Why the Mavs will beat the Spurs (kinda long?)

[gettym]

I've kicked this around quite a bit, and I'm not sure that the Spurs can make enough adjustments to beat the Mavs. Sure, they might win another game, but I don't see any way that they can win the series.

The Mavs dominated last night, and Dirk didn't even have to have a big game.

The Spurs have only one guy who has ANY chance of covering Howard -- Bruce Bowen. The problem for them is, he's busy bear-hugging Dirk. A switch defensively is out of the question, because that would unleash Dirk completely. It really is a "pick your poison" situation, because either Howard or Dirk is going to go off. Period.

The Spurs have nobody who can cover Devin Harris. Sure, they can change their pick and roll defense to help on Harris, but the guy setting the screen is a scorer (either Dirk or Howard, usually) who will get the ball right back and hit the shot. Admittedly, they'll probably try some of this to make Harris into a passer rather than a scorer just to see if he can make the right decisions, but I have full confidence in Harris. He looked calm, cool, and completely in control out there last night. He really ran the team and managed the game well.

A further problem for the Spurs is that while they're busy trying to guard Harris, Howard, and Dirk, they have to put a really weak defender on Terry/Stackhouse/Daniels. Bad news for them, because Stackhouse has taken advantage so far, and you have to think that Terry will have some good shooting games before the series is over.

On the other end, the matchups REALLY work well for Dallas. Our centers (despite constant foul trouble) are really holding their own against Duncan. Likewise, the perimeter defense against Ginobili and Parker has been very good, particularly now that Harris is in the lineup. Harris is the guy who can keep Parker from dominating. This allows the team to stay at home on the Spurs three point shooters. The Spurs hit 4 3-pointers the entire game, and had only 13 attempts. The Mavs are doing a fantastic job of shutting that part of the Spurs attack down. The thing is, when you don't allow Duncan and/or Spurs guard penetration to create open 3-pointers, you take away the offensive contributions of about half of the Spurs rotation (Bowen, Finley, Horry, Barry, Van Exel). The Spurs won't put their centers on the floor because of defensive matchup problems, which means that they're basically left trying to get all of their offensive production from Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker. And I don't think that's going to work for them.