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The most – how shall we put it? – “seasoned” Maverick, J.J. Barea has been around long enough to remember the modus operandi of Dallas teams during the franchise’s numerous playoff runs to start this century.
Generally the formula went this way – start the season strong, build momentum, try to peak for the playoffs. The Mavericks had a lot of practice doing it that way en route to 12 straight playoff berths and 15 during a 16-year-period that ended with the 2015-16 season.
This season’s Mavericks, to a man, have stated that their goal is to break the franchise’s three-season playoff drought. But to emerge as one of the top eight teams in the more-rugged-than-ever Western Conference Dallas almost certainly cannot repeat its horrid starts of recent seasons.
Last season: 2-7. Two seasons ago: 1-10. Three seasons ago: 2-13.
“We’ve got to be a fast-start team, start off fast and then take it from there,” Barea said. “The first five games are going to be huge. That little thing right there, get a little confidence in the beginning, I think is going to carry us a long way.”
The Mavericks open their 40th season at home Wednesday night against Washington. There is palpable excitement in the air about the dawn of the Luka Doncic-Kristaps Porzingis era, but that potential momentum-generator is lessened by Dwight Powell’s ongoing absence.
Powell, this season’s projected starting center, strained his left hamstring on Oct. 5. He has not put in a full practice since then, although coach Rick Carlisle said Powell did all of the non-contact drills during Monday’s practice.
“It’s getting there,” Powell said Monday during a question-and-answer session at the Mavericks’ tipoff luncheon in the Statler Hotel. “Don’t want to rush anything too quickly. We want to make sure that when I come back, I can compete at the highest level possible.”
Does that sound like Powell is playing Wednesday? No.
Does Carlisle believe a strong season start is imperative for Dallas to make a playoff run, coming off seasons of 33-49, 24-58 and 33-49? Best to not ask.
“Focusing on the Washington game,” he said. “That’s all I can tell you. I’m not going to get into a big dissertation about the big picture.
“We know we want to take a big step forward. It becomes more challenging every year because top-to-bottom the league is more even. There’s less and less of a competitive advantage with talent levels.”
The apparent positive news for Dallas, besides a roster bolstered by the additions of Porzingis, Seth Curry, Delon Wright and Boban Marjanovich, is that, on paper, the first six weeks of the Mavericks’ schedule doesn’t appear to be as daunting as other Western Conference teams’ schedules.
This summer, NBA.com senior stats analyst John Schuhmann examined the schedules of all 30 NBA teams and determined that the Mavericks have the league’s second-easiest opening 20 games, based on opponents’ 2018-19 records. (Denver has the easiest).
He also noted that the Mavericks will not be rest-disadvantaged in any of those first 20 games, meaning they won’t face an opponent that enters that game with more rest.
Why are the first 20 games so important? Schuhmann analyzed every teams’ opening 20-game records of the last 20 full (non-lockout-shortened) NBA seasons. Teams that won 12 or more of their first 20 games made the playoffs 91% of the time; teams that won 11 times made the playoffs 72% of the time; 10-time winners were 66% likely to make the postseason and those with nine wins had 60% odds.
But when teams won only eight of their first 20 games, their odds dropped to 28%; seven wins gave them 24% odds and six-or-fewer-win teams made the playoffs 7% of the time.
Those percentages generally hold true of the Mavericks. During the same 20-full-season period they made the playoffs 14 times. Of those playoff teams, the worst 20-game record was 11-9, by the 2008-09 and 2015-16 teams.
Conversely, the 2015-16 Mavericks started 4-16 and the 2017-18 Dallas team started 5-15. Last season’s Mavericks started 10-10 and got to a high-water mark of 15-11, but they lost their next five games and never got back to .500.
“You never want to have a slow stretch in the Western Conference, no matter what point in the season,” said Curry, who last season played on a Portland team that started 10-3 and 12-8 and ultimately finished with 53 wins.
“I mean, we want to get off to a good start, obviously, but it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get off to a good start. You’ve got to be consistent for a full 82-game season.”
Of course, some of the teams Dallas will face in the first 20 games made significant roster upgrades in the offseason. However, one of those teams, New Orleans, lost Rookie of the Year favorite Zion Williamson to knee surgery on Monday.
It’s projected that Williamson will be out six-to-eight weeks, which means there is a good chance he’ll miss New Orleans’ first three meetings against the Mavericks, in Dallas’ second, 20th and 22nd games.
As the Mavericks have learned the past three seasons, projections don’t mean much once the games begin.
"fast" - Google News
October 22, 2019 at 07:29AM
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Numbers say the Mavericks must get off to a fast start if they want to make the playoffs - The Dallas Morning News
"fast" - Google News
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