Dallas at Utah - game 2 (April 24) John Starks underwent what the team called "minor medical procedure" on Monday and did not play in game 2. Reports are that he had a testicle removed due to inflammation (and that had everyone going "minor surgery???"). He is doubtful for game 3. There were 24 minutes of excellent basketball Tuesday night. Unfortunately, it was the first half of the Philly-Indiana game. The Mavs came out flat and again let the officiating disturb them. Sure the reffing was bad (both ways), but you have to work through it instead of fighting it. The Mavs fought it and the technicals again piled up. Both teams started out poor with Utah missing their first 9 shots and Dallas shooting 1-5 FG and had 2 turnovers and the first points of the game weren't scored until almost 3 1/2 minutes into the game. The teams started hitting shots and Dallas led 11-10 with 4:30 left and Utah scored the next 11 points as they hit 5 straight shots and Dallas committed 3 turnovers. Michael Finley nailed a jumper with 2.9 seconds remaining, but Dallas was lax on defense and Jacque Vaughn was able to get a good look at a 3-pointer and it went in at the buzzer. Utah led 28-19 after 1. Finley was carrying the team for Dallas as he had 13 of Dallas' 19 points. Only Juwan Howard (5 points) and Shawn Bradley (1 point) joined Dallas in scoring in the 1st quarter. The poor officiating really bothered Dallas in the 2nd quarter and the Mavs completely lost their poise. Utah slowly built on its lead as Dallas was called for 10 fouls and 5 technicals (2 for illegal defense, 1 on Vernon Maxwell, 1 on Finley, and 1 on Don Nelson) in the quarter. Utah led 45-88 with 5 minutes left. Dallas used a 10-1 run to pull within 38-46 with 2:10 to go, but Utah ended Dallas' run by scoring the next 4 points. Dallas used hack-an-OP at the end of the quarter as they intentionally fouled Olden Polynice with 20 seconds left. Polynice, who shot 26.2% FT for the season, missed the first and hit the second and Dallas missed their last shot of the quarter. Utah led 53-41 at the half. Utah shot 11-15 FT and Dallas shot 7-9 FT in the quarter. Karl Malone had 16 points and Finley had 20 points in the half. Polynice opened the 3rd with a layup and then Dallas scored then next 7 points, capped by a 3-pointer by Finley, to pull within 48-55 with 10 minutes remaining. Utah led 60-52 with 7 minutes left and went on a 13-4 run to go up 73-56 with 3:45 to go. Bryon Russell drained consecutive 3-pointers to give Utah its largest lead at 83-63 with a minute left. Steve Nash got a layup just before the buzzer and Utah led 84-68 after 3. Russell had 11 points in the quarter. The free throw fest continued as Utah shot 12-12 FT and Dallas shot 14-19 FT. Dallas scored the first 10 points of the quarter, including 2 3-pointers by Nash, to pull within 78-84 with 9:15 left and it was a whole new ball game. Dirk Nowitzki converted a rare 4-point play and Utah only led 90-87 with 6 minutes remaining. Malone missed a jumper, Nash missed a 3-pointer, Malone missed a jumper, and Finley missed a jumper as Dallas went away from the style that got them back in the game (getting the ball into the post and either the post player goes for the bucket or he kicks out to an outside shooter who takes the shot). Utah went on a 12-2 run to take a commanding 102-89 lead with 2:08 to go. Finley converted a 3-point play (his only points of the quarter) and Eduardo Najera got a dunk to pull Dallas within 94-102 with 1:40 remaining. But Najera made a mistake with a foul on John Stockton and Najera went quickly back to the bench. Dallas would get no closer than 9 points the rest of the way. Utah won 109-98. One word: UGLY! Yuch. There were 91 free throws attempted (40-45 FT for Utah and 36-46 FT for Dallas), 70 fouls called, 10 technicals (including 4 illegal defenses), 1 flagrant foul level 2 (automatic ejection), and the game lasted 2 hours and 49 minutes. This was not pretty basketball. With the way the Mavs played, they had no business being in the game near the end. Give them credit for coming back, but, man, they have to show up for the first 3 quarters - only Finley played well in the first half, but he disappeared in the 4th quarter. And they just have to stop arguing with the refs. Like it or not, the refs are going to call the game the way they are going to call it (and the first two games were called poorly), but Dallas has to play through it and