw shooting,” Carlisle said. “During this period, our guys have done an enormous amount of work on concentrating and getting better. Free throw shooting is a different kind of endeavor. There’s not a whole lot of creativity to it. It’s kind of repetition and it’s getting a routine that you trust and repeating it, repeating it and repeating it and then getting in situations where you can simulate and work on simulating game situations.”

There’s a legitimate argument that if either one of those goes in, there would be a very different discussion right now. There was no opposing arena crowd noise to serve as a distraction or anything like that. Players were undoubtedly gassed at the end of the game after playing such an up-tempo, high-scoring contest, but at this point in the season, those free throws have to go in.

But free throws are really just a microcosm of a larger issue late in games. Here’s what Dallas’ quarter-by-quarter scoring looked like: 42 points in the first, 43 in the second, 34 in the third and 20 in the fourth. Furthermore, when the score is within five points in the final five minutes of regulation or overtime, the Mavericks’ offense ranks 29th in the league this season, with only the Detroit Pistons — who are part of the Delete Eight, watching games from home — worse than Dallas. Again, this is statistically the highest-rated offense in NBA history with an overall offensive rating of 115.9. In crunch time, that plummets to 92.9.

After the game, Porzingis provided a rather honest explanation.

“I think we should have stayed probably more offensive-minded, the way we were the whole game,” Porzingis said. “At the end, we tried to slow it down and the pressure was up obviously. We tried to slow it down and kind of just cruise and win the game. Or maybe not to lose the game. That was maybe our mindset a little bit. We just have to go out there and keep playing aggressively (and) attack.”

Porzingis, obviously, is correct. The Mavericks played much more opportunistically in the first three quarters than they did in the fourth. It mirrored a situation of a football team is up a couple of scores late and decides to continuously run the ball on three straight plays and punt. The Mavericks defense isn’t good enough to withstand conservative offense that throws away possessions. While a 12-point lead sounds like a decent cushion against most teams, against Houston that’s just a four-possession game. By late in the fourth quarter, Mavericks seemed to be playing against the clock as much as they were playing against the Rockets. The results weren’t pretty.

For example, Dallas had this possession with just over two minutes left in regulation. Doncic brought the ball up, milked the entire shot clock until there were five seconds left. Then, he makes a cross-court pass to Kleber, who was closely defended by Houston. He tossed it back to Porzingis who just had to launch a prayer as the shot clock buzzer sounded.

Vid

The Mavericks are a young team that needs to figure out how they can take some time off the clock in those situations but still get a decent look. Porzingis feels confident this will serve as a lesson moving forward.

“This one, I would say, is going to be a great loss for us,” he said. “We have to take lessons from this game. We have to look at the film and see what we could have done better at the end to close out the game. We have to find a positive in this tough loss that we had and try to learn from it. It was a fun game. That was a physical game. That felt more like a playoff game, so it’s a great experience for us.”

Doncic echoed those sentiments as well.

“We’re a young team. We’ve got a lot to learn,” Doncic said. We’ll get better, for sure. I know we’re going to get it together when it matters most in the playoffs, so I’m not worried about that.”

This stat courtesy of ESPN Stats and Info on Twitter was jarring: Entering Friday, teams were 2-711 when trailing by seven or more points with less than a minute to go in regulation. The Rockets were down by seven points with 45 seconds left. The Mavericks are now 14-22 in clutch games, per NBA stats, with a -17.9 net rating. At least from the outside, there will be cause for worry until they can turn it around.

Lineup questions

As mentioned above, Burke was on fire pretty much the entire time he was on the court. He began the fourth quarter with a pull-up jumper to give him 27 points and added a free throw about a minute later. Then, he missed a 3-pointer and was subbed out for Curry with 10 minutes left in regulation. Curry would finish the game with three points on free throws, missing all four of his shot attempts. The next time Burke checked into the game was over halfway through the overtime period.

After the game, Burke was asked if he was hurt or if there was something wrong with him physically that kept him out of action.

“I think some of the guys on the side were wondering the same thing,” Burke said. “But I just got here. I know Coach (Carlisle) has a lineup at the end of the games that he still trusts at this point. Things change. You never know, going forward, it could be Seth out there, it could be me out there. It depends on who has it going at that particular moment.

“I think we all figured that I was going to go back in but there was a moment where that unit out there had it rolling as well. I think it got to a point where Coach thought, ‘He’s a little tired’ or ‘He’s been sitting for a while’ and then it got down to a minute and 45 seconds left in the fourth quarter, I think he just kind of let it roll, which I’m fine with.”

The other questionable decision was perhaps most critical. With three seconds left in regulation and the Rockets trailing by three points, Harden went to the free throw line. He hit his first free throw but missed his second. Robert Covington managed to get around and over the duo of Maxi Kleber and Porzingis to tip in the miss and send the game to overtime. Earlier in the game, Boban Marjanovic checked in for a quick five minutes and it was comical how easily he towered over Rockets defenders in the paint to grab five rebounds and make all three of his short shot attempts.

I asked Carlisle if he contemplated putting Marjanovic in the game in that situation. He seemed on the cusp of providing his explanation before catching himself.

“Yeah, talked about it but then if we got the — we talked about it but decided not to do it,” Carlisle said. “We talked about it but decided not to do it. Let’s leave it at that.”

