Mavericks' Check-In: Dec 3 Win v Memphis
Time to lock in and empty out some notes on the Mavericks first quarter of the season.
One of the quests of this newsletter is to write about whatever I would wish to write about. One of the other quests is to only write things that I believe are worthy of your time, so I only want to offer you my thoughts when I have a few hours to give it my full attention.
You don’t need to see what hits the cutting room floor, but if I were to explain why I don’t give you much on the Mavericks and Stars until the Cowboys and college football step aside, it is basically because there is only one me and I am presently occupied.
That said, there are windows that I may use along the way and this is one of them.
On Tuesday the Mavericks hosted a very nice Memphis Grizzlies team at the American Airlines Center in a “Cup Game,” so we broke out the fancy floor and the confusing tie-breakers and tried, as Adam Silver has tried, to convert this from a December Tuesday Night home game against Memphis to a “amazing chance to clinch a spot in the knockout round of the NBA Cup!” opportunity.
The teams played a very exciting game that required a magnificent escape in the clutch moments for Dallas to emerge with the win, 121-116. Cup or not, this is the type of game that makes you think you need to get to the American Airlines Center to see this sort of exhibition in person, because, I can tell you, this Mavericks team is as talented as I can recall. Apparently, last May was not a dream. The team that was beating everyone in their path on the way to the Finals is still that team. Some nights, they even have most all of their players together at the same time and when that happens, this thing is incredibly impressive. They have won nine of their last ten games and look to me like they have a chance to compete for a title this year if the train stays on the tracks and I don’t believe I have said that since Dirk Nowitzki was in his prime.
Let’s talk about it.
– This game, in particular, felt like a big showdown because it was. Memphis is one of the better teams in the league and it feels like they may have the type of roster that would be a rather difficult matchup over two weeks with the way they can come at you in numbers and build from a defensive structure.
Most wise men who follow this league will tell you that contenders are best located by simply running the Offensive Rating/Defensive Rating test of finding teams that can be found in the Top 10 of both. Perhaps made easier, you would look for the top of the “Net Rating” column, but when we run the numbers this morning, there are five teams in the NBA that have worked their way into this conversation that check both boxes:
Oklahoma City Thunder (8th offense, 1st defense)
Cleveland Cavaliers (2nd/9th)
Boston Celtics (3rd/8th)
Memphis Grizzlies (5th/6th)
Dallas Mavericks (4th/10th)