not let it disrupt their game (which they have). The Mavs did improve their rebounding from game 1 to game 2 as Utah only had 9 offensive rebounds compared to 19 in the first game. The Mavs also have to work on ball movement. They only had 13 assists in game 2 and 15 in game 1. The Mavs were 39-13 during the season when they had 20 or more assists and only 14-16 when they had less than 20 assists, including 1-5 when they had 15 or less assists. The Mavs' bench has been non-existent during the playoffs. With Finley, Nowitzki, and Howard playing all but 7 minutes in the 2 games and Nash playing all but 13 minutes, the Mavs weren't expecting much from their bench. But only 4 points, 4 rebounds, and 1 assist in game 1 and only 5 points, 0 rebounds, and 0 assists in game 2 won't cut it. And the bench didn't score until 2:06 left in the 3rd quarter of game 2 when Calvin Booth converted a 3-point play. As for the players in the game, I'll start with the one bright spot for Dallas. Michael Finley carried the team for 3 quarters. Utah would have been up by 30 or more without Finley there to stop the bleeding. He fell off in the 4th quarter, but Nash and Nowitzki finally started finding the basket then. Finley shot 9-15 FG before loosing his touch and closed shooting 1-8 FG. He finished with 32 points on 10-23 FG and 9-11 FT and 8 rebounds. Finley was tagged with 2 fouls in the 1st quarter, but still managed to play 46 minutes. 12 of Steve Nash's 20 points came in the 4th quarter. He also had a team high 6 assists. Someone put an APB out on Dirk Nowitzki. Okay, he showed up in the 4th quarter where he had 10 points, but he was no where to be seen the rest of the game and only had _1_ point in the 1st half. This from a player who led the team averaging 21.8 points while shooting 47.4% FG during the season. He finished with 15 points on 3-11 FG and 8-10 FT and only 4 rebounds (averaged 9.2). Dirk was also tagged with 2 fouls in the 1st quarter but played 47 minutes before fouling out - the foul trouble did seem to affect him, though. Juwan Howard did have a better game than game 1, but still need to perform better. He had 17 points and 7 rebounds, but still can't defend Karl Malone. Shawn Bradley had a solid performance with 9 points and 8 rebounds before fouling out. Vernon Maxwell (who was ejected with 2 technicals), Calvin Booth, Mark Bryant, and Eduardo Najera gave almost nothing in limited minutes off the bench. For Utah, Karl Malone did play better than game 1 and the Mavs could do nothing to stop him. He finished with 34 points including 12-14 FT and 7 rebounds. John Stockton wasn't quite as much of an assist monster as he was in game 1, but stepped up his scoring. Stockton had 17 points including 9-11 FT, 9 assists, and 3 steals. He did collect 5 fouls and almost (well, should have, but with these refs...) fouled out for the first time in his playoff career. Bryon Russell stepped up big for the Jazz and had 24 points including 4-6 FG, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists. And unbelievably, Olden Polynice took off against the Mavs. This should never happen and was a good indication of how badly the game went for Dallas. Polynice had 11 points and 5 rebounds in 17 minutes. At least foul him instead of giving him the easy baskets. David Benoit was the 5th Jazz player in double-digits with 11 points. Game 3 is on Saturday. There are 2 ways to look at it. a) It's called stealing a game on the road for a reason - the series is on schedule with the home team winning both games. b) The Mavs are one game from elimination. b is, of course, more serious. The Mavs have not played a good game yet and hopefully they will find their touch and style that got them 53 wins and this series will go to 5. There are some many things this team can improve on from the 2 games in Utah that hopefully they will put on a better performance then they have - and STOP letting the officiating disrupt them. And, please, please, Dirk show up on Saturday!! An interesting side note from the game. Mavs owner Mark Cuban went off on the Utah scorer's table for their incorrect running of the clock. I noticed this watching the game and wasn't surprised when I heard about Cuban's reaction. After the Mavs made a basket late in the game, the clock was still running while Utah was inbounding the ball. The clock is supposed to stop as soon as a basket is made and not start again until the ball is inbounded