Game 5: Dallas at San Antonio (May 27) Dallas was once again without 3 big men as Dirk Nowitzki, Shawn Bradley, and Evan Eschmeyer sat out with knee injuries. Despite their smaller lineup, Dallas seemed to come out with a strategy of attacking the basket and getting to the free throw line and getting Spurs players in foul trouble. The strategy didn't work as the refs swallowed their whistles and let lots and lots of contact go [and on some of the calls they actually made, they waited until a shot was missed or the ball went out of bounds before blowing the late whistle]. With plan 1 not working and San Antonio holding small leads, Dallas went with plan 2, which was playing a 10 second offense - not starting their offensive set until 10 seconds were left on the clock. They pretty much went with that strategy for a quarter and a half before finally [thankfully] abandoning it. San Antonio's lead in the 1st quarter was no more than 5 points through the first 8 minutes of the game. San Antonio led 21-20 with 4 minutes remaining and scored the next 8 points to go up 29-20 with 2 minutes left as Dallas missed 3 shots and committed 2 turnovers during the run. San Antonio led 30-23 after 1. San Antonio shot an impressive 13-20 FG and didn't turn the ball over once and Dallas shot just 7-20 FG, but did shot 4-8 3-pointers. The teams traded 2 points to open the 2nd quarter and then the Spurs scored the next 12 points to go up 44-25 with 8 minutes to go. Included in the run was a 5-point possession as Eduardo Najera committed a flagrant foul and after the 2 free throws, Stephen Jackson got a layup and was fouled - Raef LaFrentz's 2nd foul - and a pass from Emanuel Ginobili that bounced off Nick Van Exel's back into the hands of Speedy Claxton for the easy layup. LaFrentz picked up his 3rd foul with 7:30 left and sat for the rest of the quarter. With San Antonio still leading in the teens, Dallas resorted to hack-a-Bowen with 4:20 remaining and down by 14 points. It wasn't effective as Bruce Bowen hit 4-6 FT and the Spurs led 56-41 with 4 minutes to go when Dallas stopped hack-a-Bowen. But after stopping hack-a-Bowen, Dallas scored the next 4 points and the 11 point deficit held for halftime. San Antonio led 58-47 at the half. The hack-a-Bowen strategy did have some affect on the Spurs as they only had 1 field goal in the last 4 minutes of the 2nd quarter. It was a miserable 2nd quarter for Dallas as San Antonio shot 7-13 FG and 13-18 FT and Dallas shot just 9-27 FG and 5-5 FT. The only good news for Dallas was it was just an 11 point deficit despite San Antonio shooting 60.6% FG while Dallas shot 34% FG in the half. Dallas also stayed even on the boards with 20 rebounds a piece. After an exchange of jumpers to open the 3rd quarter, San Antonio scored the next 6 points to go up 66-49 with 9:30 to go. LaFrentz didn't even last a minute before picking up his 4th foul and sat again. San Antonio led 70-53 with 7:50 remaining and it became the Michael Finley show as Finley scored 7 points and assisted on another bucket as Dallas went on an 11-2 run to pull the Mavs within 64-72 with 4:50 left. During the run, Finley tipped an inbound pass from David Robinson fresh of a Spurs' timeout and Robinson fouled Finley and sent him to the line - Gregg Popovich was so upset that Robinson got the quick yank. LaFrentz returned with 5:30 left and picked up his 5th foul 30 seconds later, but stayed in this time and, amazingly, didn't pick up his 6th foul. 2 free throws by Najera pulled Dallas within 72-78 with 1:15 to go. Ginobili nailed a 3-pointer with 16 seconds remaining, but Najera got a layup just before the quarter ended. San Antonio led 81-74 after 3. Finley had 15 points and 2 assists in the quarter - Dallas scored 27 points in the 3rd quarter. Najera had 8 points and 3 rebounds and Tim Duncan had 10 points in the 3rd. San Antonio shot just 5-11 FT during the 3rd quarter. Dallas continued their aggressive attack in the 4th quarter and Steve Nash and Van Exel took over in the quarter. Walt Williams opened the quarter with a layup, Nash got a high arcing floater over Duncan as the shot clock was running out, and Van Exel got a layup to pull Dallas within 80-81 with 9:50 left. Malik Rose hit 2 free throws, but Nash drained a 3-pointer to tie the game at 83-83 with 8:35 left. After Duncan hit 1 of 2 free throws, Nash found a wide open LaFrentz for the dunk to give Dallas their first lead at 85-84 with 7:35 remaining. Dallas continued to rally and San Antonio continued to crumble as Dallas went on a 16-4 run to take a commanding 101-88 lead with 1:45 left. A perfect example of Dallas' desire and hustle was when Van Exel came running back to tap away a backcourt inbounds pass and dove to the floor to give Dallas