Still though, Barnes is better than he has any right to be when he signed in Dallas last summer. Maybe the better passing will come next season. With Nerlens Noel imprisoned in the Phantom Zone, the Mavericks desperately miss a vertical spacing threat to cause defenses to collapse and give their shooters and drivers more room to operate. Salah Mejri is an OK roll man, but he isn’t exactly lighting streaking across the lane. Teams aren’t scared of a Salah roll and don’t really compensate for it. For most of this season, outside of whatever Dennis nba mt coins Jr. conjured up, it felt like the Mavs were just a weak side-to-side nba mt coins with no threat of forcing a defense to make difficult decisions outside of the occasional Smith drive or Barnes post-up.

Powell helped change that Monday night in his 23 minutes, scoring six points. The line doesn’t look impressive (six points, four rebounds), but having Powell’s speed in the pick and roll allowed the Mavericks to play faster and probe deeper into the paint thanks to Boston having to account for Powell’s rim-dives whenever he was on the floor. Smith wasn’t great nba mt coins, finishing with just eight points on 4-of-16 shooting. It was a supremely difficult matchup, going against the long and feisty arms of Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown while also trying to guard Kyrie cheap nba 2k18 coins, who torched Dallas for 47 points.