Here is the next in the series of NBA team previews by bloggers around the league.
Dallas Mavericks NBA Mate
2. What are the team’s biggest strengths?The three-headed forward line of Nowitzki-Howard-Marion gives the Mavericks a heap of fire power, flexibility, and the potential to cause a lot of match up nightmares. The challenge is obviously going to be fitting all their minutes in, and I suspect they’ll do this by sliding Josh to the two-guard a lot more. I also expect the Mavericks transition game to pick up in leaps and bounds. Marion still loves to run the floor and gets a lot of his points on opportunistic plays, and Jason Kidd, while old, can still run the floor with the best of them. I’ve read some stuff saying the Mavs are too old, and while some of their key players …..
2. What are the team’s biggest strengths?
- Overall offense. What more would you expect when you toss one of the greatest distributors the league has ever seen, one of the most potent shooters on the planet, and a handful of high-production/low-turnover players into a blender? Mmm…that’s one offensively efficient smoothie.
3.What are the team’s biggest weaknesses?
This team while being more athletic still has their issues; first and foremost defensive rebounding is a big area of concern. If the Mavericks cannot get better at keeping their opponent to one shot, this could singlehandedly crush their hopes of making a deep playoff push. This teams other glaring weakness is their perimeter defense. They must get better defensive guard play from Jason Kidd, and Jason Terry specifically. Both of these guys do great things for this team on the offensive end but they need to step up to the challenge on the defensive end.
Roster flexibility. The Mavs are blessed with all kinds of options. Against bigger teams with more traditional post threats, the Mavs can use a big lineup of Kidd-Howard-Marion-Dirk-Damp. When in need of more offense, they can sub out Damp for Gooden, or play…..
