- 13 minutes ago
Chuck Cooperstein joined Shan, RJ, and Bobby to share his takeaways from the Dallas Mavericks. Cooperstein discussed Dusty May’s style of play, Cooper Flagg's second-year leap, and more.
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00:00Second one on the way. That's no good. But the rebound. Marshall got it to Washington.
00:05Throws it out beyond the arc to Flagg. What a play by Najee Marshall. Rebounding his own miss.
00:11Here's Flagg. On the move. Left of the lane. Pull up. Hits! Yes, he hits!
00:17And a tie-down by Rick Carlisle. And again, clutch magic.
00:22That is a call on your new home for Dallas Mavericks basketball.
00:27And we'll speak to how much fun they are and how much fun this guy is having in just a
00:32second.
00:32It is Chuck Cooperstein. Every hump day at this time.
00:35Here on Sean and RJ. Before we start with basketball, Chuck, I need you to be Judge Judy here.
00:43With the college football playoff rankings. Because you are a big college football fan.
00:48And I'm going to have... Go ahead, Bob.
00:50He's SEC. He's Florida. He's going to be like Choppy on this.
00:53Who wants to set it up for him? Because we have a battle and knockdown drag out every time between
00:59these two, Chuck.
01:00I need you to decide.
01:01Bobby thinks there should be no SEC teams.
01:03No, that's not what I think, Chuck.
01:05What I think is that there's way too much deference.
01:09It's the circular logic of giving credence to SEC losses.
01:14Like, so, oh, we're going to, you know, be okay with Alabama being a two-loss team above a Notre
01:19Dame or above a UCLA because they lost to other teams in the SEC.
01:25And I, like, think just the SEC love and slobbering from the CFP committee is way over the top.
01:32But he also says that...
01:33Bama should be outside the top five.
01:35But he also says that Bama would lose to UCLA.
01:38They would.
01:39Chuck?
01:41This should never be happening.
01:47It's an absolute disgrace what happens every Tuesday in the month of November.
01:54This should never, ever happen.
01:57Because all that happens is that we have dumb stuff like this taking up important time on your radio show.
02:06There is only one poll that matters, and that is the one on the morning of December the 6th.
02:12And that should be it.
02:14Because all that happens here is that the league or that the committee just boxes itself into a corner and
02:22tries to do gymnastics and very poorly at that.
02:25And trying to explain their logic where there is no logic.
02:31I mean, just get to the end.
02:33Tell us who's in.
02:34And tell us the match-ups.
02:36And let's go.
02:37We don't need this.
02:38But this is...
02:39No, it's an ESPN production.
02:42And ESPN wants embraced debate.
02:45It's what they're all about.
02:47And so it's here.
02:49But it's preposterous.
02:51It makes no sense at all.
02:52Well, and I must tell you, I mean, I watched the end of the first game of the Champions Classic
03:00last night when Michigan State beat Duke.
03:02And then they said, well, the CFP rankings are coming up.
03:05Next, I turned it off.
03:06I mean, I'm not watching it.
03:07I'm not wasting my time with that.
03:09Hang on.
03:10By the way, the final 10 minutes of that game took 50 minutes.
03:14Yes, it did.
03:15It did.
03:15And, again, at all levels of basketball, referees are afraid to make a call.
03:22Because they're basically allowing replay to try to bail them out.
03:27And they're taking way too long to do replay.
03:31We all know there should be a limit on replay.
03:34The NBA will tell you, well, you know, they do it in an average of like 45 seconds or whatever.
03:39I know that's not true.
03:42I mean, I'm living that with guys when guys like Ed Molloy are the lead officials.
03:47And they love nothing more than to go to the video and try to check things out.
03:52And there's a lot going on there.
03:55But as far as the playoff goes, fellas, tell me who's here on December the 5th.
04:00And that's all that really matters.
04:02Well, the NBA refs were not afraid of not making a call for Rick Carlisle as Rick was furious at
04:10the end of that game.
04:12A Mavericks win.
04:13Did you think it was a foul objectively?
04:16No, because Martin got the ball first.
04:19He knocked the ball away first before the contact took place.
04:23So, no, I didn't think there was a foul.
04:27But, again, you know, Rick could complain a lot more about what happened throughout the fourth quarter
04:33when the Mavericks, who had shot 14 free throws through three quarters, shot 20 in the fourth by themselves.
04:40You want to get mad at that?
04:42Get mad at that.
04:43The last play, yeah, you look at it because, obviously, it's super important.
04:48But that, in and of itself, that was not, in my opinion, was not a foul.
