After sitting for most of the day, Doncic finally got up from the bench. He replaced his little brother Josh Green and walked into the pitch. At this point, the team is only four points behind the Warriors.
Overall, he didn't play well in the first three quarters of the game. The consecutive road trips have made him look a little tired, and the 25 points scored on 8-of-19 shooting are not enough to beat the Golden State Warriors, who are second in the league. At the end of the third quarter, the Warriors led the Lone Rangers by 14 points. But few could have imagined that during the half-quarter of Doncic's break at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the game would suddenly change. Dinwiddie and Bronson played the Warriors 16-6 with Green, Dorian Finney-Smith and Bertans. This lineup keeps pressure on Curry every round, not letting him get an easy shot, but also has enough size to deal with Wiggins' singles, enough flexibility to interfere with the Warriors' signature passing, and make the Warriors' offense difficult.
On the offensive end, the lineup also brought enough surprises. We can refer to doncic's first round back on the court: Dinwiddie and Bertans hit a block at the top of the arc to launch an attack, and after disrupting the Warriors' defensive formation, they turned the ball into the hands of Jaylen Bronson in the bottom left corner, and Bronson dribbled to 45 degrees to compress the Warriors' defensive formation, and then passed the ball to the bottom right corner. Dorian Finney-Smith hit an open three-pointer there, and Wiggins, who was supposed to defend him, was tightly blocked by Bertans. Doncic didn't pick up the ball at the top of the arc the whole time, and the remaining four players of the Lone Ranger completed the tactical coordination, chasing the point difference to only one point.
Later stories were known to everyone, and the energetic Doncic dominated the game in the last 5 minutes of the game. He scored or assisted on 12 of the next 14 points, and the Lone Ranger made a beautiful comeback on the Warriors. Post-game statistics show that Doncic cut 34 points and 11 rebounds, and Dinwiddie shot 10 of 14 and scored 24 points and 5 assists.
Just 20 days ago, when Dinwiddie and Bertans came to Dallas, countless experts gave the Lone Ranger a D or even F rating on the deal, and Lone Ranger fans broke through on social networks and forums. At the time, it seemed that one of them was an inefficient ball carrier who was disliked by his teammates, and the other was a big pure shooter who could not score goals, and he also carried a stinky and long contract. And in just three weeks, they let those heartbreaking lone ranger boys and girls incarnate as Wang Jingze and shout "true incense".
In this five-game back-to-back game between Dinwiddie and Bertans for Dallas, the Mavericks are four-1, including victories against league-leading teams like the Heat and Warriors. Of course, the sample size of the game is small, which may not truly reflect the strength of Dallas today, but at least we can confirm that these two new signings have integrated into the Dallas system and played much better than when they were Wizards. Maybe now, it's time to look back at the rationale for Dallas to initiate the deal.
Despite Porzingis' improved health in the first half of the season, he failed to show enough to play with Doncic in Dallas. This season, Kidd has deliberately reduced the cover he has set for Doncic (Dwight Powell has twice as often as him to do the ball cover for Doncic), because he has never been able to efficiently punish defenders who are one head shorter than him when opponents use switch defenses to handle his and Doncic's blocking. After not being able to participate in the team's most common offensive tactics, namely Doncic blocking and dismantling the two-man turn, he can only do some fixed-point shooting and low-post offense on the offensive end. In Kidd's offensive system, he got more freedom, but statistically, his efficiency has slipped compared to last season.
On the defensive end, Porzingis's personal block stats are still eye-catching, and the basket performance has improved compared to last season (controlling the opponent's basket shooting rate of 55%), but in Kidd's system, his defensive contribution is not outstanding. In many high-level statistics, including defensive victory contributions and defensive net plus-minus, he received no significant advantage over Powell and Kleber. When he's not on the floor, the Lone Ranger relies on excellent movement, changing defenses, and small ranges to apply pressure, and can also play a high level of defense (like against the Warriors). For the Lone Rangers, they no longer believe that giving the team a $70 million knife in the next 2 years to the team that can neither amplify Doncic's advantage nor make up for Doncic's shortcomings, can help the team succeed.
