Dallas activated Michael Finley and placed Popeye Jones on IR with a sprained right ankle. Dallas went 7-6 without Finley and the team allowed opponents to average 7 more points and shoot 4.2% better during the 13 games Finley missed. With the Spurs win vs Utah last night, Dallas is locked into the #3 seed. San Antonio will finish with the best record in the league (though Dallas can tie them, but Dallas loses the tie breaker), the #1 seed, the Midwest division title, and home court advantage throughout the playoffs. Wednesday's Dallas-San Antonio game is not completely meaningless for Dallas as they need to win or a Sacramento loss vs Utah (either one will do) to get home court advantage if Dallas and Sacramento face each other in the 2nd round [home court goes to the team with the better record, not the team with the better seed]. Seattle (39-41) at Dallas (58-22) (April 14) Dallas led 6-2 early on and Seattle scored the next 8 points to go up 10-6 with 8 minutes left. Seattle held a small lead most of the rest of the quarter. Steve Nash missed a jumper with 20 seconds left, but got inside to put the miss back in and give Dallas briefly the lead, but Calvin Booth nailed a long baseliner in the closing seconds to give Seattle a 27-26 lead after 1. Rashard Lewis had 10 points and Dirk Nowitzki had 11 points. Seattle scored 10 straight points, capped by consecutive 3-pointers, to take their largest lead at 42-30 with 7:45 to go. Dallas responded as Eduardo Najera got a layup from a pass from Nowitzki and Nowitzki scored the next 6 points to pull Dallas within 38-42 with 5:15 remaining. Seattle held a single-digit lead the rest of the quarter and a 3-point play by Ray Allen gave Seattle a 54-45 lead at the half. A 3-pointer by Peja Drobnjak put Seattle's lead back into double-digits at 60-50 with 9:45 left. Don Nelson decided he had seen enough and got himself an one-T ejection when he went on the court "complaining". Seattle led 68-55 on a 3-pointer by Ray Allen with 7:35 left and it then became the Nowitzki show as he simply dominated in scoring the next 10 points to pull Dallas within 65-70 with 4:30 to go. Nowitzki drove for 2 and was fouled by Lewis with 50 seconds left and Lewis went nuts and got his 2nd technical of the game to be ejected. Nowitzki hit both the technical free throw and the and-one free throw to tie the game at 75-75. Allen was fouled shooting a 3-pointer (dumb foul, Griff) and hit all 3 free throws and Booth nailed another outside shot to give Seattle a 80-75 lead after 3. Allen had 11 points and Nowitzki had 14 points in the 3rd quarter. A layup and 3-point play by Shawn Bradley opened the 4th quarter and the game was tied at 80-80 with 11 minutes remaining. The teams traded 2 points and Dallas then went on a 14-2 run to go up 96-84 with 5:20 left. Dallas led 98-86 with 4:30 left and Seattle started a string of 3 straight 3-pointers made (while Dallas made 2-point buckets) to pull within 95-100 with 3:20 to go. Nash, who was getting beat up, collided with Kevin Ollie going for a loose ball and Nash was called for the foul and then got the technical for complaining. Allen hit the technical and Ollie hit 1 of 2 free throws to pull Seattle within 99-100 with 2:25 remaining. Nowitzki drove for 2 on Dallas' next possession. The teams traded misses and Allen drove passed Nowitzki for the layup to again pull Seattle within 1 at 101-102 with 1:10 left. But as the defense collapsed on Nowitzki, he found Nash on the outside and Nash splashed the 3-pointer to give Dallas a 4 point lead with a minute to go. Allen missed and Seattle started intentionally fouling. Nick Van Exel hit 1 of 2 free throws, Seattle missed, and Nash hit 2 free throws to give Dallas what would seem to be a comfortable 108-101 lead with 30 seconds left. Ollie quickly drove for 2 and Griffin stupidly fouled him. Fortunately, Ollie missed the extra free throw and [rebound!] Vladimir Radmanovic missed the quick jumper. Nash was fouled with 9 seconds left, but he missed _both_ free throws [and snapped his string of 42 consecutive made free throws]. Seattle used their last timeout and advanced the ball to half court. And Allen swished (prettiest shot of the night) the 3-pointer from a few feet inside the half court line to pull Seattle within 2 points at 108-106, but with less than 3 seconds left. Van Exel hit the 1st free throw, but missed the 2nd, but time expired before the full court pass reached its destination. Dallas won 109-106. This was a much better performance by Dallas and hopefully the team is starting to find its rhythm with the playoffs a handful of days away. Granted they did stumble with some poor play in the 1st half and not hitting their free throws down the stretch, but they managed to