Mavs Moneyball

Arrested Tuesday

2008-12-02T18:01:08Z

I've got nothing right now, so I'm just going to post an Arrested Development clip -- should spark just as much conversation here as anything Mavs related.

Tuesday Morning Links

2008-12-02T15:18:13Z

Seven game home stand starts tonight against the Kaman-less Clippers, and Josh Howard thinks the Mavs should win all seven.

"Not when you're at home, especially with the crowd we have," he said. "We have to get all seven games. I know we got some good teams in here. But we're at home - and I know we haven't been playing that great at home. But things are going the right direction now."

Howard is hopeful he'll be able to play tonight.

"I'm right there," he said. "Tap it in, or it sits there. I'd love to come back [today]. We'll just see how it reacts.

"It's just like coming off a sprain. It's still going to hurt. I just pray to God that it doesn't swell up [overnight] and we'll see how it goes."

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Carlisle on Kidd and Barea sharing the court.

"With J.J. and Kidd together, J.J. becomes the two [shooting] guard and Kidd becomes the point, and Kidd's big enough to guard the other team's two, so it works out," Carlisle said. "I'm not going to hesitate to go back to that."

Who Is Devin Harris?

2008-12-01T23:19:39Z

John Hollinger compares Devin Harris to Kevin Johnson in his Per Diem piece today. I don't think that's accurate. With his drive and dish, drive and score, and drive and pop range of moves, I think he's much closer to Allen Iverson. He's certainly not a point guard like Chris Paul or even Tony Parker.

Wes and I both lamented the loss of Devin and weren't big fans of the trade for Jason Kidd, but I think the jury is still out. It is distinctly possible that the Mavs didn't need an Allen Iverson... they needed a playmaker like Jason Kidd.

That said, I still miss the kid.

I Can't Get A Handle On This Team

2008-12-01T05:23:55Z

I've watched the games, and I've examined the stats. I've waited and waited for some kind of trend to show itself, but I can't wait any longer. We're 16 games into the season, and I still don't have a handle on what kind of team the Mavericks have become under Rick Carlisle. Part of me is thinking (hoping) that this is a good thing.

At the beginning of the season my initial thoughts were pretty simple: What a mess. The Mavs weren't playing at all like a team on either side of the floor. I had significant expectations for the offense and--while giving them a slight pass on defense--certainly expected more than what we saw. I was honestly wondering what the heck system Carlisle was using, because it was more often than not simple chaos.

As time went by the team started to look more like a team, but the personnel decisions were decidedly odd. You'd have players not playing for three games, then come in and chalk up major minutes. Diop was part of the solution, and then he wasn't. Green was a star in the making. Then he wasn't. As I said, at least the team was playing more like an actual team. We saw some real defense and the offense looked like it had more of a rhythm.

Still, as the past 16 games have unfolded, the underlying chaos of Carlisle's system is still there. Part of me thinks that Carlisle is treating the Mavs as a 12-14 player unit, as opposed to a core of 5 with three or maybe four coming off the bench. In this way, Carlisle is like a crazier version of Nellie. Nellie would exploit matchups on the floor during the play of the game. Carlisle looks like he is exploiting much more difficult to define team-wide match-ups.

In this way, Carlisle has his core of Dirk, Kidd, and Josh, and then he kind of builds the team around them depending on who they are playing and who may be hot at the time. If that mean Diop sits for 48 minutes, so be it. If that means that Green starts, well that's fine, too. Whatever works.

You can see it in the minute distribution. Against Los Angeles, a tough game for anyone, you'd expect the standard starting five plus three rotation (By the way, that's exactly what you saw out of Phil Jackson). But the Mavs saw 9 players logging at least 15 minutes, and a tenth (Gerald Green) started the game and was on the floor at the end.

We're also seeing some wonderfully strange combinations, such as playmaker Jose Juan Barea on the floor with playmaker Jason Kidd at the same time. Let's be honest, how many of you out there in Mavsland would have realistically predicted those two players on the floor at the same time this season?

