The Mavs SQUANDERED a Chance to Win a Title | Can the Dallas Mavericks Recover for Next NBA Playoffs

The Mavs SQUANDERED a Chance to Win a Title | Can the Dallas Mavericks Recover for Next NBA Playoffs

On today’s show, the Dallas Mavericks wasted a massive opportunity. Looking at these playoffs, they could have gone all the way again. We’ll explain why and lessons to learn on today’s locked on. I’m going to get a city of life back. You are locked on math. Great. Your daily Mavericks podcast. Part of the locked on podcast network. Still can’t leave you alone. Your team every day. And welcome. You are locked on to the Dallas Mavericks. Your team every day. My name is Nick Angia member covering the Dallas Mavericks for 10 years. Thanks for being an everyday making locked on MS your first listen. Joining me as always, my co-host, media member covering the Mavs alongside me for 10 years. The Weback Boy, the one More Think King. What you got for me, Isaac Harris? Oh, we’re back together. We’re back together. Uh, I have a question for you. Uh, in light of Hey, we new pope out there. Shout out new Pope Pope Leo. Um, but in regards to things happening over time, what’s going to happen first? GTA 6 drops or the Mavs front office makes a change. What What What constitutes a change? Nico, it’s replaced. Oh, Grand Theft Auto’s coming out. All right, that’s May of next year. So, I was going to say it’s only like a year, right? So, yeah. We’ll take that. All right. Today’s episode, we’re looking around the NBA playoffs and we’re trying to come up with takeaways that the Mavericks should take away. We’ve I’ve got a bunch of them. Isaac’s got a bunch of them, too. We’ve been watching some of these games. One of them I want to talk about is we’ve talked about it’s the weak link era and you got to have just you can’t have the weakest link on the court. And we’ve got some criteria for it. We’re going to go through some of the Mavs players and see who qualifies for like a playoff player. Got a bunch of other takeaways, too. But let’s start here. Isaac, I’m starting to look around the NBA right now and I’m looking at the Cavs down 02 because they’ve got some injuries. I’m looking at the Celtics down 02 to the Knicks. They’re finally getting tested in a playoff series and now we’re seeing against a healthy team. We’re we’re seeing what they’re made of. I’m seeing the Thunder dropped a game against the Nuggets and now they don’t have homecourt advantage in that series. I’m starting to see the uh the Warriors with Steph Curry down and the Timberwolves. We know what you know they were capable of. And Timberwolves beat the Timberwolves beat a team in the first round. The Rockets. I was not worried about the Rockets in any way. The Timberwolves. I was not worried about the But I’m starting to look around and the Mavs this season, not not even talking about future seasons. This season, the Mavs threw away an opportunity. And yes, the butterfly effect. You can go through all the different things. Would Kyrie still have gotten hurt if the trade didn’t happen and all that, but yeah, we’re dipping back into the trade talk because the Mavs had an opportunity this year. And one of the things that I’m learning looking at the playoffs is you just can’t throw away your shot. You just never know when it’s going to break right for you. And I thought the Mavs learned that last year. They had finally built a team around Luca that made sense this year. And then they threw they threw away this shot trying to to galaxy brain look at this season and next season and the season after that and it just didn’t it just completely missed the whole opportunity that we’re looking at right now. Yeah. I think I I go back to the defense wins championships uh comment um so much over these past few weeks and the fact that you made the NBA finals. You were like there. Yes. And you were three wins away. I get it. Boston dominated and I know three wins is kind of like misleading to say that, but Yeah, but if Luca doesn’t get ejected at the end of the in game three, they win that one. Then they win game four by like 50 in completely different series. You’re in the NBA finals and you lose the NBA finals and you walk out of the finals saying, "Well, you know what? We didn’t win the finals, so we need to make a massive, massive change in order to win this game." It’s like you got to the, you know, I said it a few weeks ago, like Nico just got too close to the sun to where he’s just like, I’m going to swing for this, swing for this, this, and a few of these things are is working and then you’re like that close to the sun. You think that you can just make another big move here and there