nowagimp

Well it looks like the Mavs had another player injured last night. Reggie Evans bounced Josh Howard off the floor. Howard tried to come back later in the second half, but was not very effective. The suns may be lucky to face the Mavs on the second of a back to back this week with Dev Harris, Josh Howard, Dampier, and stackhouse injured. Maybe Howard will play, but a back contusion will hurt when he does. It will be interesting to see how they defend Dirk without shawn. I suspect it will fall to Diaw and Hill.

dreamcastrocks

I think Diaw can do better on Dirk than Marion.

I think it is a huge myth that Marion did good against Dirk on defense. He has had good defensive plays against him, but Dirk seems to play well against us, with Marion defending him.

slinslin

Not exactly lucky, now they look like a total pushover. This likely being Shaq's first game should make up for that however.

Grant Hill or Amare should be able to defend Dirk as well. Amare can put a hand in his face and move quick enough to not let him drive.

The Warriors showed how to stop Dirk, just double-team him agressively. The Mavs almost always have players on the floor who can be left open.

nowagimp

Hill will not be able to guard Dirk the wole time and Dirk is stronger than Hill on the block. I think amare could do it if he doesnt go for the fakes, but he has the instincts of a shot blocker. I like Diaw on Dirk as Diaw does not leave his feet so easily and plays better position defense than amare. I hate to see Dirk get followups against the suns.

slinslin

The problem with that is that if you play Shaq, Amare, Diaw, Bell and Nash against them if you match up man to man you have

Shaq vs Diop or Dampier
Diaw vs Dirk
Amare vs Josh Howard
Nash vs Devin Harris
Bell vs Eddie Jones or Jason Terry

So that doesnt work very well with both Shaq and Amare on the court.

Shaq -> Dampier, Amare -> Dirk, Hill -> Howard, Bell/Nash/Barbosa->Terry/Harris/Jones

nowagimp

Youre right, but Howard has a back contusion. I also think Howard is too fast for Hill, and too long for Bell. When I look at those matchups, Im asking how they guard amare and shaq at the same time, perhaps with brandon bass.

Chaplin

I like seeing Diaw on Dirk, only because Diaw did a great job on Duncan last week in the loss.

slinslin

They will put Dampier on Shaq and Dirk on Amare. Of course I am confident that Dirk will give up more defensively to Amare than the other way around so I am not worried about Amare defending Dirk.

YouJustGotSUNSD

If dirk has to guard amare i see no problem if the roles are then reversed on the other end. Amare will pulverize him on offense and force him to shoot jumpers all day on the other end.

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BeeBeard

Truth! Dirk is still a defensive sieve. Unless between now and Thursday, Dirk makes some sort of pagan sacrifice to Lateralus, the god of of lateral quickness, then Amare will be running past him and jumping over him with ease.

The Mavs are going to be weak at the 2 and 3 without their star swingman. We'll probably see way too many minutes from defensive stopper Eddie Jones (ack!), streak-scorer Jerry Stackhouse (yikes!) or even the scrubtastic Devean George (yay!).

Also, when sportswriters and analysts were going on and on about how the Mavericks had gotten "more athletic," that was mostly code for how the up-and-coming Josh Howard had emerged as such a presence for this team. Without him in the lineup, you could practically go the other way on it: They're decidedly "not athletic." I'm predicting a TON of dunks on this poor, poor little Mavericks team, as well as a badly outrebounded club that simply cannot compete with the Suns' sheer athleticism and newfound size.

Proteus

What if the Mavs go small? How do we defend that?

SactownSunsFan

We go small too.

Nash
Bell
Hill
Diaw
Amare

Or we could Move Amare to the 4, put Shaq in at the 5 and punish them inside. The reason the Mavs haven't been able to do this to us over the years when we go small is because their centers aren't great offensive players, and Amare was able to guard them for the most part.

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Mainstreet

I agree. My recollection is that Dirk just shot over the top of Marion. No substitute for height.

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You have to live life like you don't know any better.

ArizonaSportsFan

True, except for the multitude of offensive rebounds, which more than cancels out great on-the-ball defense. Tough to defend point-blank put-backs.

nowagimp

Dirk pump faked marion, that got him off balance for the fade away. Diaw uses length and is not going to bite on a pump fake so easily.