Rick Carlisle insists that the Mavericks’ actual move to have Harrison Barnes play exclusively at small forward didn’t happen until the last two games.
No doubt, he’s right about that. He knows his team a little better than the rest of us. Carlisle said that up until the last two games, Barnes was putting in two-thirds of his time at power forward.
But Barnes has been a true small forward more than a power forward for more than just the past two games. It’s been morphing that direction since Feb. 26. In the 17 games since then, Carlisle has started two legitimate big men - usually Dirk Nowitzki and Dwight Powell - with Barnes as the small forward.