I expected the Nets to be very competitive on this game and this is why I took them on the +4.5 points spread. The X factor for me were the two key positional matchup edges that Brooklyn would have in Brook Lopez and Deron Williams.
“Looking at tonight's matchups, Brook Lopez will have a clear edge over the Mavericks's frontcourt players, while Deron Williams should also have a good performance tonight against Dallas's Point Guards. Shawn Marion would be important for Dallas to be able to defend Joe Johnson, but he is still out due to a calf injury. If we add to all of this the fact that Brooklyn is crushing their opponents on the offensive boards, the Nets have a great matchup on offense tonight.”
Well, I couldn't be more right about this. Brooklyn's frontcourt simply crushed Dallas's undersized and slow footed frontcourt by grabbing 58% of the total rebounds. Brook Lopez and Reggie Evans combined for 33 rebounds, while the whole Mavericks team grabbed just 34 boards. Coach Carlisle has been dealing with problems in the Center position throughout the whole season. Chris Kaman has been atrocious and he was completely outplayed by Brook Lopez. In fact, every big man from the Mavericks was owned by Lopez, who ended the game with 15-22 FG and 38 points, including 11-12 FG at the rim! It was just too painful to watch Dallas being so easily torched by him.
Deron Williams had also a great game by taking advantage of Dallas's poor defense at the PG position by both Mike James and Darren Collison. It was obvious that Deron would be fired up for this contest after the soap opera between him, Brooklyn and Dallas during the offseason and the Deron/Lopez tandem was beautiful to watch! Also a note for Andray Blatche, who had his "Lopez" moment as well by helping the Nets's second unit to dominate the Mavericks as well with 6-7 FG.
Dallas's offense was solid. Dirk is shooting the ball well and he is finally close to his best, but there are some moments in the game where Dirk simply disappears. I don't know if it's because of Dallas's gameplan or if he doesn't simply has enough legs to play well for the whole game. It can also be the combination of these two things, as Dallas is quite poor at the PG position and that doesn't help Dirk in being effective on offense. The Mavericks were still able to shoot 50% FG, but their defense was so poor once again that their offense just couldn't compensate such defensive tragedy. Coach Carlisle said it all after the game:
“[Deron] Williams wasn’t even their leading scorer. [Brook] Lopez had another big game here. At the point position, at the five position, they had a great game. They had two guys that had great games and we didn’t do a good job there. It’s a bad result for us. The irony is I think this is the same number of points we gave up the other night in Atlanta, but we scored 127, so it all seemed like it was okay. This is an ongoing challenge for us; being able to keep teams at or under 100. We’ve got to keep going and keep working on it.”
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