anyone that thinks Finley is expendible hasn't seen the Mavs play. As Finley goes, so go the Mavs.

Dirk is a power forward, plain and simple, and holds his own fine there. He is definitely not a 3. The problem is when he has to spend half of his minutes filling in at the 5, which is far too often. Assuming Harris advances enough to take the lead at PG, I'd plug Stack into the starting lineup for Finley and would bring Terry off of the bench as a 1/2. Finley would be my 2/3 spark that could hopefully come in and drain some 3's. I'd like to see KVH pretty much strictly backing up Dirk at the 4. With the current roster, I think Hendu is the best backup option at 5, but that is definitely an area ripe for an upgrade.

I'd also like to see this team find a defensive specialist as a 2/3 backup. Somebody like Greg Buckner who can come in and get in an opposing scorer's jock. I thought they really missed a guy like that against Houston, to put on McGrady.

Back in 2001, it looked like the Mavs were on the right track.

1-Nash
2-Finley
3-Dirk
4-Juan Howard
5-Bradley

Yeah, Bradly wasn't the answer at the 5 (although his stats that year definately compared to Damp's this year) but Howard had a lost post game and allowed Dirk to the play the perimeter.

Playing the post (and not having a PG to play the "Pick and Pop" is causing Dirk to go nuts. He hates playing the 5. He can play the 4, but he is really a tweener between the 3 and 4.

I think Avery needs to focus on what appears to be the building block of the team:

1 - Harris
2 - Daniels
3 - Howard
4 - Dirk
5 - P-Pod

Obviously, P-Pod isn't ready to start, and Harris may not be next year either. But they both need to start getting minutes. I think Daniels proved last year that he was capable of starting. Maybe his injury slowed him down this year and he digressed. If he's not ready to start, I guess it's a toss-up between Finley and Stack at the 2.

Until Harris is ready to start, I guess we have to continue starting Terry. At the 5, we need to go with Damp until P-Pod is ready.

Van Horn is a solid back-up to Dirk, if he can stay healthy that is.

quote:

---

anyone that thinks Finley is expendible hasn't seen the Mavs play. As Finley goes, so go the Mavs.

---

and anyone that has seen Finley play this year, especially in the post-season, would realize that the Mavs need to make sure this changes, as Finley as quickly approaching "he's had it" territory. if you are going to give 35 minutes to a 2 who rewards you with 8 points, 1 rebound, and sub-par defense, as Finley did far too many times this year, then you need to start cutting his minutes and finding a different factor to hitch yourself to.

Dirk is the starting PF. If the Mavs try to move Dirk back to SF they might as well just give up

exactly. Dirk has a bigger problem guarding quicker players than he does with the bigger guys. he's also more effective offensively against the bigger players because they have to give him more room so he won't drive past them - which opens up his jumper. he's not as good in the post, which is where his advantage should be if he was playing the 3. if you look at his offensive struggles in the post-season, it was when he had a smaller guy on him that would gaurd him ferociously out past the 3 point line (see McGrady in the H-town series). he couldn't get room for his outside shot, he had a tough time keeping them from slapping the ball out of his hands, and he wasn't very effective when he tried to take them down low.

he's been in the top 7-9 in rebounding 2 of the past 3 seasons, so he's plenty adequate at rebounding. he's not that bad of a defensive matchup at the 4 against most of the West, and he'd be a worse matchup on a quicker 3.

Dirk is really tweener between the 3 and 4, which causes match up problems both good and bad. On the good side, he's too fast for a typical 4 to guard him. On the bad side, as Bob eluded too, he's a little too slow against most 3s (both on O and D). He can catch and shoot over a typical 3 but he needs a PG to feed him the rock. He doesn't have that now so he tries to create his own shot.

If Dirk is going to stay at the 4, he has to work on getting stronger. Right now he doesn't really have the physique to bang around with most big men. He's tall enough at 7' but you see how he wears down as a game goes on.