04:51Chuck Cooperstein, voice of the Mavs, here on Sean and RJ.
04:55I want to talk about your tweet from a couple days ago.
04:57Masai Ujiri said his first job as president was to bring joy back to the team and, by extension, the
05:03fans.
05:03The Mavs have played 11 games, mission accomplished.
05:06Whatever the record ultimately becomes, the Mavs are, again, a thing.
05:10Just expand on that a little bit, Chuck, with the brand of basketball they've started the season with.
05:16I mean, I don't know that there's a whole lot greater explanation needs to be made.
05:23Look, Cooper Flagg is terrific.
05:25The return of Kyrie has made a huge difference.
05:31The coaching, I think, of Dusty May and his staff and their preparation has been superb.
05:38They do play, I think, a pretty entertaining style of basketball.
05:43I mean, the ball moves.
05:45I haven't done the actual rankings of where they are as far as, like, passes completed and stuff like that.
05:52You know, there's a little classic golden state in how they play, which, to me, has always been the most
05:58entertaining way to play,
06:00even if it could be the most aggravating because you probably turn over the ball a little too much.
06:06You're trying to maximize possessions as much as possible.
06:09But the center, Daniel Gafford, is off to a terrific start in that he's healthy.
06:16He was never healthy last year, and so he's averaging right around two blocks a game.
06:22The game the other night was the first game he didn't have a block, let alone not, you know,
06:28he had two blocks in, like, nine of the first ten games that he played.
06:31So they're doing, Washington's playing really well.
06:35They've gotten contributions throughout the roster on individual nights.
06:40It's just, it's very encouraging to look at, and I think people are excited to see everybody contributing.
06:48I think, you know, fans are always interested, you know, they have their pets, right?
06:54You know, they want to see, like, their 10th guy, their 11th guy, you know,
06:57get a chance to play and show something.
07:00Well, you know, Dusty May has shown he'll do that because he'll play everybody pretty much.
07:04You know, there's only 240 minutes in the game.
07:07And you know that Cooper Flagg and Kyrie and PJ are probably going to get the majority of those minutes.
07:13So whoever else is playing really well on that night is going to be part of the rotation that night.
07:21And from a fan standpoint who wants to see the entire roster play and, you know,
07:27who always complains that, you know, this guy isn't getting enough minutes
07:30or this guy is getting too many minutes, I think you have to be pretty impressed
07:36with how he's managed all of this in the first 11 games.
07:40And I think that has people pretty excited.
07:42Coop, are you more surprised with how well Kyrie has looked health-wise
07:49or how far ahead of schedule this Mavs team seems to be right now?
07:55Well, I'm not surprised with Kyrie.
07:57I mean, look, it's 19 months.
07:59I do believe that had the Mavericks been better last year,
08:05that he probably would have been able to come back.
08:09He was, I think, pretty well on his way to coming back before he hurt his calf in December last
08:16year.
08:17So his recovery was always fine.
08:21I mean, look, I am surprised, maybe I shouldn't be, you know,
08:27about how much of a jump Cooper Flagg has made.
08:30It is the Luka jump from year one to year two.
08:34And Luka became a first-team All-NBA player in his second year.
08:38And Cooper Flagg is playing like a first-team All-NBA player right now.
08:42I don't know if he's going to get voted for that.
08:45But let's put it this way.
08:47When he plays, every opposition is accounting for him and what he is capable of doing.
08:56And even if they do account for him, sometimes he's just so good that it doesn't matter.
09:02And he goes for 43, 10, and 6.
09:06Chuck, you know, we got the back-to-back for the first time this season for Kyrie Irving.
09:10And it ended up playing substantial minutes in that second game after resting in the fourth quarter before that.
09:16Do you think we can start to see some more of that?
09:19Or was that just a unique situation where they were able to give him rest on Sunday so they could
09:22do that?
09:22What do you think we're going to see moving forward in terms of the back-to-back schedule?
09:26You know, Dusty May has made it pretty clear that it's pretty well on Kyrie.
09:31You know, how is he feeling on that particular day?
09:35They're not committing to playing one game or the other.
09:39Although I am fascinated about this weekend because it's Cleveland and Boston back-to-back.
09:44And those are two former Kyrie haunts.
09:47I mean, if you were just putting a gun to my head and saying if he's going to sit one,
09:52it would probably be in Boston.
09:54But I don't know.
09:55I mean, look, I think everybody's feeling really good about what they're doing and where they are.
10:01And if they are not, you know, overly taxing themselves, then I think we'll see, you know, we'll see a
10:10lot more of it.
