Coming off a match versus the reigning champion Toronto Raptors, we crash into the opposite end of the spectrum, taking on one of last year's worst teams in the West: finishing with only 33 wins and falling at 14th in the Western Conference, the Dallas Mavericks look to improve this year. They won their first game, so taking this game would really be a chance to tie up the records early.
The Mavericks, of course, are basically a two man show at this point. They do have some other pieces, they're not quite as awful all around as some other teams, but for Dallas it's really Luka and Kristaps or bust.
Usually I would include relevant statistics, but after they've only played one game I'm not going to bother: I'll start including those after teams have played 5 games or so, just building up more of a sample to establish some basic trends.
Last game had a lot of positives. The defense looked better than it had in preseason even though it wasn't perfect (we gave up a LOT of layups), and there were some nice offensive stretches. There were also some problems: Jrue had a really poor game on the offensive side of the floor despite his strong defense, and the team overall had trouble getting to the rim, finishing the game with more shots taken in the midrange than at the rim, which is never what you want.
This game, we're looking to see some of that interior defense shore up, and to get some more action on those drives. If we do that, it should be very much possible for us to take this game as a win and open up the season at Home with a victory! That'd be nice.
Let's go and get the win. #WBD