The Dallas Mavericks have won their two home games against Minnesota and Chicago after their first defeat in Phoenix. All this succeeded without Dirk Nowitzki and Harrison Barnes. So there’s still plenty of air upstairs.
“We’re 32,000 points short, we’ve done it without our two stars so far,” Mavs coach Rick Carlisle almost wanted to apologize at the press conference after the game against the Chicago Bulls. This meant the absence of Harrison Barnes (thigh) and of course Dirk Nowitzki (ankle). While Barnes could be back on Friday, the comeback of the franchise legend is still in the stars.
Coach Carlisle therefore didn’t really want to evaluate the start of the season so far. “We don’t really play differently without them, but it varies a bit.” It is therefore difficult to assess the performance of the Mavs to date, even if certain trends are discernible.
Dallas are the third-best offense so far (offensive rating: 117.2), but also the second-worst defence (DefRtg: 120.4), which doesn’t really come as a surprise, nor does the pace go up, which is still only enough for a rear midfield place in the league.
Nowitzki won’t make the defense any more stable, but especially in Barnes, Dallas has high hopes. In the past the ex-Warriors-Forward had to put a lot of energy into the offensive, this season he will be relieved by Dennis Smith Jr. and Luka Doncic and can let more seeds into the defense.
Smith and Doncic are also the players who led Dallas in the first games. The clearly best player was the Slovenian, who after starting difficulties in Phoenix was able to convince in both home games and above all fits perfectly into the Carlisle system.
The Mavs take most three players of the complete league (43 per game) and have only shot 20 times from the middle distance. It was actually to be expected that the No.3 pick would operate there, but the Slovenian shifted his game all the more behind the three-way line with partly deadly stepbacks. What also stands out: Doncic doesn’t even think about using the midrange jumper!
The situation is a little different with Smith, who took eight of the 20 mid-range shots, after all there was also the game winner against the Timberwolves in Derrick Rose’s face. However, DSJ still alternates too often between light and shadow. The game in Phoenix was probably one of the worst in his Mavs career, even against Chicago it was nothing over long distances (7 points, 2/11 FG, 4 Turnover).
So it is not surprising that the reservists for Dallas have mostly taken the coal out of the fire. J.J. Barea experiences his umpteenth spring and dissects the defences as he likes in old times. His average of 8.3 assists resulted mostly from pick’n’rolls and helped him to fifth place in the entire league.
Dwight Powell and especially Maxi Kleber appeared as further energizers, the German played a really strong game against the Bulls with 12 points and 5 rebounds and also scored half of his triple attempts so far. The Würzburger has fully earned his place in the rotation, but of all people another Würzburger could get in the way of Kleber.
Nowitzki won’t be back in action until November at the earliest, but it should be clear that Powell and Kleber will be giving away minutes for the long blonde.
In the night on Thursday Nowitzki will still be missing. The Mavs will be competing in Atlanta when the rookies Trae Young and Doncic will be in the spotlight because they were swapped in draft by both teams.