How The Mavs Can Build A Great Defense Around Anthony Davis

How The Mavs Can Build A Great Defense Around Anthony Davis

Man, there there’s usually like one central theme to these, but I just kind of pulled a smattering of examples of some defensive plays uh for the Mavs in the back half of last season once they went to the two big thing. There’s a couple examples of uh without two bigs and then with two bigs and how even though you’re going to have this interior wrecking crew, it’s still on everyone else to make plays as well, even when they’re away from the ball. Uh and so let’s see how these photos look. See if Tanner was able to work his Oh, that looks pretty good. Tanner, I sent Tanner some really small screenshots because the old way that I used to get this stuff I don’t have access to anymore. Um, so there is no Anthony Davis on the floor. If you’re if you’re listening on Spotify or iTunes and you made it through the the chart segment, well, I got news for you. It’s getting worse. I really encourage you to go to YouTube. Um the the Grizzlies are running a little pitch and catch into a a kind of a a little double screen sort of situation. Dio here and Daniel Gaffford is out there now. Again, you don’t have another big. Gaffford is the lone big and so I believe this is Vince Williams with the ball as he comes off this screen by Marvin Bagley. Gaffford is going to drop in the uh in the next frame. Uh Gaffford drops as Brandon Williams is going to fight over the screen and try and stick with Bagley. But here’s where playing one big can have its drawbacks, right? Because look at the entire lane right now. There is there’s no one in there. Gafford is the only player on the Mavs out there taller than 67. The second tallest Maverick, that’s Naji Marshall, is way over in the weak side corner attached to GG Jackson. Uh, and he is not tagging Bagley. Brandon Williams is trying to fight. Uh, he is no match for Bagley. And so as we go to this next frame, that is the easiest lob pass of his life. The ball is already in the air and he is still the only player in the paint. That was an easy catch and dunk on the first play of the game. The first play of the game. So it would be great, right? Oh my god. Uh Naji Marshall was the power forward. Dante X was the small forward. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was another big out there so that Gaffford could contain the ball handler and have help against the lob target? Well, yeah, it it would be in theory. So, let’s go to this next play. It’s a similar kind of set setup here. Not the exact same. It’s going to be a right side pick and roll this against the the pesky Toronto Raptors. That’s former Mavs legend AJ Lawson with the ball. Two man, two man pick and roll. Stack action here. Two man pick and roll. Um the Mavs are icing this. Naji’s forcing Lawson sideline and Gaffford is going to come up near the level screen and then just drop back. Uh, and now as Lawson drives and attacks the basket, Gaff is doing a pretty good job of containing this and Naji stays attached to Lawson here. And there’s Anthony Davis sliding down to the edge of the restricted area. And so if Lawson is able to make this pass, is that Jonathan Marbo that’s setting the screen? I don’t remember. Can’t tell. Think him. Yeah. But if Lawson is able to get that ball in the air, then Davis is probably swatting it away or at least distracting uh the the screener from catching it. If it’s a bounce pass, Davis is there. And if it’s just a you’re trying to snake your way around that double team, then Davis going to be in the passing lane. Uh and so Lawson kind of panics and fires a hopeless kickout pass that Klay Thompson intercepts. And so just the simple fact that AD was there prevented the lob pass. Also, it did help that it’s AJ Lawson and not like no offense to AJ Lawson, but like not an all-star guard or like a highle playmaker that could maybe see this stuff happen ahead of time and make a more difficult pass on time on target. But the Mavs were able to beast on, you know, a lower level playmaker with a lower level screener and rim runner on a lower level team and they forced a turnover and it was great. Um, and you’re going to play a lot of there are a lot of teams that are worse than you in the NBA that have players like that and the Mavs are going to pummel them. They have for a long time really throughout the whole kid era. You know, I think the this kind of this notion that the Mavs sort of mail it in against bad teams. That’s a relic of a bygone era. That’s that’s, you know, Rick Carile era, Luca KP era Mavs, you know, those those days are done. Um, so do we have any thoughts on two good examples? Any thoughts on from the two good examples? Well, one bad play and then one example of like here’s where a big helps or do we want to keep going? Let’s keep going. Yeah, let’s keep going for Okay. All right, let’s keep going. Okay, so now let’s hop in a time machine and go back to the first game that Anthony Davis and Daniel Gaffford played together. Mhm. This is back against Houston Rockets. Now, Gaffford is going to be the big man on the floor in all these plays because Lively missed a lot of time this year. And honestly, watching him play defense, he was dealing clearly he was still dealing with some lingering issues. So there’s no point in judging him right now. So Shenon is going to come up and set a screen for Jaylen Green. Now Gaffford comes out near the level of the screen kind of the way he did on that previous example with AJ Lawson only this is Jaylen Green who’s a better playmaker, better shooter, faster, quicker, more explosive. Jaylen Green is just better than AJ Lawson, right? Do we all agree on that? Agree. Okay. So as we go to this next uh screenshot, uh Green turns the corner uh and kind of dusts Clay. So now it’s all on Daniel Gaffford. Now Gaffford and every other Mavs perimeter defender can rest kind of easy this season knowing that Anthony Davis will be back there. Or if it’s Davis on the perimeter, it will be Gaffford or Lively back there or it will be Cooper Flooper. It’ll be or PJ like you’ll have length behind you. And so that does give you the opportunity and the freedom to be a little more aggressive with you when if if you want to prevent those pull-up threes, get in a guy’s face and hopefully force him into a a mistake. But Green is very quick and so he’s able to actually turn the corner all the way and get past Gaffford. Now Gaffford is a little behind him. PJ’s going to come over and try and help out, but Green is able to fight his way through uh the pressure here and get all the way into the lane. Now again, Davis slides over to prevent the layup from Green, but he’s able to fire off a little pass to Aman