It’s been 23 years since the Lakers and Mavericks last met in the playoffs. When the Mavericks come to Staples Monday night, besides the obvious, not much will have changed. Dyan Cannon will still be cheering on the Lakers near courtside, “I Love L.A.” will be blasting from the stadium public address system and Dallas will still be looking for their first playoff road-win against the Lakers.
If the 1987-88’ Dallas Mavericks thought they had a chance to knock off the Lakers by taking them all the way to a deciding game seven with their personnel—Mark Aguirre, Derek Harper, Rolando Blackman, James Donaldson, Sam Perkins, Roy Tarpley, Brad Davis and Detlef Schrempf—I’m guessing with the roster Phil Jackson quipped was “almost as good as money can buy,” the 2010-11’ Mavs think they have a chance to repeat history, only with a different result.
The current two-time defending championships boast an impressive pedigree and on paper the match-ups don’t look too favorable for the Mavericks. It could very well end up that the Lakers will send Dallas fishing in as soon as five or six games, but if they’re to do so they can’t rely solely on their laurels like they did in the last series.
These are after all the playoffs and like we’ve learned, a No. 8 seed can beat a No. 1 seed and what happens during the regular season has minimal if any significance on these games whatsoever.
Since we’re dipping into a little history to start the series between these two Western powerhouses, the Lakers can benefit from some advice Kareem Abdul-Jabbar offered up for himself and his teammates just as the 1988 Western Conference Finals tipped-off—“go with what you know to be the best part of your routine and try to stick to that.”
Next: Lakers should take advantage of their size inside
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For the record, Kareem might’ve been referring to his pre-game routine, but since it also applies to in-game situations, I’m going with it. If the Lakers are to dominate they’ll need to do it by playing defense, effectively using their presence inside and taking high-percentage shots—basically stick with what works to their advantage.
If that sounds simplified, it does. If it sounds like something the Lakers can do easily, it is. If you believe the Lakers will execute it perfectly, you haven’t been watching.
Defensively the Lakers have to be solid. The only sure-thing offense the Mavericks have going for them is Dirk Nowitzki. During the regular season the Lakers did an okay job of containing Nowitzki, holding him below his overall totals in scoring, field goal percentage and free throw attempts. They’re not going to shut-down Dallas’ leading scorer, but they’ll have to do what they did to prevent him from scoring at will—mainly sending multiple defenders his way and try to keep him off his preferred spots—with much more intensity and fervor than in the regular season.
Aside from defending Dirk straight up, the Lakers will have to orchestrate effective defensive rotations to prevent the Dallas pick-and-roll, which is really more of a pick-and-pop. The Lakers can’t switch and let Nowitzki shoot over a guard, he’ll otherwise smoke them. They may choose not to switch, opting to have the defender stay on Dirk to prevent an easy jump shot, but they’ll have to do a better job than Portland did to dismantle any type of chaos Jason Terry and J.J. Barea may cause as a result of no one rotating to them in the paint. This is where Andrew Bynum needs to come in and be the same shot-blocking and rebounding beast he was during the last series.
“We’re obviously preparing to play a different team, a very good team in the Mavericks — a very efficient team, very well-balanced in what they do,” said Derek Fisher. “They play hard, they play with passion, they play with energy.”
While the Lakers have their hands full with Nowitzki, they can’t completely ignore the rest of Dallas’ supporting cast. Terry comes off the bench and is at times the Mavs’ second leading scorer, Tyson Chandler is a seven-footer who can run the floor and Shawn Marion can slash his way to the basket for easy buckets, but the ebb and flow of a balanced Dallas offense relies heavily upon Jason Kidd’s 38-year mastery of the point guard position. If he can control the pace and get the Mavs off in transition, it’ll be an added chore for the Lakers. The Lakers can prevent Kidd from making his mark on the series by cutting down turnovers and crashing the boards. Which brings me to my next point…
Next: Lakers need to defeat the Mavs with their unmatchable size inside
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The Mavericks have absolutely no answer for Kobe Bryant. Good ankle, bad ankle, sore ankle—it doesn’t matter. They’ll try just about anyone in a blue uniform to contain the Black Mamba. Kidd and Terry will have the bulk of the duties, Marion might get some time, DeShawn Stevenson and even Corey Brewer could partake as well. Options are nice, but not when it’s because they’re all ineffective.
To combat this, the Mavericks may try to go to a zone defense and the Lakers can attack said defense in one of two ways. One, the Lakers can resist the urge to take perimeter shots and trust the triangle offense to break-down the zone defense. Two, move the ball around and make the extra pass to get the high-percentage shot in the paint and lower post. Yes, the last two points are redundant, but only because I’m trying to emphasize that the Lakers can’t expect to beat Dallas by falling in love with jump shots. They have to find a way to get the ball inside to their big men.
If the Lakers can do this it’ll be to their advantage because like Dallas doesn’t have an answer for Bryant, their answer for Bynum is good, but not great. That is if Chandler stays out of foul trouble he can be effective, but if he doesn’t and Bynum fares like he did during all three regular-season meetings when he averaged 16.7 points, 11.7 rebounds and a shooting percentage of 70.4—it’s going to be a horrific series for the Mavs.
Theoretically, getting the ball inside doesn’t pose as big a challenge as the last series because Gasol doesn’t have to fight so much for position against Nowitzki in the post. The physicality that was present in the last series isn’t really an issue against the Mavericks. They’re not a team that relies on brute force to anchor their defense.
“I just think they’re very good at providing help [defense] for each other,” said Fisher. “It’s not that they’re overly powerful, overly physical, but they know how to cover for each other.”
The Mavericks certainly aren’t going to be a walk in the park to beat. Then again neither are the Lakers.
If the Lakers can execute their offense by getting the ball in the low post to Bynum and Gasol, defend Nowitzki well and keep the rest of the Mavericks at bay, it’s going to be very hard to overcome the Lakers four-out-of-seven times to advance to the Western Conference Finals. The Mavericks know they’ll have to be near perfect night-in and night-out, because what was true 23 years ago remains the same now—you can’t make mistakes against the Lakers.
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