So Millsap can't guard Dirk and Sloan should've known that heading into the game. Then what do you suggest? Should the Jazz have benched either Millsap and/or Jefferson and started Elson or Evans in his place - just to guard Dirk?
Correct. No offense to the Paperboy, but until he can figure out how to defend and score around Dirk, he's still eligible for starting against up to the other 28 or 29 teams in the league. Or just for formality, you start him and then sub him out long before 11 SECONDS LEFT IN THE FIRST QUARTER, when Evans came in for him. I'm sure that the team could've made up for Milly's ONE POINT (on 1-2 FTs, btw--long a criticism of other certain bigs on this team, whether they were available for this game or not) and TWO REBOUNDS that he managed in the first quarter.
If you do that and sit Millsap while Dirk is in the game - then you're admitting Millsap or Jefferson isn't a legitimate frontline player of the future.
By not starting Millsap (or by playing him less), you are merely admitting that Millsap isn't a legitimate frontline player against the Mavericks when Nowitzki and another 7-footer are in the game. Nothing to be too embarrassed about, especially regarding a second-round player who has mostly filled in nicely for the pompous stat-whoring windbag (now playing in the Windy City) that he replaced in the starting lineup. In any case, such lineup insights, my friend, can make a difference between beating a team or not, as the two L's logged this week against Carlisle's crew clearly demonstrate.
When your 2nd, 3rd, and 4th best players don't show up in the first half - that's on them - not the coaching staff.
Millsap's effort might have not been 100%, but he did "show up". He just has physical (and maybe some experience) limitations that prevent him from being effective against Nowitzki--just like Boozer did against the Twin Towers of Tinseltown in the playoffs. You're writing as if we haven't seen this scenario before. Heck--we saw it just three days prior, so the strengths and weaknesses of the Jazz vs. the Mavs should've been crystal clear, and there wasn't much variability in comparison; the players were pretty much the same. Playing less of Millsap wasn't the only glaring mistake that Sloan made in managing this game, but it was a pretty major one.
By the way, I'm not denying that the effort and focus of the players wasn't optimal. It just seems far less interesting (with far less information available) to analyze how to fix that. Besides, part of the job of a coaching staff is to either fix it or to find another combination that works. Given that first-quarter slump this has happened game after game, it shouldn't have been a surprise, ESPECIALLY since Utah had just played them three days prior. Off the top of my head, the adjustments were to play more of Elson, more of Price, more of Evans, more of Miles and less of Millsap (and maybe AK). Sloan probably did some or maybe even all of these things, but not enough--and not early enough. Furthermore, by the 6:44 mark in Q1, Sloan had expended two time outs and had solved the Hayward problem but didn't solve the Millsap problem, even though Dork had already logged 8 points and 2 assists. Dork and Careen (Caron) just kept on producing until they sat down when the lead was 29-4. That is what you call abysmal game management on the part of the Jazz coaching staff.
The information that was readialy available (before the game had even started) is what previous games against the Mavs (and other teams with a tall 4/5 tandems; the Fakers come to mind) have done to a Jazz lineup with an undersized PF, an undersized center, or both. And although Fes was out, Elson was available long before the 1:13 mark, when the Mavs had careened to a 25-point lead that the Jazz had managed to whittle down to 17 points at that point. By then, the hemorrhage was too much to overcome, just as the final score suggests.
And this is about odds. Like I said after the win in Portland and the loss to OKC - you don't fall behind by 15+ points and come back and win every time. The margin for error is too small down the stretch.
Maybe you don't have a background in statistics, but there is very little correlation between the two games. I'm only pressing this point because you are. If a team is doing everything else right, then luck ("odds") come into play. But if poor game planning, poor preparation by the players, and poor in-game management by the coaching staff (only a portion of which was explained above) is present, then odds have very little to do with it.