possession with 2:55 remaining. San Antonio did not recover and Dallas won 103-91. Wow. It was an amazing comeback in a do-or-die game by the Mavs. And it was a terrible collapse by the Spurs. In the 4th quarter, Dallas shot 10-17 FG and 7-7 FT and out-rebounded San Antonio 13-7. In the 4th, San Antonio shot a mere 3-17 FG including 0-7 3-pointers and 4-5 FT. Dallas out-scored San Antonio 29-10 in the 4th quarter - it was the lowest playoff 4th quarter in Mavs' opponent history and tied the lowest quarter point total in any Mavs' opponent playoff quarter. San Antonio was extremely hesitant to shot during the 4th with lots and lots of players passing up good looks and they seemed to be looking to Tim Duncan to get them out of the mess, but he was doing the correct thing in passing to his open teammates as the Mavs were double- and triple-teaming Duncan every time he touched the ball - and even sometimes before the ball ever got to him. And Dallas had plenty of players who were willing and able to take the clutch shots that gave them this victory. As a sign of Dallas' aggressive play, Dallas out-scored San Antonio 40-22 in the paint in the last 3 quarters of the game [San Antonio held a 16-4 points in the paint edge in the 1st quarter]. For the game, Dallas shot 43.4% (36-83) FG including 8-22 3-pointers and San Antonio 44.3% (31-70) FG including 5-22 3-pointers. Dallas was a perfect 23-23 FT and San Antonio was a poor 24-38 FT. Dallas out-rebounded San Antonio 42-38 including 11-9 offensive. As great of a comeback win as it was, it was just 1 win and Dallas is still in a do-or-die situation as San Antonio leads the series 3-2. Game 6 is Thursday at 8:00 pm in Dallas. You can take you pick for heros for the Mavs. Michael Finley picked the team up and carried them through the 3rd quarter and played great defense on Tony Parker in the 2nd half [he was Parker's primary defender in the 2nd half]. Finley had 31 points on 9-14 FG and 12-12 FT, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 5 steals, and 2 blocks in 44 minutes. Steve Nash showed up for 2 quarters, but one of those quarters was the 4th quarter where he hit key buckets and had a key assist. Nash had 14 points - 7 each in the 1st and 4th quarters - and 6 assists. Nick Van Exel opened the game frustrated with the lack of foul calls as he expressed his frustration in obviously intentionally fouling a Spur player at half court 3 minutes into the game and Don Nelson sat him soon after to try to calm him down. But he sure showed up in the 4th quarter as 12 of his 21 points came in the 4th. He shot just 7-20 FG, but shot 3-5 FG in the 4th and made all 5 of his free throws, which all came in the 4th [granted it should have been 4-4 FT as the ref very incorrectly ruled that he was attempting a 3-pointer when he was fouled a foot inside the arc]. Van Exel also had 5 assists in his 39 minutes. Eddie Energy finally returned as Eduardo Najera, along with Finley, provided the spark Dallas desperately needed in the 3rd quarter with his hustle and play and he also played good defense in the 4th quarter. He had 8 points and 3 rebounds in the 3rd quarter and finished with 11 points, 8 rebounds including 4 offensive, and 2 steals in 33 minutes. Walt Williams started and had some aggressive rebounds. He had 12 points and 8 rebounds in 32 minutes. He did have 2 sloppy turnovers, though. Raef LaFrentz, as usual, was plagued by foul trouble, but some how did not pick up that 6th foul, despite being on the court for almost 12 minutes with 5 fouls. LaFrentz had 9 points on 4-12 FG and 2 rebounds in 24 minutes. Raja Bell had 3 points and 2 rebounds in 14 minutes, Tariq Abdul-Wahad (sent in originally for hack-a-Bowen) had 2 points on 1-1 FG and 2 rebounds in 13 rebounds, and Adrian Griffin shot 0-1 FG and had 3 rebounds in 6 minutes. Tim Duncan still had a good game - but not a great game - despite Dallas' defensive focus on him. Duncan had 23 points on 9-15 FG and just 5-12 FT [ouch], 15 rebounds including 5 offensive, and 6 assists in 44 minutes. He had just 3 points (1-2 FG and 1-2 FT) and 1 rebound in the 4th quarter. Stephen Jackson had 20 points and 3 rebounds in 36 minutes. Bruce Bowen had 12 points and 3 blocks, but just 2 rebounds in 39 minutes. Malik Rose was the only other Spur in double-digits with 14 points, but he had just 3 rebounds in 27 minutes. After averaging 22.8 points in the 1st 4 games, Tony Parker had just 7 points including 3-11 FG. He did have 6 assists, though. David Robinson had 5 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 blocks (3 in the 2nd quarter) in 24 minutes. Emanuel Ginobili went back to being MIA with just 5 points on 2-9 FG and 1-7 3-pointers. Ginobili had 4 rebounds and 6 assists in 21 