Dallas Self-Immolates Without Pressure

In Game 1, Dallas committed a devastating 20 turnovers in its loss to Denver. Things were better in Game 2: the Mavericks coughed up the ball only 11 times, a decently low number considering the pace (93 possessions) of the game.

But of those turnovers, half came completely unforced. The Nuggets are a good defensive team, and all teams make mistakes. Every game. You expect the Nuggets to strip a few balls, force a 24-second violation or two. But on six plays in Game 2, Dallas lost possession because they lost focus, didn't communicate or got rattled. Those giveaways kill you, especially against elite great teams.

Here's a look at those critical flubs, with a nod to the style of Kevin Arnovitz of ClipperBlog/TrueHoop. All times approximate due to poor TiVo skills. All names approximate due to poor note-taking skills.

Q1, 2:46 remaining: Jason Terry takes the ball to the right corner, inside of the arc. He's stopped by the defense and quickly passes the ball back out to the top of the key. He fails to realize that J.R. Smith is standing between himself and his teammate, directly in the the path of the ball.

Q1, 0:07 remaining: J.J. Barea drives to the rim with the clock winding down. His path is blocked, so he wildly kicks out. To Chauncey Billups. As with the Smith steal, Billups just had to catch the ball. NBA players tend to be pretty good at that. Well, except for Kwame Brown.

Q2, 3:56 remaining: Jason Kidd drives and wildly kicks out to Dirk Nowitzki at the elbow. Except Dirk Nowitzki is not at the elbow. He's somewhere else. The ball bounces into the backcourt, where Terry and Billups give chase. If Terry touches it, a backcourt violation will be called and Denver will have the ball out-of-bounds. If Terry does not touch the ball, Billups will pick it up, rifle a bounce pass to Smith in the paint, and the Nuggets will get an easy deuce. Terry did not touch the ball.

Q4, 10:46 remaining: James Singleton travels in the lane. He jumped, allegedly to shoot or pass. He did neither, and attempted to pass it off as a tippy-toe step. It is unclear why James Singleton is handling the ball, other than the fact that both Terry and Nowitzki were on the bench, despite their status as Dallas' best offensive weapons (it's not close) and despite a deficit on the scoreboard for the Mavericks. Also, it is unclear why James Singleton needs to execute a jump-pass (he really didn't look like he was planning on taking a shot), considering that the much smaller Billups was the defender in front of him.

Q4, 9:03 remaining: As with the Kidd turnover in the second quarter, Terry threw the ball to where he believed Nowitzki would be, but Nowitzki was not in that location. This resulted in what the play-by-play denotes as "Carmelo Anthony makes dunk."

Q4, 6:57 remaining: Kidd loses the dribble under mysterious circumstances. Men of Puerto Rican descent collide as a result of a Denver fast break. Anthony lets Barea know everything's cool. Kenyon Martin would not have been so forgiving.

***

Again, the Dallas offense hummed for the most part. But the Mavericks could have been more efficient. Honestly, from my seats (couch, comfortable) it looked like one of the least sharp offensive efforts Dallas has offered in the past couple weeks. Dirk's shooting and great opportunism from Ryan Hollins and Brandon Bass pushed the numbers into the green zone, but that masks the very real offensive problems displayed. I mean, Dirk and Terry have been playing together for years. Kidd has been with the team for 15 months. They have all spent some 90 games in Rick Carlisle's system. Offensive miscommunication shouldn't be happening so many times in one game.

Dallas has got to protect the ball better. Losing some balls to Denver's jabby, stabby hands is to be expected. But the unforced miscues can't be repeated if the Mavericks stand a chance to win.