and touched by a player. Losing time like that can cost a team if the game goes down to a last second shot. The NBA admitted that there was a mistake in game 1 in that there should have been 4.1 seconds on the clock for Dallas' last play instead of 3.3. That's a _big_ difference in this league. [I don't know if it's still the same crew, but Utah had a _terrible_ shot clock operator mistake a number of years ago in the playoffs where one of the teams (can't remember which) was running their play at the end of the game to determine the winner and the shot clock never started. Fortunately it didn't affect the outcome of the game as the refs did not stop the play and determined the time left after the shot was made.] We had an entry for synchronized flopping. Early in the 2nd quarter, Vernon Maxwell set a pick in the paint. Danny Manning bumped into him coming through the paint. Both went flying in opposite directions. Manning won the acting award as the call went against Maxwell. And let me give kudos to Jerry Sloan. Both with Olden Polynice in this game and with Donyell Marshall in the game 3/26, Sloan was extremely critical for their flagrant fouls, calling the fouls unprofessional and having no business in the game of basketball. Quotes Jerry Sloan: "We made some shots that kept them at bay, and they missed a couple." Sloan on Dallas' comeback: "You know that they are going to make a run at you and you hope that you can do the right thing and get the ball to the right people, and hopefully make the right decisions." Sloan on Benoit: "David did a terrific job for us. I'm happy for him." Sloan on Polynice's flagrant foul: "Those things are uncalled for in the game of basketball." Karl Malone: "You can talk about the series all you want but we won the ball game. We ran off to a nice lead but they cut it down to 3, and then they got a good look at a 3. We'll take 2-0 any day." Malone: "We'll take 2 and O any day. This was a nice win for us and, hopefully, our attitude now is to go to Dallas and win the game Saturday. Not go down there and say 'we've got 2' and things like that." Malone: "This series is not over. We're going to a war zone down in Dallas, but that's part of it. I hope we don't go down there with the attitude that we have 2 games down there. I hope that we go down with the attitude that we want to win the first game we play." Malone: "It's a fine line you walk out there and emotions do run high. Hopefully, you get smart fouls because, I'll be honest with you, we were running out of guys. I don't see why it will be any different when we go down there." Malone: "They have a very talented team. They have guys at different positions that can hurt you all the time. You can go up by 15 or 16, and you think you have it sewn up, and then you get lax, and then they come back and hit some 3s." Malone on Russell: "Bryon stepped up huge for us. He looked like the so called old Bryon, before the ankle injury. He was doing everything. He was rebounding. He shot the ball well." John Stockton: "I think that, in the playoffs, I wouldn't call it bad blood, I just think the intensity is going to increase. I wouldn't call it bad blood, just hard play. I think they have a hard working group of guys themselves." Stockton on Dallas' comeback: "We were a little confused out there. They threw some things at us and we didn't react well. But the guys on the floor figured it out, got some easy shots and busted it open." Danny Manning: "You just want to go out and compete and when you're competing out on the court, emotions are high and tempers flare sometimes. But I don't think there is any intent to harm or hurt, no bad blood really." Donyell Marshall on Dallas' comeback: "We relaxed. We can't do that. We have to play every second." Marshall on Dallas' comeback: "They're a tough team. They're not going to give up no matter what the score is. They're tough, and I can see [the series] getting tougher." Don Nelson: "I was very proud of the way we came back and made a game of it. We were one 3-point shot from tying the game up. I thought [Nash's missed 3] was going to be it." Nelson: "We're learning a lot of lessons and that's important in this series, because this is the first time we've been here. We couldn't learn more from a veteran team than the Utah Jazz." Nelson: "It will be good to get home. We'd love to come back here for a 5th game. It's going to be very difficult to do because they're