minutes. Speedy Claxton had 5 points and 4 rebounds in 11 minutes and Kevin Willis had no stats in a minute and a half on the court. Quotes Don Nelson: "I feel like the luckiest guy in the world today. We just hung around and hung around and hung around and kept trying. It didn't look good for a long, long time. And then, wouldn't you know it, in the 4th quarter, they went a little cold, we went a little hot and won our 2nd game here, which I'm very, very proud of. And got great games out of Eddie Najera, who was totally exhausted at the end of this game. Gave it everything he had. Was begging to come out a couple of times and I just pretended like I didn't see him. And Walt Williams, same thing, stepped up for us and had an outstanding game. We just couldn't seem to stop them man-to-man. We went to our zone. Zone looked more effective than the man-to-man. Then in the 4th quarter, we just kind of stayed with it and didn't go back to man-to-man until the last minute or 2, where we went to a switching man-to-man. But I think we just at the right time, they missed a few shots, got a little cold and our double-teams were very effective. So it's one of those games that you hope for and you turn it on at the right time and you can win an important game and we did that tonight." Nelson on hack-a-Bowen: "You know, you guys make way too much out of that. That's a ploy. I actually thought he was shooting them really well. Even the 2 he missed I thought he shot well. It was a ploy that I thought was useful at the time 'cause I think we were 16 down or whatever it was and anything was better than what was happening. They didn't seem to get in rhythm after that. I don't know that that was the reason. We only did it 3 times. He makes 4 out of 6 free throws. I was definitely going to do it again if I needed to down the stretch, but we were in such a good rhythm, I didn't want to take us out of rhythm. It's something I don't want to over do. I certainly will do it if I think it can help us. And although the free throw shooting was good enough not to have an affect on it, for whatever reason after that, they didn't seem to get in the same flow. I don't know why. I don't think that had anything to do with it. Maybe it just happened." Nelson: "Well I thought we had a really good shot at game 3. We played a game very similar to this and we didn't make shots in the 4th quarter and they did and they made the big ones and we didn't and so it didn't work out. But really played a whale of a game in game 4 and backed it up - I don't think we played as well tonight as we did in game 4. Yet, you look at the stats at halftime and we should have been down 25 points. They're shooting 60% from the field. We're shooting in the 30s and we're within 11. I asked the team with about 6 to go [in the 2nd quarter], I said, 'I don't want you to try to get it all back. Just get me 10 at halftime.' Well, they got me 11, and that's close enough. And all through the game, I just kept saying, 'Hang in there. We're in striking distance. Hang in there, hang in there.' And finally we got the spurt at the right time. And won our 2nd game kind of similarly. Nelson: "I think our zone was effective against that, I can tell you that, in the 4th quarter, when we needed to stop them. Not only were we zoning, but we're double-teaming and our rotations were the same as man-to-man, but we were zoning and double-teaming on the low box and our rotations were very crisp. Pop knows exactly what we're doing. I thought he moved the ball and got it to the right people, but when they had shots, they didn't make 'em and when they had it inside, our double-teams were effective and one of those deals that happens sometimes. Sometimes they make them, sometimes they don't." Nelson on Nowitzki: "I kept telling the team, you know, don't wishful think on this thing. I'm not sure, but the longer the series goes, the better chance we have that he could play. And I don't know more than day-to-day, to be quite honest with you. I know he couldn't practice yesterday. He certainly couldn't play today. 2 more days, you know, he's a young guy. If he heals up and he shows me he could be 100%, I would play him. But I don't know that's going to happen. I would say that legitimately we should call him doubtful for the next game." Nelson on the 2nd quarter: "You know what I tried to do in this game was just coach each quarter like it was the game. That was a worrisome quarter for me. And I tried a lot of different combinations at that time. Tried to stop the bleeding and I was just searching for sometime that seemed to work and nothing seemed to go very well. But again with 6 minutes to go, I said, 'Hey, look, just get me within 10 at halftime and I think we can win this thing.' And they got me close enough. 