Looking ahead: Four areas where Mavericks need improvement

BOSTON – What have we heard consistently from Jason Kidd for the past month?

It’s just basketball.

Yes, it’s 20,000 Boston crazies yelling in your ear. Yes, it’s Kristaps Porzingis rolling onto the court like the new-age combination of Bill Walton and Bill Russell to dismantle the Mavericks. And, yes, it’s a new atmosphere for most of the Mavs in a wicked NBA Finals environment.

But it’s still just basketball.

The Mavericks need to remind themselves of that going into Game 2 of the Finals on Sunday.

As Luka Dončić said: “We didn’t do our job well. So we got to focus on the second one.”

When the Mavericks are doing their job well, they are having fun. Sometimes even when they aren’t doing the job so well, they have fun. Luka smiles. Kyrie Irving changes hands, shows the ball, fakes this way and that and somehow gets that shot off over bigger defenders. He’s done it time and again.

None of that happened on Thursday.

“We talked about it at halftime,” coach Jason Kidd said. “We weren’t having fun there in the first half and talked about having fun, to work the game, continue to keep playing. There’s a lot of time.

“A lot of people will talk about one game, but we’re talking about aseries. So the bigger picture is to keep working the series. We just have to be better. We know that.”

To that end, the Mavericks have to fix a few things. And there’s no reason to believe they won’t. They adjusted in Game 2 of the first round against the Los Angeles Clippers and the second round against Oklahoma City after losing the opener in each series.

They won Game 2 against both teams and four of the next five to take the series.

So the biggest emphasis for the Mavericks has to be to learn from Game 1, then completely forget about it. They are in the NBA Finals. Most of them for the first time. Now they know what the atmosphere is like. That shouldn’t be an issue moving forward.

Adjustments will be.

It won’t be easy against the Celtics, who shot the ball well and defended better in Game 1. But here’s a few things the Mavericks will have to address:

• Get bigger defenders on Kristaps Porzingis. It was like target practice for the 7-3 former Maverick shooting over Josh Green or Jaden Hardy, who were in good position often, but just weren’t big enough to distract Porzingis. The Celtics will figure out ways to screen bigger guys off of Porzingis. And while there’s no guarantee he’ll shoot like he did in Game 1, the Mavericks can’t afford to take that chance any longer.
• Get the ball moving. And by extension, get the players on the court moving. Through three quarters on Thursday, the Mavericks had five assists. That’s usually just a good quarter for Luka Dončić. But he would finish Game 1 with one puny assist, his lowest output in 46 career playoff games. The Mavericks can get away with playing one-on-one in some regular-season games. But not in the NBA Finals. It was an odd game for the Mavericks’ superstar backcourt, to be sure. The guess here is that it won’t happen again.
• The Mavericks weren’t terrible on the boards, getting beat 47-43. But it was a killer when the Celtics were making their run in the first half. The Mavs were outrebounded 16-6 in the first quarter, when the game essentially was lost with Boston up 37-20. “I don’t really think offense was our problem,” said P.J. Washington. “They hit a bunch of threes that we needed to do a better job of contesting, had a bunch of offensive rebounds that led to second-chance (opportunities). That’s what we need to focus on.”
• Don’t forget who you are. The Mavericks shot 27 three-pointers in Game 1. They made just seven. That’s 25.9 percent. In their first 17 playoff games, they shot 33.9 triples per game and made 37.2 percent. While some of us (yes, I’m guilty) think all teams are too reliant on the long ball these days, it’s part of the Mavericks’ DNA and they need to make sure any downward trend in shooting the ball is a brief one. Find a hot hand. And it may come from somebody unexpected.

X: @ESefko