I guess I'd be more enthusiastic about all this experimentation if we were seeing some significant trends that illustrated the team was moving conclusively in a positive direction. We are vaguely seeing this on defense, but the reality is that the Mavs defense during the winning streak wasn't that much better than the Mavs defense during the losing streak. They currently have the eighth best defense in the league, which is pretty good, but this is a team that has been top five in the past and with a more athletic team, should be there again.

On offense the team is incredibly inconsistent. There is honestly no trend to be seen. The team is currently 16th in the league in offense, and while I may have said I'd give up some efficiency on offense for a team offense that was more difficult to shut down, a drop to 16th wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

Ideally, what we'd see is what we saw in Sacramento--a smackdown on defense and a machine on offense. Unfortunately, we can't play 82 games against a Kings team without Kevin Martin. What I really want to see is the Mavs start to put together a string of these game performances while continuing to be entirely unpredictable with their roster. That would really rock.

Ultimately, my hope is that this is the future for the Mavs: A team with an almost completely unpredictable roster and nearly impossible to prepare for. Can you imagine trying to lay out a game plan not knowing whether Damp and Diop are going to play 48 or whether Bass and Dirk are going to play at center for 30 minutes? I know, it's easy to overemphasize these things, but that's the main vibe I'm getting from the first 16 games of the season.

As it is, the Mavs are certainly not awful. Their defense is quite good, and, well, the offense is hit or miss but hopefully can get a lot better. About the best news I can say is that this is an odd year for the NBA. There are exactly two teams with a top ten offense and a top ten defense: The Lakers and Cleveland. That leaves a whole bunch of teams that are still finding themselves, including the Mavs.

It's a long season, and it can still go any number of ways. I just wish I had a better handle on which way the Mavs were going.

Sunday SAC Stuff

2008-11-30T18:25:07Z

Last night's game pretty much went according to plan (box score - highlights). I'm not sure what it was exactly, but late in the first quarter with Dallas up 21-18 I felt pretty sure that Dallas wasn't going to trail the rest of the game. The Kings, without Kevin Martin, shouldn't score 80+ against Dallas, and they didn't so job well done.

There was a disappointing element to the game though, and that's how boring it was. Remember when Dallas/Sacramento meant something? That was a fun rivalry. Now Dallas is winning by 20+ without trying, the crowd is quiet, and the arena isn't exactly full. Oh well, I know Dallas will eventually go through the same phase that the Kings are currently in, but for now I'm glad it's them and not us that has faded away.

Mike Fisher points out how easy it was for Dallas.

How easy was it for the Mavs to handle the Kings? Even Devean George played well.

....What, exactly, did LA-lovin' Devean do to earn such praise? He played even with Kings emergency go-to-guy John Salmons.

Yup. John Salmons is their go-to-guy.

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Rick Carisle's play of the game:

Dirk Nowitzki punched the ball away from guard John Salmons, beat him down the court then hurled himself to the floor to flip the ball back to Devean George for a layup.

"That was a defining play in this game," Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. "That was an effort play, where you got a max player going down on the floor.

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Hubbard says the Mavs still aren't where they need to be but have improved dramatically.

The two victories over winning teams came in San Antonio and Houston. But each team was missing a major player. The Spurs were without Manu Ginobili and the Rockets played without Yao Ming.

Still, despite no quality wins against teams at full strength, the Mavericks are playing better than the team that lost a game to the Los Angeles Clippers.

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Carlisle with a Josh Howard update.

"I'm hopeful. I'd like to say that I'm optimistic, but really it's up to Mother Nature at this point. I know that he's doing everything he can do in terms of treatment to try and condition the ankle as it progresses. But I don't have a crystal ball right now. Obviously the sooner the better for us."

And Jason Terry is not one of the people who think Dallas playing well without Howard means anything.

"I mean, we're still not all the way put together. J-Ho [Josh Howard] is out. He's a big part of what we do. I mean, how can we even judge where we're at when you don't have your All-Star out there with you?