and then it just you got burnt from it. And it’s like you just miss an opportunity like when you you don’t know the injuries that’s going to happen. You look at this thing, you know, that’s happened with with the Cavs and stuff. How many changes could the Pacers have made even at the trade deadline? Like Miles Turner is going to be a free agent this coming off season. They could lose him for nothing. They could they didn’t have to sign Nimhard and some of these guys to extensions and be like, "Oh, well, you know what? We’re going to have to trade one or two of these guys coming up in the summer because we don’t pay the luxury tax and we’re a small market team and all this stuff." You know what they looked at and said? You only get so many opportunities and we have a young stud in Hallebertton. We have these guys in in Seakkum. We’re paying this massive amount of money. We’re not going to trade Miles Turner because we feel like we have a shot at it this year. And we might lose him for nothing this summer, but we feel like we have a shot. And now they’re two wins away from the Converse Finals. And it’s like that’s the type of stuff that it’s just crazy. You looked at a team with a Luca Donuch and you said, "Well, we didn’t actually win the ring, so can he do it? Let’s let’s trade him." And it’s just it’s wild. I don’t know if I’m like fully there with some of the people that’s like, "Dude, we could have won the title this year." OKC is a monster. They lost the first game. I get it. But they are so so good and better than last year. Yeah. Where it’s like it feels like it would be a bigger surprise if they don’t win the title this year. But the Mavericks could have made a long playoff run and it’s just kind of frustrating to see that. Well, you look at the the side of the bracket that the that the Lakers were on. Lakers, Timberwolves, Rockets, Warriors. Like I’m feeling comfortable with the Mavericks against all of those teams. We’re assuming Kyrie’s healthy. Obviously, assuming Kyrie is healthy and yes, butterfly effect. We’re going we’re going back and and looking through it and it’s obviously all revisionist history. That’s all we have right now is reision revisionist history because there is no history being written right now for the Mavericks except for what Isaac talked about yesterday with the uh the trainers in the front office like being changed and Nico finally admitting a mistake. I guess they were better. Yeah, they were better. Yeah, you said it well yesterday on the show. Basically captured what I would have said on it. But you you look at the Knicks. The Knicks went all in on a team that didn’t look like they were as good as the Cavs. Didn’t look like they were as good as the Celtics. All year people were like, "Well, Knicks went all in. Five first round picks for male Bridges. Now look what it got them. They’re not even good enough to advance." And they’re up 2 on the Celtics and they got Now the Knicks have homecourt advantage. They haven’t played one game in Madison Square Garden yet. I can’t wait for that game. Oh, that this already did. Did you see the clip of the security guard in in TD Garden in Boston trying to kick out the Knicks? Trying to kick out the Knicks, man. She like fell over and stuff and like a man. Who do you find I find myself rooting for Brunson and the Knicks like really hard. Yeah. Yeah. No, I’m rooting for the Knicks. I’m not a big Towns guy at all, but I like Bridges and OG at heart and obviously love Jaylen Brunson. And uh after all that, you’re not a fan of Towns. I was, you know, I was thinking about it and I was like, Nico had to be so relieved when the Lakers lost that series. Yeah. Right. They go, they go to the finals again. He’s like, "Thank God I don’t have to deal with a long Luca playoff run." And all on the other side, Brunson’s like, "Hold my beard." Look at the darkness like emerging because I’m going to remind everybody that you didn’t want to give me a an extension that would have paid him like 55 total million dollars. and all the different stuff and they even came back to you and you still said no, let’s wait out this season. Uh yeah, it’s tough. I think it was Monday’s show that I said we’ve rehashed the Luca trade so much that we’ve grounded into a fine powder. Would you like to find powder like rehash the Brunson thing again? I I don’t know about the fine powder part, but it’s just like we’ve rehashed it so much. It’s so tough. It’s like one of those things. I mean, I shot a text the other day. I was joking, but I’m like tired. A long Luca run would kill Nico. Wired. A long Brunson run to the finals would destroy Nico. What would be worse for him? Maybe it’s