I attended Game 4 of Mavs/Rockets in Dallas on Sunday. I had no rooting interest in this game. A few things of note:
- Terrance Jones hit two impressive, right-handed floaters in traffic in the 1st quarter. I hadn't seen that from him before. Maybe he has been attending the Donatas Motiejunas Ambidextrous Jump Hook Academy. More on Jones, my friend Brian made a comment about how Terrance Jones, in his two years at Kentucky, was a bit of an afterthought given he played alongside the likes of Anthony Davis, Brandon Knight, MKG, etc. He was a role player -- a really good one. So he was refining that skill in college whereas most guys were stars of their college team.
- I sat ~20 rows above the Mavs bench. And I like being able to clearly see the bench activity, particularly during time-outs. But on a few occasions, Tyson Chandler would stand up during a defensive possession and shout coverages to teammates. It was very evident he cares about winning - especially lining up across from Dwight.
- Speaking of D12...At one point he was 1-11 from the FT line (and finished 3-13). I think I could make 1-11 of the promotional "Recliner Shots" from UT basketball games. That's just silly.
- Obviously the Hack-A-Dwight strategy hurts Howard's confidence, but I also noticed how much it bothers Harden (and everyone else) by disrupting any kind of offensive rhythm. Harden had a pretty pedestrian night (by his high standards).
- Not game related, but damn, the American Airlines Center is nice. It looks like a musuem. I've been to several games there, but it is always a pleasant surprise.
- The Mavs made a point to feed Aminu in the post a few times in the first quarter while he was being guarded by Harden. It's a good idea until they (smartly) realized that Aminu just isn't going to be able to score efficiently against Harden, who a) is so damn strong and b) is a pretty good on-ball, isolation defender. When Houston plays a team who doesn't have a guy to "hide" Harden on, the Rockets will be in trouble simply because he is a human life-preserver for the Houston offense, and any significant energy expended on the defensive end may cause a Houston offensive implosion.
- Basketball geeks love the corner 3; it's 21 inches closer than the other 3-point attempts, and it's 1.5x more valuable than a 2-pointer. Dirk Nowitzki, floor-spacer extrodonaire, hoisted a corner 3 last night and it just looked...weird? The numbers confirmed that sentiment. Dirk has 274 3PA this year, and only 11 have come from the corner, per NBA.com/Stats. He missed.
- Which leads me to my last point. A few weeks ago, Bob Fitzgerald, Warriors play-by-play guy, mentioned a trend he and his partner had noticed throughout the year: when an opponent misses a corner 3 against the Warriors, it leads to a transition lay-up or dunk. So I've kept an eye out for it, and the elite teams teams seem to convert those chances more often than not. When Dirk missed his corner 3 attempt, the Rockets fudged up a transition opportunity on the other end. Just a fun thing to monitor going forward.
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