come from behind and then hang on for the win. Dallas shot 49.4% (41-83) FG including 5-18 FG and Seattle shot 41.2% (35-85) FG including 10-27 FG. Despite both teams complaining about the officiating, the free throws were near even with Dallas shooting 22-31 FT (including 6 off intentional fouls down the stretch) and Seattle shooting 32-26 FT. And, hey, Dallas out-rebounded someone! The Mavs out-rebounded Seattle 49-44 - the first time in 7 games they've out-rebounded an opponent. Dirk Nowitzki was unstoppable (he also couldn't stop Ray Allen when he got switched on him defensively) and had a monster game with 39 points on 14-21 FG and 11-13 FT, 10 rebounds, and 7 assists - no question that he carried the team to the win. Raef LaFrentz continued his string of good games with 17 points and 9 rebounds - he is a confidence player and this is a very good string going into the playoffs. Steve Nash struggled with his shot, but hit the big 3-pointer late in the game. Nash had 14 points including 4-13 FG, but just 4 assists and 4 turnovers. Nick Van Exel played well (when he wasn't jacking up dumb shots) and had 15 points and 7 assists. No other Mav was in double-digits (in fact, for a long time, Nowitzki was alone amongst the Mavs in double-digits). Shawn Bradley chipped in 7 points and 6 rebounds and Adrian Griffin had 4 points and 7 rebounds. Michael Finley struggled in his first game back and did not once drive to the basket as he settled for outside shots. Finley had 2 points on 1-7 FG in a monitored 12 minutes. Ray Allen lead the way for Seattle (and got the star calls whenever a Mav was near him) with 35 points on 10-28 FG, 4-10 3-pointers, and 11-11 FT and 6 rebounds. He had 13 points in the 4th quarter. His eyes lit up when Nowitzki got switched on him defensively a number of times during the 4th quarter and burned him every time. Rashard Lewis was having a good game until he lost his cool. Lewis had 21 points including 8-10 FT and 4 assists in 27 minutes before his ejection. On one play defensively, he got switched on Steve Nash and I had a flashback of Nowitzki from a couple of years ago where Lewis looked like he had no idea what to do with Nash and Nash easily faked him out and drained the open jumper. Brent Barry had 13 points, including a couple of annoying open 3-pointers, 5 rebounds, and 7 assists. Reggie Evans had 13 points and 11 rebounds and Kevin Ollie had 7 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists. Calvin Booth made an appearance and had 8 points on 4-5 FG (3 of them were outside jumpers) in 14 minutes. And here I was all set to say that Seattle had nothing to complain about from the officiating, and I see they thought they had plenty to complain about. The refs let a lot of obvious contact go without calls and it led to a lot of frustration (I thought Nolan Fine was particularly bad) and even more contact. I didn't see the blow that sent Rashard Lewis to the ground (but did see him on the ground - but his teammates didn't see him as they played on and took a shot while he was down). I did see Lewis with a fist full of Shawn Bradley's jersey and the ref then called the foul on Lewis and Lewis then picked up his 1st technical. Lewis just lost it with the 2nd technical. Steve Nash got whacked a couple of times in the face late in the game, once without a call and twice with a foul called on Nash, Nash picked up his technical after one of those. Don Nelson's ejection seemed to simply be that he wanted to get tossed to try to motivate his team. The ref had a grin on his face when he tossed Nelson and I got the feeling that Nelson said something like, "I'm not leaving the court until you eject me." Quotes Donn Nelson: "Hats off to the Sonics and Nate is doing a fabulous job up there. They pose a lot of problems for us because they shoot the 3 ball so well. We were in some real trouble before Nellie got tossed and Rashard Lewis got tossed, then things seemed to go our way after that. I think equal credit needs to be given to our fans, who took it to a whole other level out there. I don't think they realize how much they energize this team when they get that passionate and emotional." [Don Nelson usually does not address the media in games where he is ejected.] Nelson: "Dirk was magic tonight. I felt the big lineup we started in the 2nd half had an impact. Great performance by Raef LaFrentz and Shawn Bradley. Eddie was a little bit hobbled out there, but gave us everything that he did and it was just a really hard fought battle. We are really proud of our guys tonight." Nelson on Don's ejection: "That was the lowest contact emotional ejection I think I've seen in Nellie's career. We needed a little kick in the pants. We came out flat. We needed a little something