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Playoff Preview Mavs-Spurs: I Dreamed a Dream

As I start typing this post, it’s T-minus four minutes and counting until the 2009 playoffs begin. Been doing some last-minute scouting work to prepare myself for tonight’s Mavs-Spurs Game 1. Vegas says the series is basically a toss-up. Noted Mavs-hater Bill Simmons calls this “San Antonio’s last stand.” The casual fandom says it doesn’t matter because no one is beating the Lakers. If that’s your take, stop reading. But you’re not a casual fan, are you? You know Tim Duncan is 10-0 in first-round series in which he’s played. You know that David Berri, associate professor of economics at Southern Utah University, says to ignore the efficiency differential and home-court advantage in this series because S.A. differential is misleading (because Gino is out) as is Dallas’ (because they’ve underachieved until March-April). Three things to watch in this series after the jump:

The defense of Jason Kidd on the Spurs’ shooting guards and small forwards. John Hollinger has Kidd as his second-best defender of shooting guards in the league (ahead of D. Wade, which seems absurd even to me, despite Wade’s gambling nature), because he realizes what a lot of people don’t: Kidd isn’t usually the primary defender of the young quick PGs like Parker. That will fall to Terry, Barrea, and maybe even the underrated contributor Antoine Wright. (Do you realize AW got almost 24 min of run a game this year?) But as Simmons and Joe House noted on the B.S. Report yesterday (and despite what Galloway asserts), you can let Parker get his 30 and still win the series. You’ve got to stop the corner 3 (the Spurs are the third-best in the league at this shot), and you’ve got to make sure Duncan doesn’t fix his creaky knees and go old-school Timmy on you, but if Kidd can shut down the 2s and 3s he plays (and he can since Manu is out), they have a great shot.

Damp’s defense on Duncan. We love to bag on Damp around here, because he moves like the Iron Giant, and his hands are just as clangy. But the man matches up pretty well with Duncan. I saw him play 31 minutes and bother Duncan into a minus-10 +/- performance in that huge 107-102 victory in Dallas on March 4. (To bolster my point about letting Parker get his: he had 37 points that game, but only four assists.) Damp still sets one of the meanest screens in the league, and he’s long enough to at least make the hobbling Duncan work for his shots. If Hollins can spell him for just 10 minutes a game, and if Damp can stay out of foul trouble (BIG if), the Mavs can stay close no matter what Parker does.

Josh Howard’s clutch performance. A lot is made of Dirk’s supposed weaknesses in the clutch, with Simmons pointing out, for example, that Dirk only shoots 35 percent in what 82games.com describes as “clutch” situations. But that’s a bit misleading: the guys ahead of him are guards who can create their own shots and split double-teams. Dirk is 7 feet, and if a team decides to double him in the last two minutes, the team needs others to step up and hit the shots that are open because of that strategy. That’s why Kidd has hit so many late-game 3s, because he’s getting the open looks (and he has ice-water blood). Terry can do that. But watch the video on that link above, the game recap from the 107-102 win. It was Howard’s driving layup that sealed the win. As noted by someone else recently (I forget who), Howard has morphed from an above-average do-everything role player to a below-average scorer. He needs to stop taking 3s, get back to his mid-range game, continue his recent defensive resurgence (at least as a long-armed, fill-the-lanes, off-ball defender), and make himself a tough cover in the last two minutes to help this team win. That’s the role Stackhouse played with this team before he died two years ago, and it’s a role Howard needs to fill.

All that said, I predict Mavs in 7. Why? Because, like Susan Boyle, I dreamed a dream.