OKLAHOMA CITY – If the Mavericks are going to have to knot this Western Conference semifinals at a win apiece on Thursday, they’re going to have to learn a lot from what ended up being a blowout loss in Game 1.
At the top of the priority list is creating better shots. You can’t shoot 34 percent in the second half and expect to win a road playoff game.
Was the OKC defense at least partly responsible? You bet.
But the Mavericks didn’t help their own cause. They didn’t create enough clean looks to make it easy on themselves. Lu Dort, the Thunder’s leader defensively, was like a piece of duct tape stuck to Mavericks’ guards Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving.
“Lu’s been a great defender since he walked into this league,” Irving said. “You got to give him his respect. He causes a lot of issues when he’s pressuring the ballhandler for 94 feet practically the whole game.
“But he’s not the only good defender out there. I don’t think what makes him great is him individually, I think it’s the team and the game they play and he does a great job being the head of that.”
This the point in the series when adjustments are made and, usually, Game 2 is a far different matchup than the series opener. Trusting Jason Kidd and his staff to tweak a few things has become a good course of action.
The Mavericks have lost Game 1 in all five of their playoff series under Kidd. In the previous four, they have won Game 2 twice and rallied to win the series three times.
“We just have to continue attacking and continue to play downhill,” Irving said. “They do a lot of reaching and do a lot of small pushes.
“Their defensive pressure’s not going to change, so we just got to adjust.
As Dončić said of what was missing in Game 1 and needs to happen in Game 2: “Effort and making shots. We just got to have the effort for 48 minutes.”
And as for that hound-dog defense of the Thunder? It’s going to be a problem the rest of the way, as Irving said.
But on the bright side, Luka got to the free-throw line 10 times. So the Mavericks know that OKC is not a complete fortress. The Thunder’s defense can be attacked.
“The best players understand how to score,” Kidd said. “So he knows how to get to the free-throw line. He had some good looks at three. So we got to help him out, get Dort off of him a little more. We had some offensive fouls when we were setting screens. So we’ll look at that and see if we can be better in that area.”
That leads us to the other takeaways from Game 1.
Not just whistlin’ Dixie: The teams combined to shoot 35 free throws in the first half, including 22 by the Thunder. And 11 of those were by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. “He’s a great player, but in the first half, there wasn’t really a rhythm for a lot of players,” Irving said. “There was a lot of slow-downs and watch free throws be taken and adjust to the way the game was being called. It felt like the game was reffed like a regular-season game. We came off a very physical series against the LA Clippers and then we have some of these fouls called – and some of them may be fouls, or the majority of them. But I think when you’re out there as a competitor, you just want the flow of the game to feel like the playoffs. And (if) the physicality is up there, it just feels a lot better.” That said, the Mavericks have to do a lot of things better than they did in Game 1. “It’s all about adjustments and continuing to stay positive through some of the runs they make and also being mature about who we’re going against,” Irving said. “They’re a good team. They’ve shown it all year. They have a starting five that has a plus-minus through the roof. And one of the top defenses. We’re going to give them credit. But we got to come in Game 2 ready (prepared).”
Lob festival slow to start: The Mavericks have feasted on the lob-and-dunk game much of the season. It did not get off the launch pad in Game 1. Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II both acknowledged that they need to do a better job. And they have a group around them that has faith in them. “If he catches it at 11 feet, we still feel he’s going to be successful,” Kidd said. “You miss some. It happens. We’re going to continue to look and see if we can take advantage of that, understanding there’s going to be a small waiting for him. No different than the Clippers’ series when they had a small there. We just got to be able to finish.” The standard defense for defending the lob has been to keep a smaller defender close enough to the basket to get his hands in for a possible strip if Gafford or Lively gets behind the big man. “The lob was there, (we had) a few opportunities, but obviously when you have a great rim protector in Chet (Holmgren), he’s going to make them difficult,” Irving said. “We had a lot of opportunities where we had Chet away from the basket and we hit our bigs in the pocket and we just weren’t as successful as we need to. Going into Game 2, I have the utmost confidence that our bigs are going to make better decisions in that pocket off of double teams.”
Shoot, the bench struggled: The Mavericks simply couldn’t shoot straight. OKC’s defense had a little something to do with that. But the struggles of Luka continued as he was 1-of-8 from three-point distance and 6-of-19 overall. But he wasn’t alone. The bench was a combined 8-for-27 (29.6 percent). They got outscored 42-23.
X: @ESefko
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