Dallas Mavericks: 3 Key Areas to improve for Luka Doncic and company

The regular season kicked off this week and if it means anything, the Dallas Mavericks are off to a subpar start. The team lost its first NBA opener Thursday night to the Atlanta Hawks.

While some fans are ready to hit the panic button, others are content just giving it time for Jason Kidd’s system to flourish.

With one under the books, we examine area of improvement Dallas must focus on.

1. Shooting percentage

Against the Hawks, the Mavs shot a mere 33 percent from the field. Luka Doncic added to the shooting woe, hitting just six of his 17 shots. Along with that, Kristaps Porzingis couldn’t even hit more than 30 percent of his buckets.

Time MacMahon of ESPN broke it all down. Some of the team’s biggest struggles came from the three where they hit 30.2 percent from the field. Oh and the mid-range strategy, yeah that does not seem to be working. Making just two shots from the free-throw line is not going to cut it for a team that has playoff aspirations.

If Dallas really wants to start hitting their stride, they need for their starters to start coming through. They can’t have players like Dorian Finney-Smith going two of 12 from the field and one of six from three.

Coach Kidd, What happened to that fast breaking, three pointer caliber team?

2. Luka’s assistance

But what, there’s more?

One of the biggest problems facing the organization is the lack of support behind Doncic. In previous posts, I mentioned how it was up to KP to be the second man. This does not separate from the fact that Dallas should have sought after a third option as well.

While the team re-signed Tim Hardaway Jr., other teams were racking up former all-stars such as Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan and Andre Drummond. Not to take anything away from Hardaway Jr., it just points out the fact that having a third or fourth scorer is beneficial in today’s NBA.

Just look at team’s such as the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets. While we may dislike them for lining up so many great players, they did what they were suppose to do: sign NBA scorers to help alleviate the workload from Lebron James.

3. Coaching

While we can all agree Doncic needs help, having a solid coaching plan comes in handy.

Judging Coach Kidd after one game can be tough, but like everyone he definitely has some flaws. One thing the team must work on is allowing Doncic to control the flow of the game. Against Atlanta, there times where Dallas tried to play their All-Star off the ball.

However, in order to compete against the best, Dallas is going to need him to do what he does best: that is create his own shots and allow the game to come to him.

No need to worry though, it is just one game Mavs’ fans. There is still 81 one more to go and assuming things go right, Dallas can definitely get on track.

Now if only we can find an extra scorer to tag along side Doncic.

• Published on 10/22/2021 at 12:45 PM
• Last updated at 10/22/2021 at 12:04 PM