RS 23/24 - Mavs @ Spuns (1030 PM EST)

[Dirk]

It was not intentional. I did not intend to write "Spuns".

[ozwizard8]

Booker-Durant duo is supposed to be amazing offensive firepower together. It doesn't worth much if they dont have solid defense around them. If you need to play 'defensive players' who cannot pass, shoot with your offensive stars, then you lose spacing and your offensive players become less valuable.
- Mcgee was not able to make the passes on 4v3 game. Lively is very good on this as a rookie. This skill is probably not teachable. Sengun, Jokic, Draymond Green showed some good passing vision as rookies too.
- C.Wood was not able to make necessary cuts, he wasn't moving even though he is good offensive player.

Almost all NBA players are great basketball players. THJ is an amazing player if you play against him on your local gym. In NBA the differences are only percentages. Booker can make 42% of tough shots, while THJ can make 35% of those. Durant is vastly better player than DJJ but if you compare contested Durant shot vs open DJJ shots, then DJJ can score more.

Lively is the 2nd most valuable player on Mavs. Congrats to scouting and FO! Kudos to Cuban for tanking the last game. Well worth the fine.

dont bother with all offensive power teams like PHX. go with all size, rebounding like Denver, LAL, Celtics, Wolves. Even GSW has more size with Wiggins-Green-Looney against us. Trade that injured pg who is earning $40m for a solid frontcourt player and this team becomes a real contender!

[ozwizard8]

I wonder if the Suns are regretting giving Ayton away. They could have used him against Lively.

I don't understand anything Suns did in the past two years. They had a nice core of Cam, Bridges, Booker and Ayton plus decent bench. If they were so fed up with Ayton, could have gotten a much better deal later on than they did with Nurkic. Think about it, they fumbled Luka just to get Nurkic later on lol...

Now they have an aging KD, always injured Beal and also often injured Booker with more or less **** bench. They tried to be greedy and might not even get into the play ins.

They went FULL offense.

Nurkic is better for offense than Ayton.
Beal>Cam
Durant>Bridges
Offensively, this team supposed to be great but there is only one ball. It becomes marginal improvement on offense and you lose more on defense. Coaches eventually plays defensive rotations who are **** on offense so you lose offense too. Its like Carlisle needed to play Boban as a last resort against Kawhi-PG.

Suns downplaying the injury proneness of Nurkic was so dumb too. I like Nurkic as a player. Meet with some his friends and relative on a plane ride. But he is old now, injuries take toll on him. You cannot trust him as a starter for a contender.