the Brunson career arc that that kills Nico more than more than Luca. I’ll say we’ve been wrong about many many things on this show. One of the things we said at the time, give Brunson the max. And we were saying give him more than what the Knicks gave him. Yeah, it’s it’s more for me about when they didn’t give him the extension and you get to the summer then it’s just like crazy. You know, there’s so many different opinions. Cuban’s like, "We didn’t have a chance to offer the money." Some people was like, "Well, they didn’t go up above the Knicks’s offer, so they didn’t get the Fred Van Vleet number is what they just kept saying over and over." And then Fred Vleet gets paid $44 million now. Yeah. It’s more about just once again asset management too that you have this guy and he’s willing to sign the paper for a super cheap contract and you can’t help to do the what if. I’m sure we’ll probably do it in August or September uh of what if Brunson signed that extension because you would have this maybe this version of Brunson making, you know, under $20 million a year. Don’t make me sad again. With Luca. Yeah, with Lugo that team would have foul grifted all the way to the finals. Whoa. Major grifting right now. And miss me miss me with the the the big three pictures of the Mavs had this and gave up on it and they try to tag Porzingis in there. It’s like no, that’s the that’s the dragon meme with the one one goofy looking dragon, right? Like Yeah. Yeah. Porzingis is is good when he when he plays, but that’s the thing is when he when he plays, he can he can be effective when he plays, but you just don’t know. You’re not guaranteed that at all. Yeah, I hear you on the Bronson thing, but yeah, for we were there. We were there. Wanted them to resign him. Wanted them wanted them to give him the Max, all that. And it just wasn’t in the cards. His dad got hired by the Knicks. His uh former agent was the GM of the Knicks. Wasn’t it just wasn’t in the cards at a certain point after the Mavs messed it up a couple times and messed it up with two different regimes. The Donnie Nelson regime and the Nico regime. Both messed it up in in their own ways. Yes, they did. Coming up, other things we’ve learned from the playoffs. You cannot have a weak link in your lineup or in your rotation being played. We’ll go through the Mavs and ask, can that player be hunted on defense? Can that player do things on offense? Talk about that and more coming up. Today’s episode of Locked Up Mabs brought to you by Door Dash. As you’re watching these playoff games, it there’s sometimes there’s just too many games and you’re like, I can’t leave my seat. They’ve been so awesome lately. You have 20 point games that have just been completely like wiped clean. You have the Knicks two comebacks in these ones. You have the Pacers had an insane comeback in the last minute and playoff season means big performances, even bigger rewards. Door Dash is bringing the heat with a slam dunk deal for Dash Pass members during the 2025 NBA playoffs. It’s called they swoosh, you score anytime a player drops 50 or more in a playoff game. Who do you think is could drop 50? You still got SGA left. You got Jokic left. I wouldn’t put it back. I wouldn’t put it past Brunson. Donovan Mitchell just had 48. He got real close there. You can score a free threepiece crispy tenders combo from Wingstop the very next day on orders of $20 or more. Use the code Wingstop50 at checkout and that combo is yours. Check it out. Sign up for Dash Pass to unlock this and more exclusive deals all season long. When any player scores 50 plus in a game and a playoff game, Dashpass members can grab a three threepiece crispy tenders combo from Wingstop the next day with a $20 or more order and code wingstop50. That’s the the letters Wing Stop and then the number five, number zero, Wings Stop 50. That’s Dash Bash. Your door to more savings, more fit, more flavor, and more ways to win. Terms apply. Shut it down. Let’s go. And and thanks for hanging out with us on Lock Maps, being part of the show, part of the raccoon squad, what we call our listeners. We appreciate every one of you for checking out the show. We’ve got our text line if you want to support the show. 214-6438637. Text us. We’ll send all kinds of messages. The other day, Nico makes a move in the front office and we gave our thoughts on it. Send it to you right away. You don’t have to check Twitter all the time through the offseason. We’ll send you it. We’ll send it to you on a text straight to your phone. Give you our thoughts. Send you the show every day. All kinds of good stuff on there. And it helps support the show. It’s a It’s a small amount to