"I'm not using that as an excuse. It is what it is. We're doing a decent job of banding together. It says a lot about this team. It says we're playing hard."

Mavs at Kings Open Thread

2008-11-30T02:21:15Z

Discuss the game here.

GO MAVS

Saturday Morning Links

2008-11-29T17:10:08Z

Hubbard has some quotes from Carlise about how well Jason Terry has been playing off of the bench.

"He’s been able to give us a real scoring punch off the bench," Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. "The great thing about him is he’s willing to do whatever to try and win. If I have him coming off the bench we can keep his minutes reasonable and still get a real weapon coming off the bench. And it’s great for the soul of our team to have a guy who’s that unselfish when it comes to that kind of stuff."

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Jerry Stackhouse didn't travel to CA with the team after having surgery on his foot.

"It requires a short period of complete inactivity," Stackhouse said by text-message Friday night. "I hope to be moving again early in the week."

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Anyone know what Reyshawn Terry is up to? As far as I can tell, he still isn't playing basketball anywhere.

Lakers Top Mavs: Quick Observations and Postgame Quotes

2008-11-29T08:01:23Z

Gerald Green scored the first and last points of the game.
Devean George and Antoine Wright got the Kobe assignment. Wright definitely seemed to a better job. The +/-, George -17 and Wright +12, surely the difference wasn't that great right?
Dallas shot 29 3's. Most of them were good shots and they made 45% which is fantastic, but that's uncomfortably high...
How good was Barea tonight? 10 points, 9assists in 20 minutes. I made note of this in the game thread, but it was like one of his D-League games.
Rick Carlisle's postgame quotes:

"Well, there's a huge rebound differential and if you look at the free throw line there's a big difference there. Umm, you know the Lakers are one of those teams that statistically when they don't look like they're playing they can still find ways to beat you. Are undoing was the second half of the third quarter -- When they went on a run and we just didn't have any answers. We hung in and gave ourselves a chance, but you know Kobe made some very difficult shots down the stretch and I thought Ariza was probably the major difference in the game. The things he did offensively and defensively were difference makers.

Our bench did good things. We expect them to play well. That's their job. We need that every night. Barea did some really good things for us from a playmaking standpoint. And we had some other guys play well durng stretches. But that six or seven minuter period, late third early fourth, was our undoing.

I can't remember the last time I saw an NBA team only commit 8 fouls in 48 minutes, but maybe these guys are that good defensively. It's a little hard to believe, but I'm not going to complain about the officiating, but I thought we played an aggressive game and we could have gone to the line a few more times.

With the Dallas Mavericks you're not interested in moral victories. We're interested in winning games. We had an opportunity and let it slip away. Give the Lakers credit. They did what they had to do to take the game away. We're very disappointed, but now we've got to regroup for tomorrow night."

Box Score - AP Recap - Game Flow

Mavs at Lakers Open Thread

2008-11-29T02:30:04Z

Forum Blue and Gold - Sefko Preview - NBA.com Preview - Lakers Last 5: WWWWW - LA Favored by 10.5 - Over/Under 206

So Far This Season:
LAL 106 @ 99 DAL

Discuss the game here.

GO MAVS

Quick Friday Catchup

2008-11-29T01:31:49Z

Still no word if Josh Howard will play tonight, but he did shoot around with the the team today. I'm guessing he plays but we'll see...

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Dirk credits the five game winning streak to everyone just being more comfortable.

"I think it's just a comfort level with what we're doing," Dirk Nowitzki says. "That's really it. We didn't really know what to run, what we were comfortable with in the first couple games.

"Now, we know what to do out there a little more. When you're comfortable on the court, it shows. We're able to put ourselves in position where we can make plays and make shots."

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Rick Carlisle on the Lakers.

"They've been dominant," Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. "Look at their statistics and they appear to have no weakness. They've got length, and they play both ends of the floor. We have a very low margin for error offensively and defensively against them because they're the best right now."

