Mavericks preview

 Solid win against a bottom feeder but tonight will be much tougher.  


Player spotlight:  Jalen Brunson.  While Jalen Suggs is supposed to be the next Lowry, it is Jalen Brunson who is having a Kyle Lowery mid 20s ascension right now both production wise and stylistically.  If your first impression is that his moderate free throw rate means he doesn’t seek contact then you need to know that FTr has a flaw which devalues players like Brunson.  FTr is FTA/FGAs, so and-1s which add only 1 FTA against 1 FGA are devalued against missed shots when fouled which grant you 2 (or 3) FTs against 0 FGAs.  Jalen Brunson has been a monster at generating and-1s this year (85th percentile) and was solid last year (59th percentile).  His strength and body control allow him to finish through contact, and finish in a variety of contorting positions, and he has been 92nd percentile at finishing at the rim the past 2 seasons for guards at 72% there.  Brunson is also in the 97th percentile for foul drawing on the floor, so he has really been embracing contact this season.  


I don’t think that it is an exaggeration to say that Brunson is holding the team together so far this season.  Leading the team in +/- only two players have 100 possessions without him and a positive mark in that time (Kleber and Brown).  Doncic has a solid +5.1 net rating with Brunson on the court and a horrific -15 without him.  


Jalen is questionable tonight with a foot injury and Dallas’ second best shot creator without him would be someone like Trey Burke.  Obviously that loss could be enough to swing the game for the Cavs.  


The Cavs currently have a net ratings (garbage time adjusted) of -0.6 per 100, and a quick and dirty strength of schedule adjustment puts them in the +0.3 range, so they have been hanging around 0.500 in net rating as well as record.  However if we drop Valentine and Ed Davis mins as a proxy for ‘masses of injuries, just using whoever’ then the Cavs pop to +1.7 with that adjustment.  Which would be borderline top 10 right now, and a 45 win pace over a full season.  


If we shift further and drop Sexton’s mins from that total we get to +3.9 (no sos adjustment here) over 1,000 possessions.  That is a solid number and that is without their 3pt shooting rounding into form yet.  Garland, Markannen, Wade, Okoro and Love are all shooting below their expected rates With Osman, and maybe Rubio shooting above it, and they maintained their 3pt volume against Orlando with Mobley back in the lineup taking 39 in a slow paced game.  


Matchup wise Dallas is very beatable, their passable defense (19th) hinges on their defensive rebounding (#2 overall), and the Cavs have been able to swamp other good rebounding teams (GSW #1 overall, 31% oreb rate for the Cavs) and their starting bigs of Lauri/Jarrett/Evan have a 29% oreb% which shoots to over 37% in a tiny sample with Okoro.  


Cleveland should be in this game the whole way, and coming out on top a fair amount especially if Brunson can’t go.  

Comments

  1. vedwinNovember 30, 2021 at 8:01 AM

    Your Lauri hype from the very beginning is looking very prescient.

    ReplyDelete

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