11 is close enough to 10 that I wasn't going to argue too much at halftime. I was a happy guy that with all the numbers and the stats that we were that close." Michael Finley: "First let me say, God is good! Second of all, I don't fish. Basically that was my mentality coming into the game that we wasn't ready to go home as a team. We've been having a great year. Why would you want it to end like this? So my mindset was to go in and make this 3-game series just a 1-game series and take it 1 at a time." Finley: "What ever defense we was in, coach wanted us to be aggressive. In the losses, we were in the right positions, but weren't aggressively doing it. So tonight we took it upon ourselves to be aggressive in every aspect of the game. And if they were going to beat us from the outside, we was going to take that L." Finley: "My attitude was, this was not the time to be going home. We've had a great season. I didn't want this to end in 5 games." Finley: "We've zoned them in previous games, but not as successfully. We weren't aggressive enough and seemed to relax a little. You can't do that against the league MVP. Tonight, we were more aggressive in our traps and our rotation." Finley on his defense on Parker: "I don't think in the 1st half we played up to our potential defensively, as far as being aggressive. We were in spots, but we just wasn't doing things as aggressive as we needed to, especially in a ball game of this magnitude. So I took it upon myself just to set the tone defensively in the 2nd half. I know the 3rd quarter is usually the quarter where Parker tries to be more aggressive, so I want to pick him up full court and make him want to go against me more 1-on-1 and take them out of their flow, so to speak. And it didn't make them work right away, but as time kept going on, I think it wore him down a little bit. They made some bad decisions down the stretch. As a result, we came up with the win." Finley on if the win gave Dallas new life: "They said that about game 1 and look where that got us. We can't just be satisfied with winning this game. We have to have the same attitude we had in that 2nd half when we go back to Dallas and play with the type of attitude that we're not ready to go home yet. We still want to play basketball and we still have to go in and fight every possession as if it's our last. Because if we don't, it could be our last. So we just have to go out there and play hard and not relax since we're at home." Finley on leadership: "Well, that's my role on this team. My stats might not be as good as they were a couple of years ago, but I still feel that I'm the leader of this team. And although vocally I might not be as expressive as some leaders are, but by example I can lead this team. I think they fed off that a little bit. They saw me picking up Parker full court. They saw me being aggressive offensively. And then when their turn came, they were anxious to make something happen. They saw that the importance I was putting on doing all the little things, defensively and offensively. And my teammates picked that up and they brung it home in the 4th quarter." Finley on game 6: "It's important that we use it as a home court advantage. By that I mean the crowd has to be the rowdiest it's been all year. The players have to be as aggressive as we've been all year. We can't relax because we're at home. That's what teams do sometimes. I think the Spurs did that a little bit tonight. They got home and relaxed a little bit. But we don't want that to happen to us. We still have to go in with an aggressive attitude that we're not ready to go home and play with the fire and energy we had tonight in the 2nd half and hopefully that will be enough to get us another win." Finley on Nowitzki: "Each game that goes on, his knee gets better. But Dirk's career is more important than this playoffs. We are just going to take it 1 game at a time and see what happens." Finley on Dallas' defense: "Whatever defense we were in, coach wanted us to be aggressive. We wanted them to beat us from the outside." Steve Nash: "That was a really gutsy effort out there, being down a few guys, we showed a lot of character. We felt like we were really close the last game, there were just a few things that didn't go our way. Tonight we made the plays when they really counted." Nash: "We played so much better in the 2nd half. We felt our backs against the wall. We scrambled for loose balls and scrambled on defense. We were out-sized and out-manned but we fought through it. Being down in the game and in the entire series with a shortened line-up, this was incredibly gutsy. I'm proud of everybody." Nash: "I don't know if it's ever what we're going to do to stop