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Jason Kidd bought everyone customized headphones.

Think they're cool and want a pair of your own? You can buy them here -- only $1,100.00.

Happy Thanksgiving Links

2008-11-27T19:11:42Z

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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Sefko has an article on Diop trying to raise his intensity the last few games.

Caplan writes about Antoine Wright.

"I think he's earned the right to start the next game," Carlisle said Wednesday, a day off before today's Thanksgiving practice and flight to LA. "It's just what position he's going to be playing."

And JFE comes to the defense of Jerry Stackhouse. She starts the article off by saying she's friends with him because he was always on her radio, and then I just sort of skimmed the rest.

Art Garcia on Stackhouse

2008-11-26T16:20:20Z

Art has an article up on NBA.com about Stackhouse wantintg to get traded to a team where he can get minutes. There's nothing groundbreaking in there, but he does have some quotes from Stackhouse that I haven't seen anywhere else so I figured I'd post it. He also speculates that Toronto, Atlanta, and Philly are teams that could be interested.

7&7 Morning Links

2008-11-26T14:27:48Z

Sefko recaps the game saying Dallas is having some breaks go their way during the five game winning streaks, and Caplan focuses his recap on Antoine Wright.

Wright who notched a season-high 12 points in the second quarter, had several of those on Tuesday, and he also attacked the rim and scored rather than loft 3-pointers.

"About the only time he didn't finish," Carlisle said, "was when it looked like he was tired. ...We couldn't have won this game without Antoine's overall effort at both ends. He really kept himself ready."

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Caplan has a Josh Howard update.

"It's a lot better, but still day-to-day," Howard said. "I'm very eager. I've just got to get my foot together first and make sure I come back at full strength."

Howard said the injury restricts his ability to cut, which is a significant part of his game.

"An athletic guy like myself, I want to be able to play the game the way I can," Howard said. "As soon as I get that range of motion back, I'll be good."

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Mike Fisher has his game observations.

Lost in all the late-game heroics will be Erick Dampier's clever decision to absorb a charge rather than attempt to block a driving layup by Danny Granger.

Erick Dampier drew a game-changing charge. Then came a solar eclipse. And then Hell froze over.

Mavs Get Back to .500: Postgame Quotes

2008-11-26T05:51:31Z

Antoine Wright:

On suddenly playing 40 minutes.

Exhuasting. Coach has stuck with me and told me to just continue to work and my chance would come.

Carlisle has said nobody has grabbed the SG spot by the horns....

Whatever happens at that two position, guys just have to come in ready, focused, and know what the game plan is.

How does it feel to be back to .500?

It feels good to be .500, but now we have the Lakers.

It was your sons 4th birthday and you had a career night scoring 24 in 40 minutes. Do you think he brought you good luck?

I don't know if it's good for me because now he's going to be so excited and I'm tired.

Rick Carlisle:

We were getting stops and rebounds [late] which was a big problem early in the game. Then Terry and Kidd made play after play. JET got to the basket - he hit jumpers. Kidd hit two huge threes. Our veterans willed us to a win - is what happened. You've got to give credit to them.

Antoine Wright played tremendously well. As much as this looks like an iny-miny-miny-moe game with the two guard spot, there's logic to it just in regard to the defensive matchups coming into the game. We had a lot of respect for Marquis Daniels and felt he would be the best guy to guard him. He had a great defensive and offensive game. Very happy for him.

We really needed to get this win somehow. We were having a lot of diffculty early. We gave up 13 offensive rebounds in the first half -- I think 8 in the first six and a half minutes which is unheard of. We'd become a better rebouding team, but they were long rebounds and Indiana was just quicker to the ball.

The second half we talked about getting the tempo reasonable for us and working the game back and staying with it. That's what our guys did. We were hoping to cut into the lead a little bit earlier than the last few minutes of the fourth, but whatever you can to do to get a win in this situation, when you're trying to get back to .500, is whatever you have to do.

