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The Spurs were defeated by the Mavericks in Dallas this evening, 107-102. After allowing the Mavericks to open a 10 point gap with under 4 left to play, the Spurs nearly pulled off the comeback but were stopped short by the same underwhelming defensive performance that plagued us the entire game. “The Notebook” often serves as a vehicle for placing games in the season’s broader narrative. It is a space in which I like to feel comfortable giving a slightly literary interpretation of what occurred on the court. But tonight some very concrete things went wrong so let’s get down to business.

It is infrequent that I criticize Popovich’s defensive decisions. Our defensive woes are most often the by-product of lack of effort, poor execution, or just plain inability. But tonight I felt Popovich made multiple tactical errors down the stretch.

The most notable of these errors was his decision to trap players (primarily Jason Kidd and Dirk Nowitzki) who had control of the ball in the space from the top of the arc to the free throw line. Swift ball movement to the wings produced two common outcomes: A second pass to setup the corner three or successful penetration (sometimes by the wingman, sometimes by a third cutter). In some ways this flipped the strength of the Spurs’ defense on its head: Our bread and butter is our interior and perimeter defense while we are often soft in the middle. This evening we allowed for easy penetration and open 3-pointers in order to protect against the mid-range jumper.

The theory behind this wasn’t entirely without logic: The Mavericks are neither a great 3-point shooting team nor are they often able to consistently produce penetration. Dirk and Kidd are not particularly strong off the dribble (at least not at this point in their careers) and Howard was noticeably hampered by an injured ankle, making him an unlikely threat to drive. On the flip side, Nowitzki, Howard, and Terry are all very potent mid-range shooters. Normally we allow teams to take the mid-range shot while getting in position to assuredly nab the board. Assuming that strategy would not work was reasonable. But after we failed to hold them under 27 points a quarter for the first 3 quarters, in-game adjustments seemed equally reasonable.

Those adjustments never came. Up until the end of the game, the Spurs continued to execute the same trap defense and the Mavericks continued to exploit it. The most demoralizing moment was Jason Kidd’s wide-open corner 3-pointer with 31 seconds left to play. Although admittedly, Josh Howard’s effortless layup (despite a bum ankle) with 58 second left was nearly as deflating. No improbable heroics were required of the Mavericks to down the mighty Spurs. We merely continued to employ the same flawed defensive strategy for 48 minutes and Dallas continued to undermine it in an obvious but nonetheless effective manner.

Down the stretch, I would have preferred seeing us play the Mavs straight up. We defend the pick and roll as well as anyone in the league and we match up with this team reasonably well one-on-one. This is an instance in which our highly cerebral coach out-smarted himself. A man-to-man approach with interior traps and straight up perimeter coverage would have been a more effective game plan.

We lost this game on the defensive end of the floor but our offense did not escape without blame. Before I perform my nightly ritual of repeating the word “penetration” over and over, I’d like to recognize the defensive intensity with which the Mavericks played this evening. The Mavericks treated this as a must win game. Coming off a disappointing loss to a Durant and Green-less Thunder, Dallas needed an emotional victory (not to mention that their playoff spot is far from secure) and they got it. But not without some help from an unsophisticated offensive effort from the Spurs.

(Deep Breath)

Penetration. Penetration. Penetration. I don’t care how well Erick Dampier played. When half of the opposing frontcourt is composed of Dirk Nowitzki, you are not facing a great interior defensive team. We should be able to reach the rim and reach it often. But we continually settled for mid-range and perimeter shots. It wasn’t as egregious as some games. At points we seemed genuinely unable to make our way into the paint. But feeding Duncan the ball 15 feet away from the hoop or failing to space out sufficiently on the wings didn’t help our cause. The centerpiece of our failed comeback attempt was Parker’s determination to get into the lane but it was too little, too late.

A 102 point night from the Spurs is nothing to scoff; like I said, our defense lost us this game. But I want our focus on reaching the rim to be damn near psychotic. For obvious reasons it is the most efficient shot possible and between one of the NBA’s quickest point guards, the greatest power forward ever to play the game, and ball movement that is as crisp as any in the Association, we shoud be finding easy buckets in the lane against a team as defensivly fallible as the Mavs (no matter the level of effort they bring).

Listen, tonight’s game is no reason to freak out. There need be no wailing and gnashing of the teeth. While facing a playoff-caliber team who played its guts out, we executed a flawed plan with little enthusiasm and still barely lost. It’s disappointing because putting it that way makes it painfully clear how close we claim to recording the W. But splitting the season series against our old rival ain’t so bad. It gives us a little something to look forward to next season.

If we can’t pull off a convincing victory over the Wizards at home on Friday, you may commence with the wailing and the gnashing of the teeth.