Thunder Vs. Mavericks: Will It Be The Dirk Nowitzki And Kevin Durant Show?

The Oklahoma City Thunder and Dallas Mavericks put on a pretty entertaining show in the Western Conference Finals last season. It's unclear if they'll be able to replicate that performance when the two teams meet on Wednesday night, but it should be an interesting barometer to see exactly where both teams rank at this juncture in the season.

The marquee match-up to watch is likely going to be between Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Durant as they're both two of the best, most unique scorers in the planet, but those two are going to be talked about plenty when the ESPN broadcast begins 8 p.m. ET.

Instead of talking about the two leading scorers on their respective teams, SB Nation's Mavs Moneyball had an excellent breakdown of (usual) back-up guard Rodrigue Beaubois and his late-game execution with the majority of the Mavs' starters.

At least his fastbreak defense is partially captured by the numbers. The Mavs give up 122.55 Points per 100 Fastbreak Possessions. With Roddy this value decreases to 105.81. Also Roddy is no longer eating up possessions like crazy but embracing the point-guard role. In his two consecutive starts at the point, the team posted a high in overall Assist-Rate and AST/TOV-ratio when Roddy was on the floor.

He leads the team in PER among all regular rotation players and posts the best WS48/WP48 numbers among all guards on the team. He closed the gap between Kidd and him in Assists per 100 Possessions and actually leads the guard position in fewest Turnovers per 100 Possessions.

I'd say right now, it's hard no to get excited.

There's a good chance more people will be excited about the Durantula facing Dirk on Wednesday night, but Beaubois isn't a bad consolation prize.

For more on the Thunder, check out Welcome to Loud City. For more on the Mavericks, be sure to visit Mavs Moneyball.