Mavs vs. Wolves...really? Come on...Dieng vs. Dalembert GDT

[Lipoli390]

You had to be a downer, Alex! :)

[Coolbreeze44]

You know what is really apparent? Pek is expendable. Dieng can become our guy, no question

Ugh... not this shit again...

We really don't miss him that much

I agree, Cool. We didn't miss Pek much when he was out before and we didn't miss him much tonight.

Or you can look at it that we beat the 8th seeded Mavs in OT by one despite Rubio having an unbelievable triple double in 700 minutes, Love having 35 and Dirk having a terrible second half

Can't we enjoy this one?

[alexftbl8181 [enjin:6648741]]

You know what is really apparent? Pek is expendable. Dieng can become our guy, no question

Ugh... not this shit again...

We really don't miss him that much

I agree, Cool. We didn't miss Pek much when he was out before and we didn't miss him much tonight.

Or you can look at it that we beat the 8th seeded Mavs in OT by one despite Rubio having an unbelievable triple double in 700 minutes, Love having 35 and Dirk having a terrible second half

Can't we enjoy this one?

It was a good win, just the one game overreactions drive me insane. If Love goes out next game and drops a stinker, people will probably want him traded too

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

You know what is really apparent? Pek is expendable. Dieng can become our guy, no question

Ugh... not this shit again...

We really don't miss him that much

I agree, Cool. We didn't miss Pek much when he was out before and we didn't miss him much tonight.

Or you can look at it that we beat the 8th seeded Mavs in OT by one despite Rubio having an unbelievable triple double in 700 minutes, Love having 35 and Dirk having a terrible second half

I agree it's difficult to attribute cause and effect precisely. A Pek detractor might suggest Love and Rubio play better when the big man is out, or Dirk plays worse when we have a better defense out there.

All I know is we have a better record without Pek than with...and he's using up $12 million of our cap.

[alexftbl8181 [enjin:6648741]]

You know what is really apparent? Pek is expendable. Dieng can become our guy, no question

Ugh... not this shit again...

We really don't miss him that much

I agree, Cool. We didn't miss Pek much when he was out before and we didn't miss him much tonight.

Or you can look at it that we beat the 8th seeded Mavs in OT by one despite Rubio having an unbelievable triple double in 700 minutes, Love having 35 and Dirk having a terrible second half

I agree it's difficult to attribute cause and effect precisely. A Pek detractor might suggest Love and Rubio play better when the big man is out, or Dirk plays worse when we have a better defense out there.

All I know is we have a better record without Pek than with...and he's using up $12 million of our cap.

Or we can fix problems like JJ or the fact Martin can't make a shot in the 4th? Or anyone who can score off the bench? We have to go after a 18-9 guy who shows up every game he plays?

[Lipoli390]

Alex - very few on this Board are going to call for trading Love if he has a bad game or two. Love's had bad games this season and I've been steadfast in saying we should NOT trade him. What Love did tonight was typical of him. Rubio's game reflected improvements he's shown since the allstar break and was indicative of his potential. I'm not just reacting to this one game.

[alexftbl8181 [enjin:6648741]]

Alex - very few on this Board are going to call for trading Love if he has a bad game or two. Love's had bad games this season and I've been steadfast in saying we should NOT trade him. What Love did tonight was typical of him. Rubio's game reflected improvements he's shown since the allstar break and was indicative of his potential. I'm not just reacting to this one game.

There's been "trading Love" posts on here. After his injury year last year, after the Woj article. There's been get rid of Rubio posts too

[Lipoli390]

You know what is really apparent? Pek is expendable. Dieng can become our guy, no question

Ugh... not this shit again...

We really don't miss him that much

I agree, Cool. We didn't miss Pek much when he was out before and we didn't miss him much tonight.

Or you can look at it that we beat the 8th seeded Mavs in OT by one despite Rubio having an unbelievable triple double in 700 minutes, Love having 35 and Dirk having a terrible second half

I agree it's difficult to attribute cause and effect precisely. A Pek detractor might suggest Love and Rubio play better when the big man is out, or Dirk plays worse when we have a better defense out there.

All I know is we have a better record without Pek than with...and he's using up $12 million of our cap.

Or we can fix problems like JJ or the fact Martin can't make a shot in the 4th? Or anyone who can score off the bench? We have to go after a 18-9 guy who shows up every game he plays?

I'm not "going after" Pek. I just don't think he is a big net positive for this team given his salary and who he plays next to in the front line. Add a talented, long, athletic SF to this team and I might be more inclined to keep Pek. I agree that Pek plays hard every time he's on the court, but you cNt count on him to be on the court. Yet, my main reason for thinking we should shop him is that he's probably the only asset we have that can possibly get us what we. We'd in return. So I'm not down on Pek.

By the way, I agree with you that the real problems with this team are our bench, including JJ, and having Martin as our starting SG.

[Lipoli390]

Alex - very few on this Board are going to call for trading Love if he has a bad game or two. Love's had bad games this season and I've been steadfast in saying we should NOT trade him. What Love did tonight was typical of him. Rubio's game reflected improvements he's shown since the allstar break and was indicative of his potential. I'm not just reacting to this one game.

There's been "trading Love" posts on here. After his injury year last year, after the Woj article. There's been get rid of Rubio posts too

Yes, some have suggested trading Love, but not as a knee jerk reaction to one bad game. Those suggestions stemmed from the belief that he'll probably leave anyway and that we need to trade him soon to get value in return. The suggestions to trade Rubio have stemmed from his career shooting problems. Tonight I pointed to tonight's game as an example of how good this tandem can be, but I've been praising both players all season and both have been good (Love great) all season.

My bigger point is that comments on tonight's game, while exuberant, are not indicative of knee-jerk overreactions by those who post regularly on this Board.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Great game. A few thoughts:

- Did you guys notice the defensive energy in the first quarter? I don't know what it was, but everyone just stepped it up a notch. Dallas eventually righted the ship by matching our energy in the 2nd quarter, but it was fun to watch guys fighting over screens, closing out on shooters, and just playing with a ton of energy.

- Ricky had an epic performance, especially in the first half. That's about as good of a half as I have ever seen him play.

- Very, very, very encouraging to see Dieng have a second consecutive good game as our starter. How about his offense? He made a running hook, a mid-range jumper, a slick layup to avoid the charge, and muscled in a put-back. I don't think he was spoon fed one dunk from Ricky. He earned his points tonight, plus did decent work on the glass and defensively.

You knew some of these close games had to fall our way eventually. Too bad we weren't closing these out earlier in the season.