and Nellie gave it to us." Nelson on Finley: "It's going to take Mike some time to get back into his game rhythm. Equally it is going to take his teammates some time to get back in sync with the team's rhythm. So I think we all have to be patient. The important thing is that there doesn't seem to be any ill effects that he suffered out there. He seems to be responding well to treatment." Nelson on LaFrentz: "Nellie's system is pretty cut and dry. If you are a shooter, and Raef is, and you have the shot, squeeze the trigger. Raef is a total team player. He's looking to get other people involved; we need him to be a little bit more selfish. We need Raef to take shots that he is comfortable with on the perimeter because it extends defenses and opens up Dirk's post or Nick and Steve's penetration, which is a huge part of our game." Michael Finley: "It felt okay. It was good to just get back out there and no longer be a spectator. I didn't do anything offensively or rebounding, but I think my presence gave my teammates a boost." Finley on his hamstring: "It feels good. I didn't have any pain, but I felt myself holding back a little at times. They said that's to be expected. They said how I feel after the game would be the most important thing, and I feel great." Finley on missing games: "It's been tough not being out there. It's been like watching your little brother fight against a bully and not being able to help him. It was tough to see the guys lose what we had worked so hard for, but we can't let that affect us." Dirk Nowitzki: "We've got to make sure we have a better record than Sacramento. We're going to approach Wednesday's game like that." Steve Nash: "We just needed to show some fight. We were really lacking energy and passion for a lot of the game, but finally we got it to come out of us and we fought. I think that's why we won." Nash: "In the 1st half, we lacked energy and passion. But as the game went on, we started fighting back. Nellie getting ejected was a sign for us to pick it up instead of laying down and getting beat." Nick Van Exel: "They have a lot of good shooters so what they tried to do was spread us out on defense and get a mismatch for their good shooters." Van Exel: "Tonight, Steve really didn't come to the ball much because he was a little fatigued. Coming out of one of the timeouts he told me to handle it because he was tired. He's a good weapon to have because I can create and I usually know who is going to make shots for us and that's going to be Dirk and Steve most nights." Van Exel on Nowitzki: "We wanted to get him down low. We knew that they didn't have any shot blockers and the guy that was covering Dirk was about 3 or 4 inches shorter than he was so we tried to take advantage of that matchup." Raja Bell on not winning the Midwest Division: "Right now it's disappointing that we didn't finish it out, but we're more excited by the fact that we played well the last 2 games and got Finley back. We're about to get into this playoff season and that's our focus right now." Bell: "Tonight just the way the game went, us having to crawl back and really get excited in the 4th quarter, challenged us both physically and mentally. We're excited about that, at least I am, and hopefully we can continue to play with confidence on Wednesday in San Antonio and we'll be riding a nice little wave going into the playoffs." Bell on Finley: "He wasn't in Michael Finley's normal form, but he made them respect him tonight and they couldn't double as much as they wanted to. Him just being out there, being a leader and getting people in the right places, was real important for us tonight." Bell on LaFrentz: "Raef's in a nice zone shooting the ball, he had some big boards tonight and he's dunking on people so that's pretty exciting for us going into the playoffs." Nate McMillan: "I thought the ejection of Don Nelson [changed the momentum]. After his ejection, they came down 5 straight times and had fouls called. Basically the momentum changed then. We got a little frustrated with the play that was out there. Some of the guys got hit in the head. They felt they were getting cheap-shotted and got frustrated with it. In this situation and this type of atmosphere, we have to learn how to play in this type of atmosphere; it was a playoff atmosphere tonight. Teams are going to be playing physical. That team was playing for something and so were we. Even though there was a lot of contact and physical play, we have to keep our composure and play through that. I thought at times, in the 2nd half, we felt like we were lost. When Rashard left the game, we were a little uncomfortable with where to go with the ball the next 6 or 7 possessions we came down; 2 were shot-clock violations and