pay monthly, but it helps support the show. You can do it for two weeks free if you want to try it out. And then uh and then help support the show in that way. 2146438637. All right, Isaac. talking about takeaways and lessons from the playoffs so far. One of the things I’ve been looking at, and Slay and I talked about this last week when we did kind of the same show with the first round, is that we’re no longer in like the big three era, the big threes of the Phoenix Suns or the Brooklyn Nets. They didn’t work for various reasons, CBA related and others. We’re in the weak link era now. You got to have like two guys or two stars basically, two, you know, or a star and a pseudo a couple pseudo stars. basically. And you just can’t have a weak link in your lineup. You get somebody out there and all of a sudden they’re getting hunted on defense over and over again or you get somebody out there that is onedimensional or zero dimensional on offense. Like there are no more Kendrick Perkins anymore playing in the NBA. Right. That’s why that why that’s why the only one we have the only Kendrick Perkins we have is on TV doing his thing. Thank god. I mean not thank god he’s on TV but still no. Thank god he’s the only one. Yeah. Right. And so I started I started to think about this because I I heard someone put it this way. The two questions you got to ask about any player in your playoff rotation. Can they be hunted on defense? Can you do things on offense? Like can you can you be multi-dimensional on offense and do a couple a couple things? Cuz if you got one guy out there could only do one thing, then they’re not going to go like, you know, a Josh Hart, you don’t guard him on offense at all. But he can do multiple things. He can offensive rebound, he can dribble, he can pass, he can he can shoot sometimes. you know, you can do some of those things. Draymond, you don’t have to guard him shooting the ball, but he can handle the ball. He can he can drive. He can uh every once in a while he’ll put a three up with his, you know, his backpack wearing shot and then he can obviously playmake. But I started to think about that and I think that that dichotomy of those two questions, I think if you can answer that question for every single one of your players in a playoff rotation and you can feel good about each of them, then I think you’re in a good spot. And if you have one, because I mean realistically, right, like you might have a Steph Curry, the offense is going to fully outweigh what he can what the defensive side. Now, he’s frisky on defense. He does so many other things besides shoot the basketball, uh, which makes him one of the all-time greatest players ever. But if you have a guy that’s going to be targeted, you can’t have more than one. You look at you look at like New York, you got to be able to protect him. Like Brunson’s, he gets targeted. like he he’s just naturally going to he’s not the greatest perimeter defender. He’s smaller, so he’s going to get targeted on the defensive end. Well, you know how you negate that? You put you trade five first round picks for Muel Bridges, arguably the best perimeter defender in the league. Uh another great perimeter defender in the league in OG Anobi. You make a trade for him, give him a I would flip those adjectives on those, but Well, either he’s one of them. Yeah, you you have Josh Hart who can guard opposing point guards and all that stuff. Like those are three guys right there that are incredible perimeter defenders that how many how many teams can say that they have three of those guys that’s closing games that are really really good defender. So like you got to kind of negate the off the the targeting on Brunson to have the other guys. And for the Maverick’s sake, you you think about the the the double big situation. This is why it’s so big that Derrick Lively develops more on the perimeter. he could switch off and guard some of these perimeter guys because if you’re rolling out these two guys and AD and Lively, AD can hold his ground and stuff, but still if you’re going to have two bigs out there, you really got to have the other perimeter spots locked down defensively. And I mean, yeah, do they have those type of guys on the team? I don’t know. And I think there’s a difference between because we’re going to talk about some of these players and and what we think about them on on each side of this question. There’s a difference between a Brunson and like a Trey Young where a Trey Young can be hunted and be exposed. Brunson at least can be hunted but he’s going to stand his ground because he’s stocky, he’s strong, and he’s just bal he’s just like, you know, he’s just bumping guys