Earl K. Sneed, Mavs.com
Dallas Mavericks (31-19) at Golden State Warriors (13-36)
If you asked the Dallas Mavericks and Golden State Warriors, they'd each say that their squad needs a win more.
The two teams, who have split the first two games in the season series, will get their opportunity to prove the other squad wrong on Monday night in Oakland. The Mavericks enter limping, after dropping four of their last five contests. But if the Mavericks are limping, then the Warriors may need to be carried to the court. Golden State is in the midst of an eight-game losing streak.
But it's the Mavericks' play of late that has coach Rick Carlisle looking for more, challenging his team after suffering a 117-108 home loss to Minnesota on Friday night.
"I just think this team has more pride than they are showing. We'll keep studying it, but the answer is pretty obvious -- play harder," the coach said. "We need to dig down and find some pride. It's as simple as that."
(Photo by Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images)
Hard play will only go so far against the Warriors. The Mavericks must also find an answer for Warriors guard Monta Ells. The versatile lead guard recorded a 37-point night in Golden State's 111-103 road win in Dallas on Nov. 24. He followed that up with a career-high 46 points, albeit in a loss, in Dallas' 110-101 win on the American Airlines Center floor last Wednesday night. Stopping Ellis is priority No. 1 for Carlisle's crew.
"(Ellis) does it to everybody. That's why I'm not that discouraged. He lines you up one-on-one, jumps over you and shoots bombs. That happens, we adjusted, we went and trapped him. We switched defenders on him and trapped pick-and-rolls. He's just turned into a great offensive player. That's what you have to say and fortunately we survived it," Carlisle said after Ellis connected on 17-of-23 shots from the field and 4-of-6 from behind the 3-point arch last week.
The duty of containing Ellis will be a shared responsibility, guard Jason Terry said. So, the Mavericks' strategy entering the game will be to simply make the Golden State role players step up and win the game.
"With a player like that (Ellis), you try to get the ball out of his hands and make everybody else beat you," Terry said of the defensive strategy. "We'll try to come up with some kind of game plan. Hopefully he will miss a couple of those that he made (Wednesday night).
Offensively, the Mavericks will be looking to cut down on their recent spike in turnovers. Though the Mavericks have been one of the better teams in the NBA, in terms of protecting the ball, they have had more giveaways of late. It is a product of having to play from behind more and more, according to Carlisle.
"In some instances when you're behind, turnovers go up because you're trying to get back into it," the coach added. "The one thing that I would say is that it is uncharacteristic of us, looking at the whole sample of the year. We're a very good team, in terms of being about to be efficient with the ball and keeping the turnovers down. So, I think it's probably an aberrational type of situation, at least I hope."
While the entire Dallas squad will be looking to cut down on the turnover totals, the responsibility of keeping the second unit offensively efficient seems to have fallen to rookie Rodrigue Beaubois.Beaubois has assumed a bulk of the backup point guard duties, and the first-year standout is coming off of a career-high 17 points against Minnesota. Carlisle showed a great deal of confidence in No. 3, playing the young guard down the stretch of a close game.
"(Beaubois) was active. We all know he's made progress. Finishing a game like that is something he hasn't quite done...He certainly came up and made some plays. A couple times, he got in tough situations. But his intentions were very good and his effort was good. There were a few rookie mistakes in the fourth quarter that were costly, but he definitely played aggressively," Carlisle said.
Meanwhile, the rookie is feeding off of the coach's trust in the Guadeloupe native.
"It makes me feel comfortable, because he's showing that he is trusting me," Beaubois said. "I have to keep working to show him that he's right, and to help the team win games."
Beaubois will get another opportunity to impress on Monday night. The Mavericks-Warriors matchup will air locally on Fox Sports Southwest at 9:30 p.m. CT.
The Mavs then head to Denver on the second night of a back-to-back, concluding play before the All-Star break.
For up to the minute news on the Dallas Mavericks, visit Mavs.com. Follow Earl K. Sneed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/EarlKSneed.
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