Dallas Mavericks

By Doc319@yahoo.com (David Friedman) The final game of the quintupleheader featured two Western Conference teams with similar records but vastly different roster compositions; the veteran laden Mavericks are hoping/praying that they can put everything together to make one more Finals run, while the youthful Trail Blazers hope that this season they will make the first of many consecutive playoff appearances. The Mavs are led by 2007 MVP Dirk Nowitzki, who scored 24 of his game-high 30 points in the first half. Nowitzki's reputation has probably never completely recovered from Dallas' collapse in the 2006 NBA Finals and shocking first round upset loss to Golden State the folowing year but by any objective measure he is still one of the league's top players. The Mavs broug...   [read the full post]

By Doc319@yahoo.com (David Friedman) The Lakers have been called the deepest and most talented team in the NBA. As I wrote in my article about the difference between talent and depth, the Lakers are certainly a deep team in terms of having 10 players who can competently play at least 10 mpg if necessary--though the same thing could also be said of the Cavs--but the Lakers do not have the same amount of talent contained on the rosters of previous teams that won 65-plus games (as the Lakers are on pace to do). The reality is that Kobe Bryant is the only Laker who is among the top 20 players in the NBA and the Lakers are more dependent on him for their success than many people are willing to acknowledge; there have been several games this year that the Lakers would have lost without clutch pla...   [read the full post]

By Doc319@yahoo.com (David Friedman) Back to the game at hand, Stackhouse answered Ariza's three point play by draining a three pointer to cut the Lakers' lead to 97-92. Terry then made two free throws and Gasol countered with two free throws of his own. Stackhouse made a pair of free throws and Erick Dampier split a pair of free throws to bring Dallas to within 99-97. Bryant turned the ball over and then Ariza and Fisher missed open three pointers created when Dallas trapped Bryant but the Mavericks were not able to take advantage at the other end of the court as Stackhouse and Nowitzki each missed jumpers. Ariza made a nice defensive play by blocking a Stackhouse jumper with just one second left on the shot clock and after the ensuing inbounds pass Dallas committed a 24 second shot cl...   [read the full post]

By David Friedman(noreply@blogger.com) Love committed his fourth foul going for a help side defensive block when Reyshawn Terry got loose and drove to the hoop attempting to throw down a monster dunk. That is an example of how a big guy can get saddled with fouls because of poor defensive play by his teammates, as opposed to the earlier fouls which were entirely Love's own doing. Love went to the bench with four fouls in the first 6:54 and Dallas leading 17-10. He sat out the rest of the quarter and Dallas led 21-14 after the first 10 minutes (summer league quarters are 10 minutes, not 12). Terry topped Dallas with five points, while Love and Corey Brewer paced Minnesota with four points each. Brewer shot 2-9 from the field, missing his last seven attempts, most of them jump shots.   [read the full post]

By noreply@blogger.com (David Friedman) 3) As long as the San Antonio Spurs have Tim Duncan and Gregg Popovich they are going to be a formidable team. Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili are perfect complements to Duncan and the Spurs do an excellent job of finding veteran players who fit in perfectly to their system. Barring injuries or a marked decline by Duncan, the Spurs should be right back in the mix as a contender. 12) Point blank, it seems like the Mavericks have never recovered from blowing a 2 3/4 games to 0 lead over the Miami Heat in the 2006 Finals; one more good quarter and they might have swept Diesel and Flash but it's been all downhill for the Mavs since Gary Payton hit one of his few playoff field goals in 2006. The Mavs still have a very good team but it just seems like the rest of the to...   [read the full post]

By noreply@blogger.com (David Friedman) 2006 NBA Finals: The Mavs held Shaquille O'Neal to a playoff career-low five points and led by as many as 27 points before eventually winning 99-85 over the Heat. Dirk Nowitzki led Dallas with 26 points and 16 rebounds, while Dwyane Wade was unable to take advantage of all the defensive attention showered on O'Neal, finishing with 23 points on 6-19 shooting. After the Spurs won two blowouts in San Antonio, the Pistons returned the favor with blowout wins in Detroit in games three and four and if Rasheed Wallace had not foolishly left Robert Horry open behind the three point line near the end of game five then the Pistons would have headed back to San Antonio with a 3-2 lead. Still, despite their two disastrous road losses to start the series the P...   [read the full post]

By noreply@blogger.com (David Friedman) Dirk Nowitzki seemingly received the 2007 MVP in a broom closet at an undisclosed location after his Dallas Mavericks were bounced out of the first round of the playoffs. We just saw the 2005 and 2006 MVP, Steve Nash, make Tony Parker look like the greatest point guard in the history of the NB...

By David Friedman It is not easy to take a 3-0 lead in a series because even underdog teams tend to fight relentlessly to prevent that from happening; this year, only the Lakers and the defending champion Spurs have won the first three games in their respective series. Even the league-leading 66-16 Boston Ce...