Tony. I mean, Tim makes openings for their whole team. So we just got to try to keep the middle closed up and when we rotate and run out at people, just try to stay under control and make them shoot jump shots and keep guys out of the paint. But tonight, I think we just scrambled and played with a lot of heart and, you know, weren't willing to die." Nick Van Exel: "We never gave up. This team always keeps fighting. With that attitude anything can happen. Tonight they never really put us away. They had lots of chances to put the nail in the coffin but they never did. All of a sudden we were down only 4, then 3, then up 1. We were able to do that because they never put us away." Van Exel: "We played tough defense and just unbelievable ball in the 4th. We scrambled and helped out on Tim Duncan. We have to keep doing that if we want to contain him. We have to get the ball out of his hands and not let him beat us. Their whole offense runs through him. He is their MVP so we knew in the 4th they would try to go to him." Van Exel on hack-a-Bowen: "It's a little crazy, but it's part of the game. I hate Bowen because he's the competition but at the same time I feel a little sorry for him. It's certainly a different kind of strategy but we want to take the batteries out of them." Van Exel on staying positive: "Just the energy. The energy, we found it tonight on the defensive end, which was unbelievable. We scrambled. We made them beat us from the perimeter and they weren't hitting their shots tonight. And we held them to 1 shot." Van Exel: "You know how Nellie is - everybody touches the ball in this offense. Right now, nobody's the go-to guy. We're doing a lot of motion. We're trying to create easy shots for our team. Finley, he was feeling it tonight and we took advantage of it." Van Exel: "It was the same game plan as game 4. I thought we had energy in the 2nd half, which was the biggest difference. In game 4, we had the energy in the 1st half and we sort of died down in the 2nd half, but tonight we played the full 48 minutes." Van Exel: "I struggled offensively, but I called it one of my Allen Iverson nights - when you're struggling offensively but you just keep going and keep going and at the end something positive will happen for you." Van Exel: "It just happened. It's in the flow of our offense. When somebody's going, somebody has a good mismatch, we take advantage of it. Fin was really going. He got us back into the game. I made a few shots. Steve made a few shots. It was a great team offense." Van Exel on defense on Duncan: "That defense is called the 'not going fishing' defense. And I'm going to tell you right now, I don't fish. So if and when we lose, I'm going golfing; put me in a golf hat with a club. I said 'if'." Van Exel on game 6: "We got to feed off of our crowd. San Antonio is one of the best teams at playing on the road. We know that. We know that Tim's going to come out, he's going to be mean, he's going to be aggressive, and he's going to look to score. So we have to expect that. And we got to come with our same energy for 48 minutes. We got to leave it all on the court and see what happens." Raef LaFrentz: "It was quick. To go from here [holds hand low] to here [holds hand high] in a couple minutes. But I don't think anybody in this room is surprised we came back." LaFrentz: "We continue to put ourselves in big holes. But we never feel like we're out of a game." LaFrentz on Finley: "Michael was huge. He carried us to the point where Steve and Nick could finish it off. Nick made big free throws and Steve hit huge shots over 7-footers. But Mike was a force the entire game long." LaFrentz on Nash: "He made tough shots, real tough shots. It gets guys fired up and makes you believe and realize, that hey, we're here." LaFrentz: "When you find yourself in the kind of hole that we were in, then you don't have any choice, you know. We knew that we obviously were facing elimination and we find ourselves down 19 and really didn't have a choice. We just slowly chip away. Try and get stops back-to-back. And one thing we do know is that we know that we can score points and score points quickly." LaFrentz: "I think what that did is it made us more active. We went to the zone. We were in front and back of Tim and tried to make his looks as difficult as possible, like we have all series. It hasn't always worked, but it ended up working tonight." Eduardo Najera: "I never believed we were out of the game." Najera: "Even when we were down in the 1st half, we'd been there so many times, we knew we weren't out of the game." Najera on Dallas' defense on Duncan: "We just tried to double-team him all night. We didn't want him to get hot like he did in the games before." Raja Bell: "We were creeping, and