They're not all Rembrandts.

Box Score - AP Recap

Pacers at Mavs Open Thread

2008-11-26T01:00:07Z

Discuss the Game Here

GO MAVS

Tuesday Morning Links

2008-11-25T15:18:54Z

Two identical articles this morning -- both on the bad start, what the team learned etc...

"Adversity at the beginning of the season is priceless," Terry continued. "You'd rather have that now than at the end of the season. We're happy with where we're at. We'd like more wins, but as far as learning and developing, we're moving along."

And Sefko gives Terry credit for helping Dallas get back on track.

Through the difficult times, however, one thing has been consistent when it comes to Jason Terry. When he's entrenched as the sixth man, he's pretty good. And so are the Mavericks.

During the four-game winning streak, Terry has come off the bench in each game and is averaging 21.5 points.

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Elie Seckbach talks to James Singleton.

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Stop the presses, Mark Cuban will not be at the game tonight. He'll be on a Thanksgiving family vacation.

A side of Cuban they never show on TV -- He spent the first half of the Memphis game not standing and yelling at officials, but sitting with his daughter on his lap.

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This Day in Mavs History

2005 Released Doug Christie. Christie played 7 games with Dallas.

Seven too many.

Stat of The Day: Free Throw Attempt Efficiency

2008-11-24T23:38:12Z

The idea for this one came to me when I noticed that San Antonio are by far dead last in the league, attempting just 17.8 free throws per game. I knew some of that had to do with the Spurs historically playing at the slowest pace in the NBA, but I wasn't sure how much.

For those not familiar with efficiency statistics, this table is sorted by the number of free throws a team attempts per 100 possessions. It's hardly perfect since it includes free throws taken from technicals etc... but after being adjusted for pace I think it's a slightly better indicator of how much a team "attacks the basket" then just standard FTA.

RNK	Team	Pace	FTA PG	FTA EFF
1	Denver	97.5	31.9	32.72
2	Boston	94.5	29.7	31.43
3	Golden State	99.3	30.4	30.61
4	Cleveland	91.7	27.7	30.21
5	New Jersey	93.4	27.8	29.76
6	Phoenix	93.7	27.4	29.24
7	Orlando	96.1	28	29.14
8	Charlotte	89.5	25.5	28.49
9	Detroit	92.1	26	28.23
10	Milwaukee	93.7	26.4	28.18
11	Washington	94.2	26.2	27.81
12	Utah	92.8	25.7	27.69
13	Toronto	93.4	25.7	27.52
14	L.A. Lakers	98.7	26.6	26.95
15	Atlanta	93.2	25.1	26.93
16	Chicago	98.7	26.4	26.75
17	Memphis	95.5	25.4	26.60
18	Miami	93.5	24.5	26.20
19	Houston	91.5	23.6	25.79
20	Portland	89.3	22.7	25.42
21	New Orleans	89.9	22.8	25.36
22	Dallas	96.1 (10th)	24.2 (19th)	25.18
23	Oklahoma City	97.8	23.7	24.23
24	Minnesota	93.9	22.6	24.07
25	Indiana	97.8	22.9	23.42
26	Philadelphia	96.1	22.5	23.41
27	Sacramento	94.1	21.5	22.85
28	New York	100.5	22.2	22.09
29	L.A. Clippers	95	20.8	21.89
30	San Antonio	88.6	17.8	20.09

Monday Morning Links

2008-11-24T16:22:11Z

I have some catching up to do and I doubt I'll get to it all here...

Caplan has a good article on Terry's role this season and how well he's doing with it.

Averaging 18.4 points a game, Terry is scoring at a higher clip than at any time in his four previous seasons with the Mavs and the highest since he averaged 19.3 in 2001-02 with Atlanta.

....He's a reserve in name only, logging nearly 35 minutes a game, just as he did in 2005-06 and '06-07, when he started 160 of the 161 games he played, and he's a constant presence - and threat - in the fourth quarter.