Perhaps with Porzingis, Dallas's theoretical ceiling will be higher, but it never seems that such theory will ever lead to practice. What ultimately made the Lone Rangers make up their minds was Porzingis' knee injury. In his three seasons with Dallas, Porzingis missed a total of 86 games, leaving the team repeatedly in an endless spiral of Porzingis's absence due to injury- comeback run-in - injury again. The team was already bored with his glass physique, and the last thing to push them was Porzingis' record in his absence: In the 12 recent games that Porzingis missed, the Lone Ranger won nine of them. Victory brought the courage to change, and before the trade deadline, Cuban, Kidd and Mavericks general manager Nick Harrison agreed, and Porzingis' Dallas era came to an end.
The deal was initially intended to break up Porzingis' contract, and Nick Harrison made it clear to reporters at a press conference: "This deal gives us enough flexibility to operate next and gives us the chance to be the team we want to be." ”
Every team wants to be champions, but everyone should have more realistic small goals. The demands of NBA fans on players and teams will always rise with the improvement of player level and the clarity of cognition. Doncic has accomplished so many amazing things in the first three years of his career that fans now demand that the guy, who just turned 23, play superstar every night. Under such high expectations, how to let the team break through the first round has become the core problem of the Lone Ranger at present.
Past experience has shown that in the western competitive environment, if you can't get a very high regular season qualifying, it's hard to rely on Doncic alone to win the next series. For the past two years, the Lone Rangers have lost to the Clippers in the first round. Against the combination of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, Doncic's performance in both series is phenomenal, but if you want to analyze the direction of the series in detail, he always blocks the god at the beginning of the game, and the performance declines after the physical bottleneck. This is a side effect of Dallas' over-reliance on Doncic.
Tim Hardaway Jr. had a brilliant performance in last year's playoffs, but he was more like a traditional number two position, only scoring points himself, unable to lead his teammates. Doncic and Brunson alone are not enough, Dallas needs more offensive launch points, more players who can create their own scoring opportunities or tear through the opponent's defenses.
Kidd is a proponent of this argument. As a result, Kidd is also one of the main promoters of the Porzingis deal. In an interview, Kidd said he wanted to be able to "make sure there are two ball handlers on the pitch" in either lineup. Dinwiddie's recovery was delighting him. Dinwiddie's height, skills and decision-making skills have really helped the team. When Doncic is on the floor, his catch point as a weak side can enrich Dallas's offense, and he doesn't suffer from the No. 2 or No. 3 positions of most NBA on the defensive end. Recently Kidd has even begun to increasingly try the three-guard system of Doncic, Brunson and Dinwiddie to play at the same time, and in the game against the Warriors, they played together for 7 minutes, and during those 7 minutes they helped the team win the opponent by 9 points.
For now, dallas is likely to meet the Memphis Grizzlies or Utah Jazz in the first round of the playoffs. No matter which of the opponents is one of them, judging by their current lineup, they still have the strength to fight. Taking a step back, even if this year's results are still not ideal, it is much easier to deal with two contracts of 17 million or so than to deal with a contract of 70 million yuan for the next 2 years. That was the original purpose of the Dallas deal.
After ending the unsuccessful Gemini experiment, Dallas returned to Doncic's single-core system, a team that became his own team, and he didn't need to accommodate anyone, and Dinwiddie and Brunson would exist as trusted boosters around him. After Porzingis' departure, Doncic's average per game is 35.4 points, 10.7 rebounds and 6.6 assists, and the familiar "Luka Magic" is returning. Seeing the rabbit and taking care of the dog, it is not too late; the dead sheep are made up for, and it is not too late. Of course, the single-core road that the Lone Ranger is now taking is by no means a smooth road, but in any case, in the case of not being understood by the public at the beginning, the Lone Ranger's stop-loss action from planning, clapping to executing the overall decisiveness is still very bold.
At the end, we can only sigh: Mark Cuban, it is worthy of you.