you could feel the energy in the building was 'Uh-oh.' Once we tied it, that was it. The momentum was all ours." Bell: "It's unfortunate that people will talk about the Spurs choking, but the real story is we did some good things on defense along with our offense." Bell on Najera: "Eddie was tremendous with the energy. I don't know how many offensive rebounds he had, but they were critical. He was really going at Timmy and kept his body on him. Any time you have somebody flying around the gym like that, it's contagious." Gregg Popovich: "Dallas did a great job competing. They played well for 48 minutes. I was impressed with what they did." Popovich: "I thought we really showed a lack of maturity the last, whatever, 5, 6 minutes on the 2nd quarter and I thought that was the beginning of our problems where it sort of looked like we thought that somebody was going to give us something for some strange reason. But that's how we played at the end of the 2nd quarter. And I thought that they got a lot of confidence in that. I thought we had them in a position where we wanted to be, but I thought that lack of maturity at that point really hurt us. In the 2nd half, obviously, not missing any free throws again and I think they shot 56 or 57 from the field in the 2nd half. So that's going to happen. You can even get over that, but I'm real disappointed in the lack of maturity in the 2nd quarter and the inability to make stops, especially in the 4th quarter for us. They went to the zone and we did not shot the ball well, that's okay. But you still have to make stops. That's who we are. If we don't make stops, we have problems. And I thought that Dallas, you know, I saw blue shirts on the floor, I saw blue shirts ripping rebounds from people in white shirts. That they deserved it, they wanted it more, and they got it. So my hat's off to them." Popovich: "You know, there are a good number of guys that haven't been in that situation before. Everybody says that you have to be there, you have to have experience, this, that, and the other. You know, I think if you have half a brain, you realize how important of a game that was. It doesn't matter if you've been there before or not. It's not tough to grab a rebound, jump on the floor, make a stop. You miss shots, fine. You miss free throws, fine. It's going to happen. But the other stuff needed to be done. And Dallas had more people that wanted to do that than we did tonight." Popovich on Dallas going 2-1 in San Antonio and San Antonio winning 2 in Dallas: "If Nellie and I could explain that, then neither one of us would lose at home. It happens. It's a game. That's why they call it a game. You never exactly know what's going to happen. Wish I knew." Tim Duncan on Dallas: "Those guys did a great job of kind of staying in the game. Shots started falling for them. They dropped back in that zone and I thought we got a couple of decent looks at the basket that just didn't go down for us, to kind of break them out of that zone. Honestly, they just out-played us. They out-played us for a longer period of time." Duncan on if his teammates press when they start missing shots: "Yeah, a little bit. I think everybody does. It's natural for everybody. You miss a couple shots or somebody starts coming back, you try to make it up in a hurry. We've done a pretty good job trying to get away from that, kind of learning to get away from that, and just playing it possession to possession. But they just made shots in a row. And when they weren't making shots, they were getting foul calls and getting to the free throw line. And those guys are great from the free throw line." Duncan on not closing out: "It's very disappointing. But the goal is still to get to 4 and we're still up 3-2. We'd love to do it here in front of the home crowd and give them kind of a treat, but the goal is still to get to 4 before them." David Robinson: "We played bad 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarters. You just don't win that way. They are a very talented team even with Dirk gone." Robinson: "No, we are not doubting ourselves. We know that if we play the way we can we will be okay." Robinson: "We did not move the ball well. They clamped down on Tim and we did not play as smart as we did the last game. They showed a lot of heart and courage to come back like that." Robinson: "It was straight out of a bad dream. But you have to use it as motivation to get going. Nothing you really want is going to be easy. You have to work hard for it. I'll guarantee we'll get focused for the next one." Robinson on doubts: "No, not really. We know if we play good basketball, if we play the way we're capable of playing, we win. It's just as simple as that. It's just a matter of just going