10:11I mean, look, he did do this prior to the injury.
10:14It's not like he never played second games of back-to-backs or both games of back-to-backs.
10:20You know, the last time he did it was in January of 25, back-to-back games against Minnesota and
10:28Oklahoma City.
10:29And he killed it.
10:31He was fantastic in both of those games.
10:33So it's not to say he can't do it and not to say that he won't do it.
10:36But I do think it's a fluid situation right now.
10:39Chuck Coopistine, voice of the Mavericks, joining us here on 105.3 The Fan.
10:43Chuck, we've seen a couple of really nice performances, some flash and some games from Merez Johnson.
10:49He had a nice game against Utah a couple days ago and then obviously had the shin issue that kept
10:54him out on Monday.
10:56What do you think about just his development so far and how he can contribute to this team consistently as
11:01the season wears on?
11:03I think it's pretty clear how he can contribute.
11:05Look, he's not going to be Yaxa Lindenburg, okay?
11:08He's not going to be, you know, scoring 20 a night.
11:11That's not his game, never has been his game.
11:14But where he does contribute is doing a lot of the dirty work.
11:18That great teams all have.
11:21He will screen.
11:22He will crash the boards.
11:24He, especially on the offensive boards, had those 10 offensive rebounds against Utah.
11:28On defense, he's able to play out on the floor in space.
11:33I think the Mavericks could not be happier with him.
11:38I mean, I think they would just love to see him on the floor more.
11:40And I think that the Utah game was a sign that we are, you know, getting to that stage to
11:47where he can be counted on to play effectively in a longer stretch.
11:52You know, I don't know, and I haven't seen an injury report.
11:55The Mavericks don't have to put out an injury report for tomorrow's game with Minnesota until late this afternoon.
12:00But I would, given what Dusty May was saying in the pregame the other night, is that this is not
12:08a long-term issue.
12:10This is not a thing where they've got to limit him.
12:12And as long as he is available, he is going to see time because he does have those intangible traits
12:19that all good teams need.
12:20Does Minnesota know they don't have Ant?
12:23A four straight, eight and three.
12:26I loved the LaMelo trade for them.
12:29Everyone gave Charlotte more of the trade points in terms of winning.
12:34How has it worked out with LaMelo, with the Wolves on the schedule for tomorrow night?
12:39Well, Sean, I'm with you.
12:41I love that trade for Minnesota.
12:43I hated that trade for Charlotte for so many reasons.
12:47Other than that, it was simply kicking the can down the road for Charlotte.
12:50After 10 years of crappy basketball, they had an incredible second half of the season.
12:56They go 28-10, basically, to end the year with LaMelo.
13:01And, yeah, okay, ultimately they got in the play-in.
13:04They didn't win in the play-in.
13:06But you saw what was capable.
13:09And, obviously, now Charlotte is totally gone toes up here because Knipple hasn't played yet.
13:15And they got a whole bunch of other people hurt.
13:18But, you know, LaMelo puts people in seats.
13:22He makes people happy.
13:23And he has grown.
13:25His game has grown up.
13:26He's not the player he was in his second year where he's just, you know, firing away willy-nilly
13:32and just doing really dumb stuff.
13:34He's playing really disciplined basketball right now.
13:37And with Anthony Edwards out, you know, they've had to make sure that they take care of business
13:45because there is less room for error.
13:47But, look, they've got a veteran team, a really good team, and a really good coach in Chris Finch.
13:53You know, a team that's been in the conference finals and the second round of playoffs in each of the
13:58last three years.
13:59And they're playing at that level again.
14:01And this was a matchup last year for the Mavericks that was an absolutely terrible matchup for them.
14:07They lost four games by an average of 19 points.
14:10But, again, I'm going to assume that the Mavericks are going to be relatively close to healthy for the game
14:17tomorrow night
14:18and that they will give a much better accounting of themselves, and they're going to have to do that.
14:24Because if they don't, Minnesota is capable of knocking you around.
14:28I will say the Minnesota schedule here in the midst of this four-game winning streak that they're on,
14:33it hasn't necessarily been the strongest.
14:34I mean, you know, there was a Utah, there was a Milwaukee game in there, too.
14:38So, you know, they're not necessarily playing murderer's row during the stretch of games, but they're really good.
14:45And this is a really good road trip for the Mavericks to get an even better gauge of where they
14:51are.
14:51Awesome stuff.
14:52Thank you, Chuck.
14:53We appreciate it.
14:54Appreciate you guys.
14:55Take care.