and just being physical on defense enough to hold his ground enough so that the defense can recover and can help him in that. And you don’t get that that, you know, in that way. And that’s that’s where the dichotomy of like even watching Aluca on defense. There are some times where he just lets him go by him and you don’t even get a you don’t even get a chance to recover your defense and and go back. And there’s other times where he stands his ground and he looks strong and all of a sudden you go, "Man, is Luca kind of like an underrated defender, you know, like you go you swing back and forth between the two of them. For Kyrie, I think we go through the first one. He can get hunted on on defense. They’re or at least they’re going to try in the lineups that the Mavs are going to have next year. They’re going to try him and they’re going to try Lively, but they’re going to try Kyrie, but at least he can hold his own. We’ve seen him hold his own on defense all the way to the finals. He’s not Damen Lillard. Like Damen Lillard at this point in his career, like he gets hunted. He’s not good on the perimeter at all. Obviously post trade, too. But I was going to say, are you worried about Kyrie post injury now? I mean, I think anybody that’s over the age of 30 who has an ACL tear, you know, you at least are a little bit worried. But I’m not fully I’m not I’m not fully worried about him. I thought you were going to say worried about anybody over the age of 30. I was like, well, once you get over 30, I mean, I’m just worried about you. Colonoscopy. I mean, come on. You guys are doing Is there anybody that stands out to you in the Mavs like potential playoff rotation as it stands right now where you you have a hard time answering, can you be hunted on defense and see that that’s a red flag or can you do multiple things on offense and see that as a red flag? Yeah, I mean, I think we saw it on last year’s playoff run when Gaffford was getting played off the floor. Uh, you know, there’s a reason why Lively was playing. They were going small at times. you know, he just doesn’t have the perimeter lateral uh quickness and stuff to hold his ground on the perimeter and stuff on switches. So, I mean, that’s basically the only one. I mean, you could, you know, Clay’s not the same defender he was in Golden State pre-injjuries, but he can I mean, he can still hold his ground pretty good. Obviously, PJ’s your best like perimeter guy out there. Nas, you can play good defense. You can go across the board. You hope Max Christie can be one of those guys uh that can be, you know, 3 and D type of dude. I think that’s the, you know, what’s the what’s the draft pick go if they if they take a, you know, a guard uh with that 11th pick or higher or higher. Um, is that one of the spots and stuff? Because, you know, obviously Denwitty wasn’t winning any, you know, he wasn’t Gary Payton out there. So, or Gary Payton the second or Gary Pton the second. U, but defense wins championships, right? I mean, this is the calling card. Gaffford was the only one where I try I couldn’t answer both of the questions where I go. Can he be hunted on defense? Yes. Can he do multiple things on offense? Well, he can score and maybe maybe you can count pick and roll and post up as two different things. But then also the rebounding is has been an issue and so you’re not he’s not out there doing what Stephen Adams was doing where Adams was setting great screens and and rebounding. It’s just they’re different things. But I do think that the Mavs have that question answered. Like Gaffford being the only one that has the red flag on both of them is not as big of a deal if you have a Lively, if you have an Anthony Davis. Like, okay, that one I’m not worried about. But what I was worried about is like a Nagi. Can you do multiple things on offense? Cuz right cuz right now a lot of the Mav’s offensive abilities are now going to be a little bit more on uh they’re going to be a little bit more under a spotlight than they were before because they’re not going to get covered up by Luca. Whereas the opposite now is going to happen. and the Mavs defensive deficiencies like a Clay and a Kyrie, I’m not as worried about them because you have an Anthony Davis now, right? So, it would completely flip the spectrum with this trade. Yeah, for Naji, I’m not as much worried because his playmaking and his mid-range and touch around the basket in the paint and stuff. Those are two things that I mean, I felt like at times besides Kyrie, he was the best like finisher in the paint the entire season. Um and then you know his playmaking there were times where he was being ran out at point guard even started