Copying Mavs’ formula easier said than done

The Mavs' offense works in large part because of Dirk Nowitzki's ability as a shooter and decoy. (EPA)

In wondering whether shooting guard Michael Redd might be an appealing high-risk, low-price free-agent target for the Celtics, Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com mentions a sentiment that has been bubbling up all over the league since the Mavericks won the title:

Celtics coach Doc Rivers referenced Dallas’ shooting abilities as a primary asset in topping the Miami Heat in this year’s NBA Finals and has said that Boston needs to improve in that area next season.

Professional sports is a copycat world, and this kind of modeling happens each season, with thinkers around the NBA considering what the latest champion might be able to teach them about winning basketball. The 2010-11 Mavs seem to have left two general takeaways:

• You need as much shooting as possible.

• You can win with a smallish backcourt. There’s some truth to that, and it’s something fans and executives linked to any team with an undersized backcourt (hi, Golden State!) have repeated ad nauseam since the season’s end.

These annual knee-jerk extrapolations strike me as both useful and overblown. There is no single model for winning an NBA title; doing so requires luck, health and the right playoff draw. Translating lessons from one team to another also ignores the context of each club. The Mavericks are able to play small backcourts for several reasons unique to their personnel — their ability play zone-style defenses; the fact that Jason Kidd can defend many small forwards and bigger shooting guards; and their unusual length on the inside, especially that of Tyson Chandler.

On the other hand, it’s good to remind everyone that shooting is important, especially because the “defense wins championship” mantra often dominates discussion of the league. There is evidence that having a great defense is slightly more important, in terms of a team’s likelihood of winning a championship, than having an elite offense, but the basic reality of basketball is that it is best to be very good at as many things as possible. It’s not a coincidence that the Finals featured two of the three teams to rank among the top-10 in both points scored and allowed per possession (the Lakers were the third). And while defense might be a tad more central to the construction of a winner, this remains true: Of the 44 teams that have made the Finals since 1989, only eight have ranked less than half a point above the league-average points-per-possession mark in that particular season, according to Basketball-Reference. In other words: Even being average offensively and making the Finals is unusual.

People laughed at the Seven Seconds or Less Suns, deriding them as a soft, offense-first team that couldn’t get stops in the playoffs. But the Phoenix model — off-the-charts offense, average defense — is a perfectly acceptable way to compete, even if a bit more balance might be ideal. Dallas’ defense was better than average, but if the Mavs’ legacy is to remind all of us that you need to, you know, score to win, that is a useful thing. It’s a bit ridiculous, when you think about it, that anyone needs to be reminded that shooting is sort of important in basketball.

Still, we have to be careful assuming that the “get as much shooting as possible!” thing will work everywhere. Again, the 2011 Mavericks had some unique advantages that other teams, including Boston, won’t be able to duplicate. First among those is Dirk Nowitzki, the greatest shooting big man ever, a player whose presence in the post, as a pick-and-roll partner or spot-up decoy behind the arc creates huge chunks of space for his teammates. Stretch power forwards like the Celtics’ Kevin Garnett and the Heat’s Chris Bosh can approximate this effect, though neither has Nowitzki’s range.

Dallas was also fortunate in that every one of its primary ball-handlers — Kidd, J.J. Barea, Jason Terry and even Nowitzki — was at least a league-average three-point shooter, capable of maintaining that percentage while shooting often. This will never be the case for Boston as long as Rajon Rondo runs the point, and it won’t be the case in Miami until LeBron James or Dwyane Wade makes a shooting leap neither has managed so far.

The Mavs had their poor shooters in exactly the right places. Their core lineups featured two such players, at most: Chandler and Shawn Marion. Chandler’s lack of range didn’t hurt because Dallas had so much shooting elsewhere and teams expect little from their center, anyway. Chandler is athletic, smart and fast enough to create his own kind of spacing issues by cutting hard on pick-and-roll plays, making a catch on the move and finishing. That sounds simple, but not every center can do it.

Marion is a non-threat from outside 15 feet or so, but he understands that, and he has learned to punish defenses who play off him. He’d often head to the baseline area, near the corner, and cut hard into the paint when his man inevitably left him to contain a pick-and-roll or some other Nowitzki-centric crisis. The Mavs are great at hitting Marion in stride as he enters the paint, setting him up for a floater, drive or dish. He is a release valve, rarely a primary ball-handler whose lack of shooting messes up the primary action.

Shooting is obviously crucial. The more you have, the better your team will space the floor and score. But be wary of expecting your favorite team to duplicate Dallas’ success just because it signs some shooters. Every team is unique.