By David Friedman 2 New Orleans (56-26) vs. #7 Dallas Mavericks (51-31) Dallas will win because...the Mavericks are loaded with playoff veterans who keenly understand the difference between the regular season and the playoffs. 3 San Antonio (56-26) vs. #6 Phoenix (55-27)

By David Friedman The Score: Dallas 97, Utah 94 The Key Stat: With Josh Howard limited by injury to just three points in 20 minutes, Dirk Nowitzki produced a game-high 32 points on 12-23 shooting, including the game-winning three point shot with :00.9 left:

By David Friedman A lot of people doubted Houston without Yao Ming and Phoenix with Shaquille O'Neal and I correctly said that both of those teams would be fine. However, the people who are doubting Dallas now are correct. The Mavs were not doing so great even with Nowitzki. They have some talented players but the idea that Josh Howard is as valuable as Nowitzki is going to rapidly be revealed as erroneous. Kidd is a great leader but it seems that there is some kind of power struggle between him and Coach Avery Johnson--not so much that they don't like each other personally but rather that they have different ideas about how to play. Johnson wants to slow the game down and call his own plays, while Kidd is more effective in an uptempo game. The race for the last two spots i...   [read the full post]

By David Friedman The Dallas Mavericks' season may have ended with 3:18 remaining in the third quarter of their 88-81 loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday. That is when Dirk Nowitzki landed awkwardly after blocking a shot, his left leg crumpling at a grotesque angle under his body. Nowitzki had to be helped off of the court and he was unable to put any weight on the injured leg. Early word out of Dallas is that he will miss at least two weeks but a more detailed announcement is expected from the team later today. The Dallas Mavericks were hardly tearing up the Western Conference even with the 2007 NBA MVP playing at a high level and losing Nowitzki for the bulk of the remaining regular season games could very well make the Mavericks the odd team out in the nine team rac...   [read the full post]

By David Friedman Mark Jackson offered this opinion about why the Lakers have been playing so well recently: "What really separates them as a team is Kobe Bryant on the defensive end. He's guarding the other team's best perimeter player and locking him down." Jackson added that Bryant is the best player in the NBA, saying "This is his year" to finally win the MVP. Jackson ranks Chris Paul second in the MVP race. Van Gundy said that the MVP should go to someone who makes others better, so his choice is the Memphis organization for essentially giving Gasol to the Lakers. On a more serious note, he added that his MVP is Paul, followed by Bryant, Kevin Garnett and LeBron James. Strangely, Van Gundy also said that Bryant is the best player in the NBA and has been for several y...   [read the full post]

By David Friedman It is easy to forget that just two years ago the Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs contested an epic playoff series that was not decided until overtime in game seven. For those of you who have forgotten--or who think that Dirk Nowitzki always comes up short in the big games--Dallas beat San Antonio 119-111 in that seventh game and Nowitzki led the way with 37 points and 15 rebounds, shooting 11-20 from the field and 15-16 from the free throw line. We may get to see this matchup again in this year's playoffs and if Thursday's game was a preview of coming attractions then this showdown will once again be a treat to watch.   [read the full post]

By David Friedman On Thursday, the NBA will announce who the All-Star reserves are. Legler and Anthony weighed in with their opinions. In the West, they each chose Brandon Roy, Steve Nash, Chris Paul, Carlos Boozer, Dirk Nowitzki and Amare Stoudemire. Legler's other selection was David West, while Anthony went with Josh Howard. As I mentioned a few days ago, I would select Nash, Paul, Roy, Nowitzki, Boozer and Stoudemire without hesitation. That seventh spot is tricky because there are several deserving candidates. I would pick Baron Davis but Howard and West are two of the players who I think merit serious consideration and it would not bother me one bit if either of them got the nod. Nash, Paul and Roy seem to be on everyone's list, so it will be quite a shock if th...   [read the full post]

By David Friedman Anyone who visits this site regularly knows that I have repeatedly insisted (most recently in this post) that teams should not be afraid to run against the Golden State Warriors and that the Dallas Mavericks could have avoided their upset loss to the Warriors in last year's playoffs if the Mavericks had pushed the ball up the court instead of trying to slow the game down. These truths were once against confirmed in Dallas' 121-99 win over Golden State on Wednesday night. Dirk Nowitzki scored a game-high 29 points on 9-16 shooting, adding eight rebounds, six assists and three blocked shots. Nowitzki had a game-high plus/minus rating of +25. Five other Mavericks also scored in double figures, including Josh Howard, who had 19 points and a gam...   [read the full post]

By David Friedman The Cleveland Cavaliers took another step toward regaining the form that carried them to the 2007 NBA Finals, earning an 88-81 road win versus the Dallas Mavericks. The Cavaliers had not won in Dallas since 2000 and were booed on opening night by their home court fans during an embarrassing 92-74 loss to the Mavericks; as Chris Berman (channeling Howard Cosell, as he often does) would say, "I remember because I was there." The formula for the Cleveland win, as usual for this team, consisted of rebounding (56-45 advantage), defense (Dallas shot .365 from the field and scored fewer than 20 points in two quarters) and the all-around brilliance of LeBron James (game-high 24 points, eight rebounds, seven assists). This was not a pretty game by a...   [read the full post]

By David Friedman The Dallas Mavericks raced to a 37-20 first quarter lead and survived a furious late rally by the Phoenix Suns to win 108-105 in the first showdown this season between these perennial Western Conference contenders. Perhaps for the first time this season, Dallas looked like the team that won 67 games last year. Not coincidentally, Dirk Nowitzki performed like he did when he won the 2007 MVP, finishing with a game-high 31 points, including 12 in the fourth quarter and eight in the final 2:32. Nowitzki also had nine rebounds. Josh Howard contributed 23 points and seven rebounds and Devin Harris added 21 points, six assists and three steals. Amare Stoudemire led the Suns with 25 points and he also had eight rebounds and four blocked shots. Shawn Ma...   [read the full post]