Thompson. Davis then has to recover to that. And how the heck is Alen Goon wide open? How can we go back one image Tanner play Thompson or Kyrie Irving? One pick up Shingun. One of those two guys does have to slide down and help on Shenon. Now this is the first game they played together as a unit. And so very limited opportunities to practice. But now as we go back to the the the last screenshot, one of those guys has to get in the passing lane and just at least fight, at least battle uh for the ball. probably should have been Kyrie on kind of a semi X. Yeah, it looked like Clay It looked like Klay is trying to get out to Brooks. Yeah. And so, you know, that could be a Kyrie situation. It could be a Clay mistake, but either way, even though you have these bigs at the rim, the other guys still have to be active. And so, like offball defense just matters so much. Even if you are funneling everything into your rim protector because teams are really good at seeing that stuff. You got guys making 45s, you got guys crashing. The Rockets in the second half went to a two big lineup and they were picking the Mavs apart with a lot of little high low stuff on plays very similar to that between Adams and Shingun. In fact, the first play of the second half was that it was an Adams screen and roll and uh Adams caught the ball on the roll, drew the defense and just like flipped it over to Shingun for a little 4-footer. Like that kind of stuff will get you. Now, not every team plays the way the Rockets does do and you know has like so many guys that can make passes like that. Um but not every game is going to be against a bad team either. So, like, by the way, how did that play finish up? Uh, Shenon actually missed a finger roll. Okay. Like, it was uncontested. He just went up and missed it. Okay. So, Davis didn’t wasn’t able to like get back. Okay. Now, I mean, you can’t discount the potential psychological effect of that, but like I can’t show the finish of the play, but it was literally he shot a two-footer one and a half ft. Like, he he just he was just short on a finger roll. So, here’s my big picture thought. I love how many weak side defenders Dallas is going to have. When you get into high level highlevel playoff matchup tactics back and forth, you see teams not only trying to do mismatch ball uh you know at the at the point of attack with like who they call up to screen. You see teams trying to move a uh lowman defender out of the play like this. This is how complex basketball can get at its highest levels that you know other opponents will try to move your best weak side defender away from a place where he can weakside help to the rim. Uh Dallas has a lot of teams just try to do this with Giannis. You know, they they they allow they bring Giannis into the coverage because they’d rather him denying on ball than being disruptive as a as a weak side attacker. Uh Luca famously did this I think in 2022 uh against against Giannis. Dallas is going to have almost most of their lineups is going to have two or three different weak side defenders that you really like rotating to the rim. What worries me is just how much rotation this is going to ask of them because I I think when you look at Kyrie and Kyrie is an example in this one. We just talked about it. He got a little bit spacey. I think his worst quality as a defender, other than being, you know, just a small guy who can get, you know, people can shoot over him sometimes, his worst habit, his worst quality is, especially when he has a huge offensive load, is he can get a little bit spacey on rotations. PJ Washington, PJ can get a little bit spacey on rotations. Klay Thompson absolutely can get a little bit spacey on rotations, can just shut down for a few seconds, and all of a sudden, he’s not in the right place. I would say those three guys are going to be playing a lot of minutes for Dallas next season and they’re going to mess that up sometimes and that is where the D’Angelo Russell absolutely another guy who can get a little bit spacey on rotations. Uh now Dallas has guys who are pretty locked in at all times. Every everybody is going to shut down and miss a rotation. That is the NBA. You know most points in the NBA are scored because somebody makes a mistake. A mistake a defensive mistake happens almost every single possession. But I just fear they’re going to be giving a lot of minutes to players who are going to be asked to ex, you know, they’re going to be asked to make and execute rotations every single time. It’s it’s one of the sneaky things that made OKC so good is that all of their all of their perimeter defenders, not only were they very difficult to get past, but man, they were running and sprinting around all the time. There wasn’t a lot of like, you know, just like shutting down and and not your point of a tag defender as well. So, I if if that’s that’s where I see the concern is that I love how much size Dallas is going to have and and just be able to, you know, they they should they should always have somebody near the rim who can slide over. Uh but it it’s going to take a teamwide effort and it’s it’s we’ve said this, it’s not the first drive, it’s the second and third and and maybe the fourth drive in in a single possession where that’s when I start worrying that that these breakdowns are going to happen. That’s still very difficult for opponents. That means you have to execute successfully multiple times in a row. You have to drive and kick and reive and rekick. It’s like early in the season, teams are going to be pretty freaked out by that stuff as teams play. Less talented teams are really going to struggle at that. But I but I I do believe by game 30, game 40, everyone kind of get an idea of how each other play and stuff. It’s it’s going to get a little and and and the best teams in the in the NBA are capable of doing that. Um, and not every team plays pick and roll and not every team is going to have drives like this and all this and but I was just trying to find like all of all of those plays were essentially the same exact thing. A wing pick and roll between a guard and a big where the guy was rolling to the rim like so it’s one very specific thing from one very specific part of the floor against a very specific kind of defense. Um, there’s many many kinds. the M top five team last year and number of times they switched to pick and roll as opposed to drop or ice or whatever. Um I don’t think they’re going to switch much this year to be honest. But I mean that’s just one example, one tiny example.

The DLLS Mavs crew dives into some film to see how Jason Kidd and the Dallas Mavericks can build a dominant defense with Anthony Davis manning the middle alongside Daniel Gafford, Dereck Lively II, and Cooper Flagg.