Follow-up questions on the postgame Zoom conferences are not allowed. In the big picture though, Carlisle was adamant about shouldering the blame for this loss.

“This is a tough loss. This is about as tough of a loss as it gets,” Carlisle said. “It just comes down to basic execution. The free-throw block-out was a big culprit; we missed free-throws down the stretch, that was a culprit. NBA games (are) going to get more grinding as the game goes on and Houston made some plays. Give them credit, they made some amazing plays… A lot of this stuff comes down to details.

“Look, I’ll take full responsibility for the loss. I want to keep the pressure off the players. They really played their butts off but we were unable to make a few key plays that we needed to make.”

 

Spoiler

Officiating

Referees are an easy scapegoat when things don’t go the way you want for your team. NBA basketball is a very fast game and there are going to be missed calls, bad calls and everything in between. The officiating certainly was spotty in this game, on both sides. Seeing Doncic complaining to the referees is nothing new but it was interesting to see the more exuberant reactions from Porzingis and especially Finney-Smith, who along with Curry, might be the tamest Mavericks on the team.

However, officiating is down the list of reasons why the Mavericks lost this game. Seeing Harden take 21 free throws is frustrating but that’s also part of his game. As good as he is at putting the ball in the basket, he’s perhaps just as good at drawing fouls, sometimes authentically and sometimes with some Emmy-level performances. Ultimately, the Rockets took 39 free throws to the Mavericks’ 38. Dallas actually was ahead of Houston until the end when the Mavericks had to intentionally send Harden to the line four times. The ticky-tacky calls are consistent with how officiating has been, at times, in the bubble through the first two days. In the Blazers vs. Grizzlies game, both teams set season-highs for free throw attempts. The Mavericks’ 38 was their second-highest total of the season while Houston’s 39 was their fourth-highest.

Part of the maturation of this young Mavericks team is going to be how they evolve in handling the officiating. While it was bad on both sides, the Mavericks were clearly the more flustered team whereas the Rockets more or less kept their head down and tried to work it to their advantage.

“We just have to stay calm in those situations,” Porzingis said. “Obviously, us players, we’re extremely competitive and the refs know that. I feel like the amount of complaining and talking to the refs in this game — if I was a fan, I probably wouldn’t enjoy it. I kind of caught myself in those situations and in those moments and I was like, ‘We’re doing too much. We need to just play basketball here.’ That’s us as a team, that’s got to be our mindset. There are going to be mistakes from the officials, the same way we make mistakes but we just got to play through it and be a team that’s least affected by it.”

The Mavericks play their second game of the seeding schedule against the Phoenix Suns on Sunday, Porzingis’ 25th birthday.

 

BTW good to see you again after the hiatus

He is a capable defender, having defended the likes of Mitchell, Klay and could guard up to 6'7 fters.

That's where his true value lies defensively, you could see the rotation getting thinned out without him defensively.

The floor spacing is just icing on the cake at this point.

He isn't worth his contract at this point but he is still valuable. I have given up to see him as a borderline star a while ago.

Even when Ben mac and House have replaced his shooting a bit.

MDA just has to become less stubborn and play him only 25 minutes per game.

 

This bubble could be the best thing to happen to Harden...he looked more focused and played great D

I know its early after a long break but it will be interesting to see if he keeps this up.

 

To be honest they could only lose to the Rockets.

Bradley Beal's Wiz prolly could only score 129.

Defensive teams wouldn't have let them score 149 in the first place.

They are a bigger and younger version of the Rockets, being more efficiently at times, but Harden is better than Doncic and more seasoned.

The mismatches were there on both teams.

The defense was very good in the last 5 minutes but not prior.

They choked a tad but you have to be able to deliver the final blow. Not everyone can.
(2 talented teams and they had Carlisle, a winner)

 

Imagine putting up 49 threes, hitting 43 percent of them and losing by 4 points. That's what happened to the Mavs. What a win, what a ****ing WIN!

 

Carlisle was flat out out coached in 4th and OT.

Subbing out Burke for Curry was the height of stupidity.

 

and its not like it was a fluke or even just poor defense. the mavs regularly put up 125+ in regulation, and that's with kristaps only getting comfortable within the offense a couple weeks before the shutdown.

you gotta give the Rockets credit for hanging in there and eventually pulling out a W.

 

Tell a Mavs fan yesterday morning:

"Off the bench Trey Burke will score 31 points including going 8/10 from the three point line!
.. oh, but you're still gonna lose."

Hahahaha sucks to be a Mavs fan.

 

The Rockets last night made 31 out of 53 from 2p for 58.5% shooting from two. That was the real difference in the game if you ask me. Layups, layups, layups.

 

I had written off this game at halftime. I was pleasantly surprised to see we pulled it out. But the Rockets were lucky, plain and simple. Needless to say, they are not going far into the post season (if there is one) playing defense like they did last night.

 

luck? They put themselves in position to give themselves a chance and took advantage. Nothing the mavs did wrong would have meant anything if the rockets did not capitalize. Mavs missed a couple FTs and house and James made 3s. If they rockets brick them then it doesn’t matter. Give credit for staying locked in down 7 with 45 secs left and believing in each other. Covington bricked all night yet we still swung to the open man in OT and he hits a dagger. That’s what it’s all about.