out and playing basketball. Playing basketball the way we know how to play basketball. So we obviously made our road tougher. So we just need to go take care of business." Robinson: "I think we just didn't move the ball as well. They did the same thing the last game - they clamped down on Tim. They had 2, 3 guys on him at times and we moved the ball around and got the shots that we wanted. Tonight we didn't do that. I definitely think we didn't play as smart as we did last game. That was the key. If a team makes you make different decisions, you got to make them, and we didn't do that as a team. And there's a lot of things we didn't do. And we're obviously disappointed. This is a game we could of won, should of won. It's over now. Got to move on." Robinson on Dallas' comeback: "It shows a lot of courage. They're on the road, they're in a tough situation. You're looking at we're up 18, 19 points, it's easy to fold over. They fought back. Those guys, they played hard. They showed a lot of heart tonight." Tony Parker: "People were asking the same thing a couple of weeks ago with Phoenix and Los Angeles. Same thing - we take a fast lead and we're playing great and we forget about the way we took that lead." Malik Rose: "We did not play together or share the ball. It was not anyone playing selfish. We just did not play inside-out like we normally do." Rose: "We just have to do what we did in the 1st half of this game. We have to continue to share the ball. We can't play 3 quarters of the game. We have to keep it together for 48 total minutes." Rose: "They did what they were supposed to do. They came and got a game and staved off elimination. They out-hustled and out-played us down the stretch. Now we have to focus on Thursday." Rose: "It is frustrating to work so hard for so long - and by so long I mean the season - and then for 5 minutes we make some stupid mistakes and let them back into the game. Then we do the same thing for 11 minutes in the 2nd half." Rose on defense on Duncan: "We can see everything that you can see on Tim. Maybe the timing and how hard they did it was a bit different. They really came at him hard in the 4th quarter and were not going to let him beat them. We have all seen that, me, Tony, Jackson, but we did not react like we were taught to and it hurt us." Rose on Dallas' defense on Duncan in the 4th: "They just decided he was not going to beat them. Tony's seen that before. Stephen's seen that before. Manu's seen that before. But we didn't react the way we were taught and capable of reacting and it hurt us." Rose on Najera: "He was a kamikaze out there. At times, he was 1 of maybe 2 players that had any energy for them, so I guess he did his job." Rose: "They didn't look tired and fatigued tonight, especially in the 2nd half. This deep in the playoffs, fatigue is overrated." Emanuel Ginobili: "I saw a couple of negative faces and people who were upset. That's all right to be upset because you can't let this happen. But we still have 2 more chances to get just 1. It's not all bad." Dallas Mavericks 103, San Antonio Spurs 91 at San Antonio (May 27) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Dallas 23 24 27 29 - 103 .459 .364 .434 1.000 San Antonio 30 28 23 10 - 91 .542 .227 .443 .632 Halftime: San Antonio 58-47 3rd Q: San Antonio 81-74 Technicals: San Antonio defensive 3 seconds 8:23 1st, Dallas defensive 3 seconds 10:12 2nd, Walt Williams 9:55 3rd Flagrant fouls: Eduardo Najera 9:07 2nd Refs: Ed F. Rush, Jack Nies, Mike Callahan Attendance: 18,797 (sellout) Did not play due to injury: Dirk Nowitzki (injured left knee), Shawn Bradley (sprained right knee), Evan Eschmeyer (sore right knee) Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Michael Finley 44 9-14 1-3 12-12 31 1-8 3 2 3 5 2 Walt Williams 32 5-13 2-4 0-0 12 1-8 1 2 1 0 0 Raef LaFrentz 24 4-12 1-4 0-0 9 2-2 0 0 5 0 0 Steve Nash 35 5-11 1-3 3-3 14 1-4 6 2 3 0 0 Nick Van_Exel 39 7-20 2-6 5-5 21 1-5 4 4 5 2 0 Raja Bell 14 1-3 1-1 0-0 3 0-2 1 1 2 0 0 Adrian Griffin 6 0-1 0-1 0-0 0 1-3 0 0 0 0 0 Eduardo Najera 33 4-8 0-0 3-3 11 4-8 1 0 4 2 0 Tariq Abdul-Wahad 13 1-1 0-0 0-0 2 0-2 0 0 2 0 0 Totals 48 36-83 8-22 23-23 103 11-42 16 12 25 9 2 San Antonio Spurs REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Bruce Bowen 39 3-7 2-5 4-6 12 0-2 1 1 1 1 3 Tim Duncan 44 9-15 0-1 5-12 23 5-15 6 1 3 0 1 David Robinson 24 1-3 0-0 3-6 5 2-6 2 2 3 0 5 Tony Parker 37 3-11 0-2 1-2 7 0-1 6 2 3 1 0 Stephen Jackson 36 7-13 2-7 4-4 20 0-3 1 3 4 1 1 Malik Rose 27 5-9 0-0 4-4 14 1-3 2 2 1 0 1 Emanuel Ginobili 21 2-9 1-7 0-0 5 0-4 6 2 1 1 0 Speedy Claxton 11 1-3 0-0 3-4 5 1-4 0 1 3 0 0 Kevin Willis 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 48 31-70 5-22 24-38 91 9-38 24 14 19 4 11 patricia Go Mavs!