The Mavericks doth protest too much

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Statistics That Will Shock You

Chris Finch is now second all-time in wins for a coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves with 98. About 2.5 decent seasons gets you second on the all-time list.

Rick Adelman and Tom Thibodeau had been tied at 97 wins for No. 2 all-time behind Flip Saunders (407). Finch passed them on Wednesday.

I am honestly not clear as to whether a “congratulations” is appropriate or would be considered rude in this situation.

Scores

Nuggets 118, Wizards 104 — Nikola Jokic! 31-12-7. 12/16 shooting. +28 in 34 minutes.

Knicks 120, Heat 127 — Jimmy Butler! Huge win for Miami, who is essentially tied with Brooklyn for No. 6 now. Has Playoff Jimmy arrived a bit early? How are the Sixers feeling about likely playing Playoff Jimmy in the first round?

This is great.

Pacers 118, Raptors 114 — Look at Andrew Nembhard leading the Pacers to a win over a team they are chasing in the play-in race! 25 points on 11/17 shooting and 10 assists with just two turnovers. Indiana moves to 5-14 on the season without Tyrese Haliburton.

Also, the Pacers became the first team in NBA history to start three Canadians in a single game. And they did it in Canada! I definitely did not remember that Nembhard and Oshae Brissett were Canadians. If Rick Carlisle adds Chris Duarte to that group the Pacers could get four Canadian starters in!

Jakob Poeltl, turned into the co-star of a poster once again. This time: it’s Brissett.

Warriors 127, Mavericks 125 — I’m not gonna lie, with apologies to my Mavericks fan friends: this game was hilarious.

This happened toward the end of the third quarter:

Out of bounds on the Mavericks. Warriors ball. But we’re inside of two minutes so it’s a mandatory Mavericks timeout. Coming out of the timeout — and this is a national TV game, so it’s a bit of a longer timeout than usual, one presumes (I’m not watching with a stopwatch) — the Mavericks expect to have the ball at halfcourt for some reason. The Warriors line up for a baseline out of bounds (BLOB) play. They don’t need a play because the Mavericks are not within 50 feet of them. Jordan Poole realizes what’s happening, demands the ball on the restart and feeds Kevon Looney for what would be the easiest two of the night.

Jordan Poole outsmarted the Mavericks coaching staff. You love to see it.

Dallas remained very much in the game through the fourth quarter. Here’s the final two minutes, starting with a horrendous call against Donte DiVincenzo in favor of the Mavericks and ending with Luka Doncic motioning that the Warriors paid off the refs.

Let’s take a closer look here.

Like I said: Mavs fans, I’m sorry, but this is hilarious.

Let’s check out the defense on Stephen Curry’s dagger lay-up again.

What in the entire hell is Luka doing on the second screen set by Kevon Looney? Warriors get the soft switch from Reggie Bullock to Maxi Kleber 35 feet from the basket on the initial Draymond screen, then Looney comes up and Luka just … doesn’t engage at all. In fact, he complains about Green’s aggressive seal of Bullock before Curry even makes the lay-up.

Mavericks had two timeouts, they could have subbed defense for offense there if Luka wasn’t feeling mobile enough to switch screens. Alas.

The Mavericks are filing a protest based on the open lay-up disaster. Zach Lowe is correct that it would appear to be ill-fated at best. I think the official messed up seeing the clear confusion by the Mavericks and not clarifying. Clarity is important! On balance, though, the Mavericks got a more favorable whistle from my vantage point, though I wasn’t tracking everything carefully.