There is a disturbing trend involving the Mavericks that could endanger their hopes of a repeat championship run (and possibly even a playoff spot). This trend is centered on the king of irrational confidence, Jason Terry. While the Jet hit a couple of the biggest shots in Mavericks’ History last year in the Finals, this year there is something different about his style and it’s hurting the team.
From a pure numbers point, Terry is having a down year without a doubt. His scoring is down a point a game from last year and almost a point and a half from his career average. His assists per game are down from 4.1 to 3.5. Jet’s shooting percentage as fallen below 43%, when his career average is around 45% and last year was slightly above it. His three-point percentage is only slightly below his career average, however all of these statistics (the 3-point % in particular) do not tell the whole story.
Jet has always been the Mavericks’ Irrational Confidence guy, something that every team needs. He is the guy that takes a shot that in the midst of an offense is a terrible shot and should have very little chance of going in (and little confidence from the shooter) but he is defiant to take it anyway (and hit it). The best example is the nail-in-the-coffin three-pointer he hit over LeBron James in the Finals last year. There’s no way in hell that he “should” have taken that shot, but because it was drilled, it brought momentum and actual confidence in the team. I think being this guy for the Mavericks for so long has gotten to Terry’s head.
While Jet’s three-point percentage is not significantly different, there is a factor that has increased in a negative way: three-point attempts. Terry is average over an entire attempt a game more this year than last year, while still taking the same number of total shots. This accounts for his decrease in overall field goal percentage. More importantly, this higher number of three-pointers shot shows that Jet is being less efficient and selective with his shooting.
What cannot be accounted for with numbers are the momentum shifts and fast breaks that have been affected by Terry’s play. At least once or twice a game, Jet will be part of an advantageous fast break (3 on 1, 4 on 2 etc.) and just pull up for a three rather than take it to the basket for either his own or a teammate’s easy layup. It cannot be directly correlated, but say he does this once a game, and every other time he either gets a layup or he gets an assist to a teammate’s layup. That would come out to about half an assist and a point a game, exactly what Terry is averaging less this season. Now he has made a few, so that the difference doesn’t completely show how many times he has done it, but no one can say that his black hole of a shot selection on fast breaks is good for a team averaging eight less points per game compared to last season.
The most troubling aspect of Terry’s play this season also cannot be shown with numbers: his late game performance. I am not doubting his entire fourth quarter performance as he is still near the top of the league in 4th quarter scoring, I’m talking about the last minute of the game. Dirk Nowitzki showed last season that he is the best closer in the league when he took the Mavs to the title. Jason Terry had his moments of closing games out, but his were more shots off of a double team on Dirk or a kick out from him. Very rarely did Jet take it upon himself and create his own shot in the late game situations and it be successful.
This season he has not deferred to Dirk. In a span of three games around the All-Star Break, all losses by the Mavericks, Terry directly contributed to the late-game failures. The first two games Terry tried to create too much without involving Dirk and had two turnovers in the last minute of each. The third game involved Dirk not even getting to touch the ball during the two most critical possessions as Jet took two long, fadeaway jumpers, one that grazed the iron and one that was an air ball. The latter of the situations even caused Dirk to express anger and frustration with the lack of cohesion in the Mavericks’ late game offense.
The Mavericks are a measly 6-9 in games decided by five points or less, including losing four of their last five such games after going 19-11 last year in them. They are averaging 92 points per game compared to 100 last season (and yes, I know the entire NBA is down in scoring, but not by 8 points a game). Are these directly because of Jason Terry alone? No, Lamar Odom shoulders a lot of the blame as well. However, if this team wants to make another playoff run then Jet has to know his role. He has to remember that there are times for the irrational confidence shots: just not all of the time. Take the easy layup if it’s given to you. Most importantly, in the case of a close game late, the easy layup is giving the ball to the Big German and watching his greatness.
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