Basketball monsters on the homecourt and NBDL pussycats on the road - that has been pretty much the story with my Mavericks all season long this time. They beat LA in LA after 13 years and got swept by Atlanta Hawks. They have the best homecourt record in the NBA for the season, but don’t have homecourt advantage in any of the playoff rounds owing to a fifth seed for which they barely beat out Memphis Grizzlies making their first playoff appearance ever. They have the tallest player in the league, but are famous for their “small ball”.
They sucked bad enough in the first two games of the first round playoffs in Sacramento that people started talking about a sweep - and then they come home for the third game and play like they deserve the championship. Offense? the Mavs always had it. Defense? What do you call 19 steals, 26 TOs forced and holding the Kings down to a scoring average about 20+ points less than their season average. What a rollercoaster ride it is to be a fan of this team - Whew!
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Yup.. the mavs kicked ass yesterday. I was a bit worried there with Nash accumlating fouls pretty fast .. but it all came out nice in the end.
The TWolves lost meanwhile :-( .. But wait and watch!!
Posted by: aNYa at April 25, 2004 6:17 PM
anya - I couldn’t believe the Wolves lost that badly to the Nuggets. I am sure they will take the series, it is just a little more interesting to watch when it is close like this. I was worried about Nash too, but Marquis more than made up for him, I think.
Long live small ball! :)
Posted by: Shanti at April 26, 2004 7:58 AM
The problem is as Charles Barkley puts it, everyone wants to shoot in the Mavs team and there seems to be only one ball in play. What they sorely lack is a strong man at the Center. For some reason Mark Cuban thinks that either you get Shaq or else pretty much every big guy in the Center position is a toss up. I am not so sure I agree…
Posted by: Dilip at April 26, 2004 3:50 PM
Dilip, I don’t think it is Mark Cuban’s fault at all - he did try to get Alonzo (Thank God, we didn’t), Karl Malone or Brad Miller to Dallas in the off-season. Personally, I don’t think the Mavs’ problem is the lack of big men - I think the problem is that Don Nelson refuses to use the big men we DO have. When was the last time we saw Bradley play after he positively torched the Kings in the regular season? Where is Danny Fortson, our consisten rebounding and putback monster?
As long as Nellie forgets our big men ont he bench, I don’t see any improvement even if Cuban brings Shaq to Dallas - as long as he cannot shoot the 3 to draw the opposing team’s center to the perimeter, Nelson will seat him on the bench :(
Posted by: Shanti at April 26, 2004 6:54 PM
The problem is this particular strategy will backfire if they ever get to play Lakers in the run up to WCF. Malone & Shaq will single handedly (or is that double-handedly) murder them. About Danny Forston — I wonder that myself. Why in the world is Nellie not playing him? He can atleast hassle someone like Webber into commiting a few fouls or else atleast frustrate him everytime he drives to the basket. I guess right now Nellie seems to be relying on Najera for that.
Cuban should’ve brought in Malone — I am pretty sure Mavs would’ve been legitimate contenders for the crown. Man.. look at how he goes at the age of 40.
Posted by: Dilip at April 26, 2004 9:54 PM
Re: Malone. The thing is…he took the veteran minimum to play in LA. In order to “bring in” Malone, Cuban would have had to show that Dallas was a legitimate contender.
Posted by: Chris C. at May 17, 2004 10:14 AM
Malone himself claimed that Dallas was his first choice, Chris, and that he was insulted that Cuban chose to pursue Mourning instead of him. I personally think Malone was just trying to rub it in Dallas’ faces that he was a better player, but those were his words.
Posted by: Shanti at May 17, 2004 1:48 PM