a few games at point guard post Kyrie injury but it also with this direction of defense and Lord knows it’s a focus for this team. It gives you more insight too of like players that they could target you know come the trade market like this is why some people are like they should go to try to get Trey Young. No like Trey Young’s just not going to fit here right like that’s does not fit the type of player that Nico wants to go after. So, you’re looking at those two-way guys. You’re looking at see what guys, and this is where I’m going to be fascinated come draft time because there there’s a need for a backup guard slot that might not be a great defender, but air quotes here, defense wins championships. So, do we see a defensive pick in that, you know, that pick in the 11 range? So, I don’t know. We’ll see. They just need offense so much more. Yeah, they do. Offense doesn’t win championships according to some though. Yeah. I start going through them and I think the M I think the MS are actually in an in an okay spot if everybody was healthy. They’re going to need to get to they need to get some more offense, but at least they have a lot of potential playoff players and I think I felt good about a lot of players going through and asking these questions. Yeah, I mean we’ve seen a lot of these guys in the playoffs. We’ve seen them play in this spot before outside some of the new guys that you know, Naji and whatever. But I’m not worried about the roster. Um, it just sucks that you’re pretty confident if they were all healthy that they would have had a pretty good run this season. Yeah. And could have this year, too. Even Even this crew, if they were healthy this season, we just never You got to see two two and a half quarters of it. Yeah. Coming up, we’ve got some more takeaways from the playoffs. Uh, I’ve got a bunch of just random NBA ones. Isaac’s got a bunch of them. Let’s just go through them all. Coming up, today’s episode of Lockdown Maps brought to you by Amazon Fire TV Stick. amazon.com/firetv locked on. Did you know that your Fire TV is also an Xbox? Turn on any TV and turn it into a gaming and entertainment hub with a Fire TV Stick 4K device. No console required. That’s right, an Xbox, but you don’t need a console for it. Grab your paired controller, subscribe, or sign into Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with EA Play included. You’re ready to play. dive into hundreds of titles, EA Sports, College Football, Call of Duty, Black Ops 6, Avowed, all kinds of different games like that and stream them along with your favorite shows. You can do all the normal stuff with a Fire Stick as well. So, check it out. Endless entertainment options. And it’s portable. So, it’s affordable, portable, play high quality Xbox games at a fraction of the cost of a console. If you already have a console, a Fire TV Stick 4K device is more affordable and easier to travel with, allowing you to take your or your kids games wherever you plug in. Head to amazon.com/firetvlocked on to get started. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription and compatible controller required. Available on select devices including FireTV Stick 4K second gen, Fire TV Stick 4K Max, first and second gen and FireTV Cube. Check it out. amazon.com/firetv locked on. Shut it down. Let’s go. All right, Isaac, we’re talking about playoff lessons that we’ve learned so far. We talked about don’t throw away your shot. The Mavs threw away a shot. Weak links. We’re concerned about the weak links for the Mavericks. You got maybe maybe a couple red flags there. What are some other things you’ve learned in this playoffs just watching that you want to you want the Mavs to learn? Yeah, I mean I I wouldn’t say like learned because it’s something we’ve heard about the importance of wings for so long now in this modern NBA, but just watching across the It’s not just OKC. Let’s separate OKC for a second because they’re just a juggernaut monster, but like you go across the board and it’s like I I’ve been fascinated by the impact of Jade McDaniels. They essentially chose McDaniels over Towns. And I think if you go back like five years ago, people would have been like that’s insane. you like Towns puts out these crazy numbers and all this different stuff, but you see the importance of a Jade McDaniels whenever they put out the Lakers. You see him in his importance in a in a series like this Warrior series and to where you have this 610 611 guy Matt, you know, combined with Anthony Edwards and somebody in that front office is like we don’t want to have Anthony Edwards without Jaden McDaniels because it’s such an important thing to have one of those guys