His biggest issue is his inability to punish a small center on offense. That isn’t to say Gobert is completely blameless. The problem is they can’t hold up on the other end of the floor, and Gobert can’t solve all their problems when he has to defend a shooter. This roster has some great offensive players on the perimeter who can drive, shoot, and pass. 1 offense in the NBA this year despite Mitchell and Gobert missing big chunks of the season with injuries. The Jazz built their roster to go all-in on offense with Gobert cleaning up everything on defense. That’s on Mitchell and Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanović more than it’s on the three-time Defensive Player of the Year. Utah simply has to control the ball better on the defensive end in front of Gobert. That includes seven of Maxi Kleber’s eight 3s.- Tim MacMahon April 19, 2022 Per the Mavs made 17 uncontested 3s in win over Jazz, the most by any team in last 10 postseasons. With Gobert now forced to guard someone standing at the arc, Dallas bent Utah’s defense by repeatedly burning their poor perimeter defenders at the point of attack to get anything they wanted. Utah’s nightmare scenario played out in the fourth quarter when Dallas subbed out a lob threat in Dwight Powell for a shooter in Maxi Kleber at the center spot.
The Jazz defense is built around the world’s best rim protector in Rudy Gobert, but there’s only so much he can do when the opposing team has five shooters on the floor and his perimeter defenders are regularly getting burned at the point of attack. It was a game plan born out of watching how the Jazz collapsed against the Los Angeles Clippers in last year’s playoffs while LA was missing its own superstar Kawhi Leonard with an injury. The impressive shooting percentages were less about the shot-making and more about Dallas’ ability to completely compromise Utah’s defense with dribble penetration. It proceeded to shoot 11-of-18 overall and 6-of-8 from three-point range in the final frame to steal the win. The Mavs aren’t supposed to be so dynamic on offense without their 23-year-old superstar, but the combination of a sharp game plan and some inspired individual performances was enough to keep hope alive in the series.ĭallas entered the fourth quarter trailing by four points.
#Rudy gay headlock series#
Yet with Doncic in sweats again for Game 2, Dallas routinely generated wide open look after wide open look in crunch-time to take home a 110-104 victory that evened the series at 1-1. While the Mavs did acquire another ball handler at the trade deadline in Spencer Dinwiddie in a bold deal that sent out Kristaps Porzingis, the majority of Dallas’ roster is in place to help amplify Doncic’s masterful shot creation, not replace it. The Mavs are as reliant on Doncic as any team in the league is on their top player, with his NBA-leading 37.4 percent usage rate serving as exhibit 1. Luka Doncic’s calf injury in the final game of the regular season should have eliminated any chance the Dallas Mavericks had of competing with the Utah Jazz in the first round of 2022 NBA Playoffs.