Are the Mavericks a hot mess?.............No but what are they?

 

The Mavericks are frustrating right now for quite a few reasons.  Yet the Mavericks as stand are still a good basketball team not playing as well as they could.

Sure Nico was fired, but that doesn’t affect what is happening on the court unless there was some confusion going on that affected their play. Yet overall unless the players say it, I doubt it.

And what is interesting is Naji said the other day when he had a good game they needed to get out of their own heads. And that I believe is real. And unfortunately they couldn’t get out of their own heads in the fourth quarter against the Bucks.

The symptoms are missed wide open three pointers or weakly contested three pointers. Or when they drive to the basket and miss the layup, sure it was contested, but they are missing too many of those.

They are forcing shots over and over again. They are not in a rhythm mentally, ie they need to get out of their own heads.

The defense has been somewhat good, not great, but good and you can tell because they have lost more than a few games in this early part of the season by just a few points. If they made 1/3 of their three pointers in the fourth quarter against the Bucks, they probably win the game by 5 or 6 points, maybe more. Yet they missed too many.

And these are shots they can make. And don’t tell me they aren’t being set up well since Luka is gone. Yes he made a difference, but way too many of these shots can be made without Luka.

Would it help to have an elite point guard, of course. Yet if you really watch the game, they aren’t completely without some good point guard play. It could be better, but overall that isn’t the deep problem. A good point guard will make a difference in a close game, but making shots helps to prevent games coming down to the last minute.

I still feel good about this team with or without Nico. I just hope no rash decisions are made to try and undo the Luka debacle. They may need to give the players a chance to get out of their heads, win a few games in a row and see what is really needed on the court because yes, some improvement can always help.

For the time being though, the fans need the players to play, just play. Naji understood that and did well one game. He and the rest of the team need to carry that forward.

 

Cheers