Pretty reasonable, but I'd rank the Mavs last or second-to-last
Mavs are criminally overrated. Lost in the fact that Bron played like
is the fact that they were a couple plays away from getting swept by the Heat with Bron playing like that. They get run off the floor with the real Bron (or something anywhere close to it) out there.
In one playoff run, the Mavs took out MOST of the 1st-Team and 2nd-Team All-NBA teams, MOST of the top-5 MVP vote-getters, and beat the Defending Champs in an easy 4-game sweep, the next year's Western Conference Champs in a 5-game gentleman's sweep, and the next year's NBA Champ's in a series where the best player in the league got completely befuddled.
Someone please tell me what that Mavs team was missing? You need to stop judging teams by the superstars on the top and start actually looking at how the teams are constructed and how they play. Mavs had the perfect pieces at every position, veterans who knew what they were doing, and the most advanced zone in the NBA at the time.
Disagree. They are criminally underrated actually. They went 57-25 in the regular season, they ranked 8th in offensive rating and 8th in defensive rating, in the playoffs they brought out a zone defense that was incredibly hard to score on for one-on-one scorers. In the playoffs Dirk was in god mode, they had Terry and Barea instant offense off the bench, two physical on-ball defenders in Marion and Stevenson, Kidd was still giving you 8 points and 8 dimes in 30 minutes with good defense, Tyson Chandler was a DPoY candidate and dominant rebounder, they had Peja's sharpshooting off the bench.
In the first round they defeated Portland with LMA, and an older Brandon Roy who showed flashes of his prime form in the series (4-2)...
They swept the defending champion Lakers, Kobe was held to 23 points a game...
They beat up and coming OKC, Durant was held to 43% shooting and Russell was held to 36% shooting...
This is all before facing the Heat, if LeBron plays like LeBron they probably win but they don't get enough credit for how they defended star players. LeBron struggled against the zone and he saw an elite rim protector and multiple defenders. LeBron wasn't the only scorer who struggled against Dallas in those playoffs.
Exactly. Lakers should have been peaking that year (Gasol/Kobe were still within their primes, Bynum was peaking, and Odom/MWP/Blake/Barnes were all 30-31), they went 57-25 and had the #2 seed, and Mavs just stole their souls.
Durant was an MVP candidate that year but Mavs kept him well under control, Westbrook was 2nd-team All-NBA and Mavs made him look like shyt, Ibaka had an insane 43 blocks in the first two series but only managed 9 against the Mavs while Dirk wiped him for 32ppg on 56% shooting.
There's an article where the Mavs explain exactly how they knew to guard Lebron. The 3-2 zone made it difficult to get in the paint and they had DPOY candidate Tyson Chandler anchoring it, they were primarily afraid of Lebron's passing so they hedged their guys to cut off passing lanes all the time (plus the Heat had no shooters so all the passing had to be inside), and they knew that Lebron was good at learning defenders and figuring out weaknesses so they kept switching up who was guarding him to give different looks and keep him off-balance. They figured that Wade would get his, but if they kept Lebron off-balance and didn't let him drive or set guys up, the Heat offense would stagnate.
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