a fine road team. We have some players who are struggling a little bit and I think some home cooking will be good for them." Nelson: "It will be good to get home. We definitely have struggled here at times and not played our best basketball. I think they have a lot to do with that. Offensively we have just not been as sharp as we've been most of the season." Nelson: "I think we can beat them in a 5th game. I think we'll be really good in the 3rd game and better in the 4th game, and I think we'll be terrific in the 5th. We have to make sure a 5th game happens. If we're fortunate enough to get to a 5th game, I would really like our chances. I think we would get stronger as the series goes on. But we have to make it go on." Michael Finley: "We just missed some shots we normally make. It's not too much the Jazz's defense." Finley on the series: "We're not deflated. You can't get down on yourself, you can't get down on your team. Anything's possible." Finley: "The least you can do is win one game. But it didn't happen. Now we have to go home and win 2 games and come here and win 1. It was winnable games here, but that's in the past now. We have to focus on the future. And hopefully we'll win at home." Dirk Nowitzki on the Utah fans booing (Dirk had said that "Utah is a bad city"): "Once the game started, I just focused. I didn't hear anything. The whole thing was a misunderstanding. It's very sad." Steve Nash: "We had a shot in both games and it's frustrating. We played poorly at the end of both games." Nash: "We've got a lot of guys with character and a lot of guys who hate to lose and we're never going to quit. We know the way we shoot the ball we can get back into a game, as we did tonight." Nash on his missed 3-pointer at 87-90: "That was the biggest play of the game. It was straight, dead-on, just a little long." Nash on Nowitzki: "The 1st half, he struggled as bad as he's struggled." Nash on Nowitzki: "We didn't do a good job getting him the ball, and they paid extra attention to him." Shawn Bradley: "That was a long game with a lot of stops. Flow is definitely something that hurts a team like ours that likes to run." Bradley "I'm not going to even go there talking about the way the game was called. That's territory that Cuban can deal with." Juwan Howard: "Our chances are still just as good. You have to win 3 games, and they only have 2." Howard on Dallas winning the next 3: "It can happen. It's happened before. We can make history, too." Utah Jazz 109, Dallas Mavericks 98 at Utah (April 24) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Utah 28 25 31 25 - 109 .482 .455 .478 .889 Dallas 19 22 27 30 - 98 .500 .240 .406 .783 Halftime: Utah 53-41 3rd Q: Utah 84-68 Technicals: Bryon Russell 1:37 1st, Dallas Illegal D 11:12 2nd, Vernon Maxwell 9:51 2nd, Dallas Illegal D 8:25 2nd, Michael Finley 6:06 2nd, Greg Ostertag 6:06 2nd, Don Nelson 4:54 2nd, Dallas Illegal D 7:54 3rd, Utah Illegal D 0:17 3rd, Vernon Maxwell (ejected) 8:55 3rd Flagrant Fouls: Olden Polynice (ejected) 8:55 3rd Refs: Mike Mathis, Bennett Salvatore, Monty McCutchen Attendance: 19,911 (sellout) Did not play due to injury: John Starks (minor surgery), Greg Buckner (dislocated left kneecap) Utah Jazz REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Karl Malone 44 11-22 0-0 12-14 34 1-7 3 3 2 2 0 Donyell Marshall 25 1-6 0-1 2-2 4 0-4 1 0 6 1 1 Olden Polynice 17 5-9 0-0 1-2 11 4-5 0 1 1 0 0 Bryon Russell 44 6-11 4-6 8-8 24 1-8 5 2 4 0 0 John Stockton 42 4-8 0-2 9-11 17 3-3 9 3 5 3 0 Jacque Vaughn 9 1-2 1-1 0-0 3 0-0 4 0 4 0 0 Danny Manning 13 1-3 0-0 2-2 4 0-0 0 1 5 0 0 David Benoit 27 3-6 0-1 5-5 11 0-1 1 1 3 0 2 Greg Ostertag 16 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-3 0 0 6 0 1 John Crotty 3 0-0 0-0 1-1 1 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 48 32-67 5-11 40-45 109 9-31 23 12 36 6 4 Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Juwan Howard 47 6-15 0-0 5-8 17 4-7 1 3 5 1 0 Dirk Nowitzki 47 3-11 1-5 8-10 15 0-4 2 2 6 0 2 Shawn Bradley 37 1-3 0-0 7-9 9 2-8 1 1 6 0 0 Michael Finley 46 10-23 3-9 9-11 32 4-8 3 1 3 0 0 Steve Nash 43 6-13 2-9 6-7 20 1-3 6 4 3 0 0 Vernon Maxwell 9 0-2 0-2 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 3 0 0 Calvin Booth 7 1-1 0-0 1-1 3 0-0 0 1 4 0 0 Mark Bryant 3 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 2 0 0 Eduardo Najera 1 1-1 0-0 0-0 2 0-0 0 1 2 0 0 Totals 48 28-69 6-25 36-46 98 11-30 13 15 34 1 2 patricia Go Mavs!