Dallas plays Houston in the first round of the NBA playoffs that begin this weekend and I think Dallas is going to win. Even though they lost the last two games during the regular season to the Rockets, both losses were before Avery Johnson took over as coach.
The last game they played on March 6th Dallas lost 90 - 69. Dallas was missing Nowitzki, Finley and Dampier.
The game on January 12 Dallas lost 124 - 114. Dallas was missing Josh Howard and Marquis Daniels. McGrady had a big game, and I'm sure Howard would have slowed him down some. Plus Nelson was coaching and only gave Dampier 19 minutes.
The big issue for Houston will be that Juwan Howard is out for the rest of the season. He played Nowitzki pretty well defensively and had enough offensive game to keep Dirk honest on defense. Houston doesn't have anyone who is going to be able to keep up with Dirk or Van Horn.
At center, I think that Dampier, Bradley and Henderson will be fine against Ming.
At point guard, Bobby Sura is a legitimate triple double threat. Jason Terry and Devin Harris are extremely quick and play great defense. I'm not sure who has the advantage here.
Shooting guard, Wesley and Barry for Houston, Finley, Stackhouse and Daniels for Dallas. Big advantage for Dallas.
Small forward - McGrady vs. Howard. Howard should guard McGrady as well as anyone can. But Tracy will still have big games.
Dallas has so much more size than Houston and that they should own the paint, as long as they can stop Houstons 3 point shooting, I think they have a great chance of advancing to the next round of the playoffs.
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3 comments:
Man, don't know what to say about the Mavs. They just struggled against Houston and fell apart against Phoenix. Nowitzki just has to work hard on his D this summer and get over the fact that Nash is no longer a Mav. He's gotta learn to be a proper leader too if the team is going to go any farther. Terry did great, Avery did great, Stackhouse and Howard did well. Nowitzky, Finley, Dampier have to play better next year. I wonder if Finley will be in the starting lineup. He's just not consistent enough.
I think Dallas is in great shape going into next season. Obviously, they missed Nash. Terry and Harris are both learning the point which is something that took Nash a couple years to get down too.
Another year together and I think Dallas will be really good. With another year of experience at guard, Nowitzki should be able to get the ball in position to score, instead of needed to create his shot.
Finley should be better next season, he just had surgery on his ankle last week. He'd been playing hurt since Nov-Dec. He admitted that it took away some of his explosiveness which I sure hurt his drives to the basket and deadly fade away jumper.
I really hope that they don't trade Stackhouse. Dallas need more tough player like him. Maybe he'll rub off on Dampier.
While I wasn't a big fan of Dampier much of the season, he's still better than what Dallas has had at center for 15 years and better than what 75% of the rest of the NBA has at center.
I thought Nowitzki displayed fine leadership skills. I heard the same comments you probably heard from Bill Walton talking about how great a leader Nash was and how Nowitzki needed to work on it. Don't listen to Bill. Jordan, Bird, and Thomas were all very intense vocal leaders who had a lot of success in the playoffs. You have to be everyone's buddy to be a good leader.
It's not that Dirk shouldn't call out the guys, it's that he let his frustration affect *him* and his play. He got rattled. If you're the leader, you can't let youself get rattled. Jordan never lost composure like that, well at least until he got to Washington :)
B.
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