Looking at the Mavericks -- Again.

I've been dedicating a lot of space to this Jason Kidd thing and made it clear that I wasn't a huge fan of the trade for Dallas. So far Dallas has lost to teams it probably should have lost to, and beat teams it probably should have beat. So it looks like a lateral move so far. I wanted to take a look at what's been hurting Dallas since the trade.

So here's a look at what opposing guards have done against Dallas since the trade.

Chris Paul - 31 pts (11-20), 5 reb, 11 ast
Mike Conley / Javaris Crittenton /Kyle Lowry - 33 pts (12-30), 7 reb, 7 ast
Rashad Mccants - 17 pts (8-15), nothing else worth mentioning.
Ben Gordon - 25 pts (9-20), 2 reb, 4 ast
Manu Ginobli /Tony Parker - 27 (11-33), 10 reb, 9 ast
Beno Udrih - 25 pts (10-16), 5 reb, 5 ast
Kobe Bryant - 52 pts (15-27), 11 reb, 4 asst
Deron Williams - 17 pts (7-17), 5 reb, 20 ast

That's 227 points on ~47% shooting. Over 28 points a game. Compare this against Dallas having held opponents to 44.84% shooting on the season and it becomes clear why they're struggling against elite competition. Since Kidd's arrived Dallas has kept up it's overall defense keeping opponents at 44.48% shooting. So it looks like the interior defense has held up after losing Diop, which is somewhat surprising.

I'm clearly no John Hollinger, but you get the point.

Of course it's not fair to pin the recent outbursts from opposition guards solely on Jason Kidd. If you look at this list of players who (mostly) excelled against Dallas you see the majority of these guys are quicker guards who would have been covered by Harris on the defensive end.

There's some truly elite players in there, but for every Kobe on that list there's a Beno. It's not exactly uncommon for NBA teams, but Dallas now looks helpless against guard penetration. It's going to be difficult to find an answer for this problem between now and the playoffs with Jason Terry as probably the quickest guy on the roster, but also a guy who's best described as "kind of okay" defensively.

Then again Dallas offense has looked majestic for stretches since Kidd arrived, so they may be able to overcome their defensive shortcomings.

Also worth noting, Erick Dampier is playing like a guy who's worth almost two thirds of his contract now.