Sometimes, elite athletes need a pat on the back.
Other times, they need a kick a bit lower.
It’s a coach’s job to know when to do which one.
Jason Kidd got blunt with the Mavericks at halftime against Orlando on Monday night. He said the conversation wasn’t pretty.
That doesn’t mean he screamed the paint off the wall. That’s not usually his style. But make no mistake that he got his point across about the subpar performance his team had in the first half, after which they trailed by 16 points.
We know because of the way the Mavericks responded. Big time. The 131-129 victory at American Airlines Center was their biggest comeback of the season and, just maybe, a catalyst for a strong finish to the pre-All-Star portion of the season.
The second half was a blueprint for how the Mavericks can (and need to) play. They choked off the Magic for just 12 third-quarter points and when the game got into a rat-race in the fourth period, the Mavericks made their free throws and didn’t beat themselves.
They had to execute and they did.
“We talked things over and what we needed to do,” Kidd said postgame. “I thought we did a good job of adapting and staying together as a team and sticking to the game plan and bringing energy.
“That group played hard. We saw some of the problems. We talked it out in the locker room at halftime and responded with a great second half. Maybe one of our best quarters to hold a team to 12 points. That lets us know that we can do it.”
Indeed, the blueprint is there.
And if the injury gods ever show some compassion to the Mavericks, good health should make it easier to duplicate.
Our other takeaways from the uplifting win over Orlando:
In the zone: Apart from being more engaged in the second half, the other adjustment the Mavericks made was to use zone defense almost exclusively. The Magic had worn them out with baseline and interior passing, so the zone made sense. “Energy and effort,” Kidd said of why the zone was effective. “At the end of the day, it’s just caring. I thought that group did a great job with the zone. And then being able to rebound the ball out of the zones. We got stops there in the third quarter. And our offense kind of opened up.”
Less is more: The Mavericks shot 27 three-pointers and made 13. That’s a super 48.1 percent success rate. And it’s proof that they don’t have to shoot three-pointers every trip down the floor. The 27 attempts tied their season-low for a game and was just the second time in 47 games that they’ve been below 30 heaves. But while there weren’t a lot of three-pointers, the right people were shooting them. Jaden Hardy, Luka Doncic and Tim Hardaway Jr. were a combined 12-of-22 from beyond the arc.
Strong numbers: About that third quarter . . . The Mavericks held the Magic to 4-of-20 shooting (20 percent) and 14 of their shots came from inside the arc. Everything was contested. The 12 points were four fewer than the Mavericks’ previous best defensive quarter of the season. Plus, they shot 63 percent and outrebounded Orlando 16-7. To quote a late, great fiddle player who got the measure of the devil, “that’s how it’s done, son.”
X: @ESefko
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