alongside of your star. and the fact that your star is already a perimeter player who can play really good defense like Anthony Edwards can. But now you have those two guys and investing in a McDaniels compared to you had an all-star like four or five in towns who says he’s the greatest shooting big man of all time and you gave him up. Um, I think it’s just you that you look at IND, you look at Indiana and you look at the impact that like Aaron Nmith has had and Mhm. it’s just another guy who got like a a smaller contract that they might have to trade this offseason, but I thought he’s had a pretty good series and you see what you know, Cleveland missing a DeAndre Hunter and them going out and getting him at the trade deadline this, you know, this past year. The Knicks stuff, we’ve talked about them investing all their stuff into those perimeter guys. Of course, the Celtics. It’s just like you go across the board and I think we do fall in love with the big shot getters, the Brunsons, the Well, if Tatum does hit one, you know, Hallebertton, uh, obviously Donovan Mitchell, like these guys are at the guard spot, right? Brunson Hallebertton’s going to take a shot. Hallebertton takes tons of shots. Like that’s all Hallebertton is known for is shooting and shots and so bombs. So I I think that’s the it just shows you every team left, which this could be like a a conversation around the bigs and Dallas trying to zag outside of Denver. Think about the main guys at the end of games for these teams. That’s take that’s like getting all the buckets and the clutch moments that you’re giving a ball to and say go get me a basket. SGA, Anthony Edwards, Steph Curry, Donovan Mitchell, Tyresese Hallebertton, Jaylen Brunson, and then Jason Tatum. Tatum and Joic is the only two guys. And at times it’s Jamal Murray, not Joic, that’s going for those end of game shots. It’s been Gordon lately. Yeah. And Aaron Gordon. So if all these teams are going to have those type of guys, you got to you got to be able to defend those guys. And you defend those guys with perimeter guys that are super big, super lanky, and can hold their ground against those guys. So, it just shows you importance and it makes you think about that second spot or at least it makes me think about that second spot in the Mavericks rotation when you have a PJ. Who are the other guys? Your next spot is Clay or Anthony Davis if Davis is out there with Lively. Yeah. You don’t want to You can’t ask that of AD. So, is Clay at that? So, can you not? Isn’t that what he was brought in to do? You’re ask Anthony Edwards to like guard one of these perimeter guys all the time. I mean, Anthony Davis like may maybe in New Orleans in some in some playoff like in some settings, some plays, some possessions. Yeah. I mean, he can hold his ground, but I’m not sitting there saying, "Hey, can you go out there and and and guard a Jamal Murray right now?" type of thing. So, it’s different. Anyway, it’s just a re it’s not like learning, but it’s just a re uh emphasize on the importance of wings. Yeah, I I had I had size. I mean, I talked about size mattering in the playoffs recently in an episode that many of many of you loved a lot. God bless. What What are you doing out here? You rage bait title maker. I did rage bait really, really hard on that one. I was sitting there and I was like I was like, I’m going to be away. I’m gonna pre-record this episode and I’m just going to drop it and like not even check the comments. This is what the YouTube experts are saying right now, guys. That’s right. That’s right. I learned from the best. But even this real quick, the Knicks, think about the Knicks. How many times at the end of these two games or at least for me have I forgotten that Towns is even like playing. Yeah, he’s taken two threes this whole these whole two games against the Celtics because it’s like it’s Brunson that run the show. It’s the perimeter guys and it’s like it’s not like they invested a crazy ton in Towns, but like you have this like all-star guy. Yeah. only thing down towns and when push comes to shove and it’s the biggest moments of the game, your big is kind of just like there unless they’re a Jokic. Yeah. And he’s no like it’s it’s the one of one unless you’re a oneofone player. So there’s going to be a lot asked of Kyrie in in this which I think is interesting. I had size mattering. Uh I think the the double big we’ve seen double bigs a lot though. We’ve seen talk about Towns and Mitchell Robinson. They like couldn’t bring Mitchell Robinson off the floor even though they were playing Hackshack against him. Adams and Shenoon in the first round, they they extended that series because of