What We Learned From Mavs 94, Wizards 93? Jason Terry Should Be The Starting 2-Guard

David Lord -- DB.com

    Since the return of Josh Howard, Rick Carlisle has struggled to find a suitable rotation that has the right mix of size, offense, defense, and so on, while also giving all of his main core enough minutes. Most of the experimentation has been at shooting guard, where for a while JJ Barea started in order to allow Josh Howard to get back into the mix after his injuries. Then eventually Josh was promoted to the starting lineup. Jason Terry stayed in his customary sixth-man role.
   But after watching Dallas’ 94-93 win at Washington on Wednesday – a night on which Josh Howard was inactice with a stomach virus, a game in which Jet started -- I'm convinced there's a better way.

   The Mavs need to permanently take Jason Terry out of that sixth-man slot and make him a starter at the 2-guard.

   That switch would put Jet in games right from the outset alongside Kidd, in a very natural role. Kidd would be in place with his size to help defend the big SG's, and it would inject Jet's scoring spark into a starting lineup which too often has struggled to find the hoop in the first quarter, with Kidd there to feed him when he's open.

    We know that when the flow breaks down, Jet and Dirk are very comfortable playing the two-man game -- which would also get Dirk going earlier than he usually does.

    But most importantly, this team badly needs Jet to be a consistent impact player like he was last season, and this is the most logical way to get him going every game right from the outset.

    Besides, out of the three candidates, isn't he the closest to a real shooting guard on the team? What's wrong with starting with your best five players?
   When Barea was starting, I didn't like a lot of things:
   *It put both of the Mavs PGs on the floor at the outset. That leaves no one available to come off the bench to push the pace harder, when everyone on both teams starts getting a bit winded.
   *Because Barea's style is to dominate the ball – that’s not a criticism, by the way; Dallas has a need for that -- he could spark the offense …but he could also over-dribble and unintentionally chill out the others, keeping teammates from getting in an early offensive rhythm. 
   *Off the bench it was J-Ho and Jet. On paper, in theory, they are both guards. But in actuality I think they are unable to play alongside each other at guard since neither is a PG.
    *In the psychological pecking order, what was it doing to the heads of long-time key players J-Ho and Jet to see a somewhat gimmicky lineup with a 5-10 shooting guard starting and both of them sitting? Did they press a bit when they went in?
   *When you have J-Ho and Jet sitting and then entering the game trying to make an impact, how hard is it to find a place to slide someone else in for some minutes? The trickle-down of JJB starting: The mix led to some extremely short rotations.

   But there's been a lot I don't like with J-Ho starting as well:
   *Starting puts him in a position where he can go shot-hunting early in the game while everyone else is getting in the flow, and sometimes he's like a shot addict. The more he misses, the more he seems to look for another shot to get some points on the board.
    *As the "starting shooting guard," is it a position that he feels requires him to live up to the title of "shooter"? I suspect so, and certainly don't like that mindset because his greatest potential is as an athletic all-round player who runs and rebounds, rather than an emphasis on scoring at any cost.
    *J-Ho starting has left Jet and JJB on the bench together. Both are able to be contributors, but both are quite undersized. That's left Carlisle with the substitution choice to either be very small or to cut minutes for someone … and you will notice that JJB's minutes have been cut greatly.

     While I don't think he needs to be played 30 minutes each game, he definitely has more to offer than he's had the chance to give lately.
    With Howard out sick on Wednesday, Carlisle chose to start Jet rather than JJB. Is this just a temporary fill-in? Perhaps. But I hope it's more than that. I liked what I saw. 

   *Right from the start, the Mavs offense was clicking, racing to a 25-15 lead before the substitutions began after 10 minutes. The Mavs made 10 baskets in that span, with assists on seven. The ball was moving – not “sticking,’’ as the game’s defensive hero, Shawn Marion, said the other day.

    *Jason Terry was 3-of-5 (and 2-of-2 on 3's) for eight points in that game-opening stretch. And he ended up 9-of-16 on the night with 21 points, with key baskets down the stretch like we saw last year (nine points in the last 7:26) and with a heavy load of 41 minutes.

    *Dirk, typically a slow starter, scored 10 in the first quarter. Maybe that’s because other mates weren’t shot-hunting … leaving Nowitzki to be a first option.

     *The solid shooting carried over to the rest of the game, as the Mavs shot 46 percent from the field.

      In a game that required the Mavs get a successful stop on the last possession to get the win, there were still plenty of areas for improvement.

     J-Ho's normal minutes were divided among Ross, Carroll, and Singleton, and while all three played hard and provided effective minutes here and there, in 25 minutes they were a combined 2-of-6, for five points, with two rebounds and two turnovers. That can be a lot better, and presumably would be with J-Ho playing those minutes.

   Barea and others got more minutes with J-Ho under the weather, but JJB failed to capitalize with a miserable 1-of-10 shooting night. A closer-to-normal shooting night from the PGs (with Kidd going 2-of-10, they were a combined 3-of-20  …Ouch!) and the Mavs win this one in a breeze.
   Going forward? Again, even once J-Ho is well, I'd love to see Jet continuing to start. Not only could it continue to provide that initial jump-start we saw in Washington, but it sets up the first players off the bench as J-Ho and JJB, who arguably combine to have the mix in size and ball-handling needed to play the guard positions alongside each other, who can push the pace, and who can provide different advantages by their play. There'd be an offensive sparkplug and a defensive whiz waiting to make an impact as needed. And with a Kidd-Terry starting duo and a Barea-Howard backup pairing, Carlisle could even rotate them in pairs and this team would never have to go small again at the guards. (Let the fireworks begin for that possibility!)
   It was only one game. We don't know where things are going from here. Heck, Carlisle can justify plopping J-Ho right back into the starting unit when he recovers.

    But here's one vote for a change, a change that I believe puts a number of Mavs in individual positions to succeed: Jason Terry should be the starting 2-guard.