1. Our sets. The Mavs owe their record to their insane 3 point FG% up until this game against the Pelicans. The saying of “Live by the three and die by the three” is such a cliché at this point but do we really not have any plays other than PnR or DHO into a kick out? All the Pels did was wait for us to kick out the ball and just intercept it, they had 17 steals tonight and this continues to happen in the 4th quarter.
2. The rotations. Luka had 6 turnovers and shot 1-6 in the first 9 minutes he played. He had 4 TOs 6 minutes into the game, why didn’t Kidd call any timeout and still insist on letting Kyrie sub out early? Exum has been good so far this season, he has serviceable defense, handles the ball well, cutting hard off ball, playing smart overall. Why is Kidd always playing Green and Hardy over him? Why is he a 3rd stringer? Come garbage time why are we not letting our 19 year old big man play and maybe let him shoot the ball, play some pick and pop since that’s supposedly the play style he’s comfortable with in practice?
3. The lineups. It’s still early in the season. I would rather see a lot more Holmes or O-Max in our front court just so we can have some big bodies down low and secure the rebound. We need to go through the growing pains of trying to develop a defensive front court for the long run. And personally I would much rather lose some games early in the season so we’d know what we should work on. Why would Kidd ever put THJ, Green, Hardy together in a lineup with Luka and Powell? I get that Kidd wants to play small ball but are we really even pushing the pace without Kyrie or Exum on the court?

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