we didn't get anything." McMillan, joking, on Allen's near mid-court shot: "It happened exactly the way we drew it up." McMillan on Lewis' ejection: "That type of behavior on the floor; you can't do that. That is part of maturing and growing up and playing in this situation. It shows where we are and where we have to go. That's a young guy that had a good game going; playing very well, got hit in the head with an elbow, another call Bradley had his elbow in his throat and he got frustrated. Even saying all that, you still have to find a way to play through that and continue to play the game. That's part of maturing; you are playing with passion and you lose control. After being in this situation a number of times, you learn how to control that and play through it. You go down to the other end and you just play the game." McMillan on Seattle not having a winning season for the first time in 15 seasons: "It's a streak. It happens. All organizations, it eventually happens to. It happens to be our year this year." Rashard Lewis: "[Bradley] elbowed me right in the head. I mean, I was laying on the floor. The 2nd time, he stuck an elbow in my throat. I didn't even move and he just called it a foul on me. So I went to the ref and I said, 'He stuck his elbow in my throat.' So he gave me the tech. The next play down, he called a foul that wasn't a foul when I was holding Dirk. I turned around and started clapping and he threw me out. How can you throw someone out of the game for clapping their hands?" Lewis on his ejection: "It doesn't make sense because all I did was clap my hands. I didn't talk to him because he wasn't listening to nothing I had to say." Lewis: "I never lost control, but I was mad and maybe went a little too far." Lewis: "I was out there trying to win the game and playing hard, but it just seemed like the other way around to that ref. I felt like they lost control of that game." Vladimir Radmanovic: "They are still playing for playoff position and we are playing for the love of the game. I think our franchise and our fans would be proud of the type of effort tonight we put out on the floor knowing we are not going anywhere after Wednesday's game. We came in here and competed and put up a good fight against these guys." Radmanovic on not having a winning season: "I think it is disappointing for the franchise. We went through a huge transition this year at the trade deadline; bringing Ray Allen for Gary and having to deal with that. We did great job in the 2nd half of the season; playing a lot better basketball and building a strong foundation to build on for next year. The key thing for us was to go through the 2nd half of this season and finish on a positive note. We still have a chance to do that by winning the game at home Wednesday against Phoenix, but we have some good things that are starting and I don't see our team in this same position next year." Former Mav Calvin Booth: "I still follow the Mavericks. Since we can't go to the playoffs, I'll be pulling for them to win the title." Dallas Mavericks 109, Seattle Sonics 106 at Dallas (April 14) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Dallas 26 19 30 34 - 109 .554 .278 .494 .710 Seattle 27 27 26 26 - 106 .431 .370 .412 .813 Halftime: Seattle 54-45 3rd Q: Seattle 80-75 Technicals: Dallas defensive 3 seconds 9:28 1st, Seattle defensive 3 seconds 9:28 3rd, Don Nelson (1-T ejection) 9:14 3rd, Rashard Lewis 1:54 3rd, Rashard Lewis (ejected) 0:51 3rd, Steve Nash 2:59 4th Refs: Nolan Fine, Ronnie Nunn, Tom Washington Attendance: 19,880 (sellout) Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Michael Finley 12 1-7 0-1 0-0 2 1-2 3 0 0 0 0 Dirk Nowitzki 46 14-21 0-2 11-13 39 1-10 7 3 3 1 1 Raef LaFrentz 26 7-12 3-5 0-1 17 5-9 1 0 4 0 2 Raja Bell 12 2-3 1-2 0-1 5 0-3 0 1 5 0 0 Steve Nash 37 4-13 1-6 5-7 14 1-2 4 4 5 0 2 Shawn Bradley 23 2-4 0-0 3-3 7 3-6 1 0 1 0 1 Adrian Griffin 18 2-4 0-0 0-0 4 0-7 0 0 4 1 0 Nick Van_Exel 35 6-14 0-2 3-6 15 0-4 7 2 0 2 0 Eduardo Najera 22 3-3 0-0 0-0 6 0-3 1 0 0 0 0 Walt Williams 4 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-2 0 1 1 0 1 Tariq Abdul-Wahad 5 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 0-1 2 0 2 0 0 Totals 48 41-83 5-18 22-31 109 11-49 26 11 25 4 7 Seattle Sonics REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Rashard Lewis 27 6-10 1-2 8-10 21 1-3 4 1 3 0 0 Reggie Evans 31 5-7 0-0 3-4 13 4-11 0 0 4 1 0 Predrag Drobnjak 25 3-9 2-5 0-0 8 0-4 1 2 4 0 0 Brent Barry 29 5-11 3-6 0-0 13 1-5 7 1 4 2 0 Ray Allen 45 10-28 4-10 11-11 35 4-6 3 0 4 2 0 Kevin Ollie 37 2-6 0-0 3-5 7 2-8 5 2 4 1 1 Calvin Booth 14 4-5 0-1 0-0 8 0-2 0 2 1 0 0 Vladimir Radmanovic 32 0-9 0-3 1-2 1 1-5 3 0 3 2 0 Totals 48 35-85 10-27 26-32 106 13-44 23 9 27 8 1 patricia Go Mavs!