Dallas Mavericks: Amount Of Assets Doesn’t Challenge OKC

The Dallas Mavericks looked sluggish and mismatched against the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 1 as their key players had little to no impact on the game.

The Dallas Mavericks suffered the most embarrassing loss of the first day of NBA playoff action thanks to the Oklahoma City Thunder. After a 108-70 beatdown, the team were left wondering what went wrong.

As Charlie Villanueva and JaVale McGee entered the game in the third quarter, looking to erase a 40-plus point deficit for the Mavs, it became apparent that this first-round matchup was even more lopsided than we thought. The Dallas roster has an average age of 29.8, while the OKC roster is at 27.o (via RealGM), but after taking a look at Game 1, it seemed like a much bigger gap.

The troubles simply stemmed from the lack of production from anyone not named Dirk Nowitzki. The 37-year-old added 18 points to the equation, but that was the only double-digit number for the Mavs in terms of points, rebounds and assists.

The next highest scorer on the team was Dwight Powell with eight points. He tied Zaza Pachulia for the most rebounds on the team at six and Deron Williams and J.J. Barea each had three assists.

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If you want to dive a little deeper into just how bad things got, take a look at the +/- values for each starter:

• Wesley Matthews: minus-40
• Williams: minus-32
• Nowitzki: minus-28
• Salah Mejri: minus-22
• Barea: minus-18

It was just that kind of night for the leaders on the team.

Once it was determined that the Mavs and Thunder would be meeting in the first round, the Thunder were given the obvious edge due to the fact that they have two of the best 10 players in the NBA right now, but the advantage goes deeper than that.

For what is sometimes looked at as a weaker bench for a contending team, the Thunder hold a pretty big edge in terms of role players. We know that Nowitzki, Durant and Westbrook are the centerpieces of their respective teams, but it’s what surrounds them that makes up the success of each squad.

For the Mavs, Matthews leads the way, as Chandler Parsons is out for the season, then you have Williams and Barea, who are both still struggling with injuries, along with Raymond Felton and Pachulia, who struggled mightily against the bigger players from OKC.

While the Mavs use more of their bench than other teams, since they have an aging superstar, teams like the Thunder don’t have to do that, as their stars can play nearly an entire game if they have to.

That means OKC head coach Billy Donovan doesn’t dive as deep into the bench, as they can sometimes get away with using Randy Foye, Dion Waiters, Enes Kanter and Nick Collison as their only reserves.

In Game 1, a big problem for the Mavs was size. OKC had six blocks and used the bodies of Kanter, Steven Adams and Serge Ibaka to their advantage. While the Mavs attempted to counter with Pachulia, Mejri and McGee, they were ultimately not successful due to either inexperience or lack of skill when matched up against younger players.

The simple fact of the matter is that, even with a deep bench consisting of many players that can contribute, the athleticism and strength of OKC outweighs the Mavs’ veteran impact.

This wasn’t necessarily as big of a problem in the regular season, as the contests between the two teams on Nov. 22 (117-114 OKC) and Jan. 22 (109-106 OKC) provided some very competitive finishes that came down to the final play of the game.

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Using role players is one of the biggest keys to playoff success, and with no advantage in that category for Game 1, the Dallas Mavericks will have to hope for some type of change before this series gets completely out of hand … if it hasn’t gotten to that point already.