that size. You talk about the size of the Jaden McDaniels with with with Gil Bear and Randall has been helpful for them. Uh the Nuggets with Aaron Gordon and Porter Jr. along with Yeah. along with Joic. The size of the two Cavs guys. I mean, they’ve been struggling now, but without Moy in that second game, they struggled. Even the Pacers with like Seakum and Turner, you know, like yeah, there’s some size. There’s some size there. So, there’s just size all across the board. And I think the Mavs at least have that. Uh, one of the things I learned is a 20-point lead ain’t nothing. Ain’t nothing anymore. I’ve been I’ve been trying to tell people all the time when there’s a 20-point lead in the NBA, like anybody in my life, oh, this game’s over. Like, hold on. Unless you’re the Rockets offense, except that OKC game two, it was over. Yeah. you felt like well you could there’s a there’s a feeling but even still I mean you think that the Celtics they’ve had two 20point leads and they just a 20 point lead is nothing in the NBA anymore it’s been beautiful I’ve also hack hacka anything like the the intentional fouling is so weak such a weak it’s always been weak it’s such a weak like you’re admitting defeat I think when you do that and yes the Warriors end up beating the Rockets when they were playing hacka against Adams but Boston doing it to Mitchell Robinson the other day I was like I was I am not impressed by that. Like that just seems like you’re playing from such a weak ad like like vantage point. I’ve been thinking about OKC a lot of it. Is this going to be the next team that people tried to build things to beat? Like you have these like unique teams. It I I naturally go back to, you know, Shaq days and when Dallas is like, "We’re bringing in Eric Dampier. we’re giving him a big contract because we got to have a body and you know to guard Shaq. You think about those Warriors in squads and teams trying to emulate that or teams looking at, you know, I never forget the Hawks when they had Trey Young, Kevin Herder, and they drafted Omari Spellman and they’re like, is this are they going for the which shout out to Villanova generational run right now for them? And but I look at like OKC and I’m like is it replic rep replicable replicable replicable replicable I mean I don’t think it is it’s one of those it’s one of those oneofone team building scenar I know and that’s that’s the thing I feel like you almost got to look at like those Warriors teams and saying everything had to not go right everything had to go wrong so much in order for it to be right now to where like Sam Hank is like this was my goal This was my plan. I wanted to suck for 10 years and then we could have uh but it’s just like Sam Hinky had his like Yeah. He or Sam Prey Sam Hanky is that well I was thinking about Hinky and like the in the Philly Philly days and just like trust the process and we’re going to suck so long and all this stuff and it’s like Prey has done it in OKC. Yeah. And I remember people having those conversations with SGA like dude is he really going to keep signing up for just sucking? Like are they going to keep doing this having a good player like this and just continuously trying to lose out and now you look at it it’s like when is the next time that they’re going to be bad? In like two years we’re going to be asking that question about Max Christie. I hope Mad Max. Let us know in the comments section what things you’ve learned about the playoffs. There’s all kinds of great stuff. We’ll have shows all throughout next week. We got the lottery coming up. We’ve done a couple of shows last couple of days talking about the lottery and what we would do if the Mavs got in the top. So, we’ll do a preview on Sunday night talking about that. Guys, thanks for hanging out with us on Locked on Mavs. Check the links in the description to follow the show. Thanks so much for listening to Locked on Mavs. Peace out.

The Dallas Mavericks missed a golden opportunity in this year’s NBA playoffs. What lessons can the Mavs learn from other teams’ success and failures in the postseason?

Nick Angstadt and Isaac Harris discuss key takeaways from the NBA playoffs, including the importance of eliminating weak links in rotations and the value of versatile wing players. They analyze how these lessons apply to the Mavs roster, including Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson, and Dereck Lively II. The hosts also examine the performances of other teams like the Knicks, Celtics, and Thunder, highlighting players such as Jalen Brunson, Luka Doncic, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

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