"It's like when [Manu] Ginobili has been coming off the bench for San Antonio for the last two or three years at times to help balance out the rotation," Carlisle said. "It's something that is a small thing, but is a huge thing. It enables the team in so many other ways and it sets the tone of unselfishness."

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Sefko writes about the Mavs improved rebounding from the beginning of the season.

So the Mavericks quietly have become one of the best rebounding teams in the league.

It didn't look like that would be the case when they were clobbered on the boards in their first three games by an average of 8.7 per game.

Since then, they have owned the glass by 7.4 per game.

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Hey, there's a new coach in town.

"This is really a fact: We’re not going to be as good a team as we can be unless those guys can step up and play like they did in the previous two or three games," Carlisle said. "We need the Shawne Williamses and Gerald Greens and James Singletons and Antoine Wrights. They need to be there for us because those guys give us something that we don’t have top to bottom on the roster. They give us length, quickness, energy. So they’ve got to be ready to play."

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This was a great quote from Rick Carlisle about JJ Barea and Jason Kidd sharing the court against Memphis.

"You’re going to have a Jackson Pollock once in a while, where you just splatter stuff out there and you’ve got to find something that works," Carlisle said, waving his arms. "So, you know, the formula was unusual."

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Devean George saw the floor for the first time this season in the Memphis game and he already has his eye on the starting SG spot.

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Funny Picture.

Funnier Picture (via db.com)

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Jerry Stackhouse Update: Sefko says trade options are being explored but that we shouldn't expect anything to happen until December 15th, when players signed in the offseason, can be traded.

And Caplan had this little blurb yesterday.

Jerry Stackhouse returned to the team Friday after staying behind in North Carolina to visit family. He underwent treatment on his sore right heel and worked out on his own before Friday's game.

Mavs a player in the 2010 Free Agent Bonanza?

2008-11-22T17:32:59Z

With all the big names available in 2010 in Free Agency the Mavs seem to be in a good position to possibly make a run at many quality players.

I. Cap Flexibility

As it stands the projected Maverick payroll would be approximately $68,778,609. This figure can be misleading though because there are 2 contracts that can be voided. Dirk and Josh. Dirk has an Early Termination Option and Josh is a Team Option. Having those two off the books could bring our number down to $35,430,05. Now there are some uncertainties also (Shawne Williams, and JJB) but eliminating both of those contracts coud bring our total cap number down to $30,203,600.

II. Players Left Under Contract

Dampier, Jet, and Diop are our only players that would be under contract. As of right now Damp seems to be entrenched as a Mav based on his contract. However Diop has been linked to numerous teams. After Dec 15 when Diop is eligible to be traded there should be a clearer view of what the Mavs cap figure would look like. Terry would almost have to be included in any trade if we were to upgrade at the SG spot just to make the contracts align. Also there may be a rookie draft pick here or two but their contract would not be big enough to make a major dent in our cap space. I do not know if green and bass would both still be here. Both are FAs after this year and may cost big money and lots of years to resign

III. Course of Action in Free Agency

With many free agents available the Mavericks can be active early or trying to lure one max contract as well another lesser player. According to Carlisle many free agents want to come here and hopefully Cuban will pay them well. After signing the two big time players the Mavericks can then use Bird Rights to resign Dirk and Josh. There is some risk that these guys may leave for a different team but hopefuly Cuban will reward them handsomely for their team loyalty.

IV. 2010 and Beyond

With some new blood in the lineup the Mavs could be a contender for many years down the road. A lineup with

Wade,Redd, Howard, Nowitzki, Damp with Green Bass and Terry off the bench.

I have seen a lot of other information out there regarding contracts like Damp, I don;t know how much of this is accurate but I think it is close to what the Mavs will have.

Salary Info

http://hoopshype.com/salaries/dallas.htm

Grizzlies at Mavs Open Thread

2008-11-22T00:30:06Z

Discuss the game here.

GO MAVS