There was a stretch there where it looked like Justin Anderson had fallen out of the Mavs rotation. He was getting low single-digit minutes and a few DNPs, and obviously his scoring was way down. Wes Matthews’ uninjured presence had made Anderson redundant on the roster, as Matthews does the same things that Anderson does, but he does them all way better.
That’s probably fine for Mavs fans, who I sense have gotten a little bit tired of Anderson thinking he’s some kind of sharpshooter from distance. He did go three-of-six on three-pointers in this game, as well as three games ago, but those games sandwiched an 0-fer on four attempts against the Knicks. What he really should be doing is skying constantly for furious putback dunks like he did in the first month of the season; my first monthly dunkilation this year was replete with Anderson putbacks, and they were all distinctly “furious” in quality.
While we’re on the subject, Dwight Powell needs to dunk it more often. Everybody says that Rick Carlisle is a good coach but if he can’t tell his guys to more frequently execute slam dunks, how good of a coach is he really?