Denver at Dallas (October 10) Well, it was very much the ugly affair I was expecting. Denver just doesn't have much talent besides Juwan Howard since Marcus Camby is out after undergoing surgery on his hip. And Howard only played 22 minutes. And Don Nelson had lots of fun putting out strange lineups. You knew it was going to be different when Michael Finley was not included in the starting lineup. With a lot of the lineups used, I pray that we'll never see them during the regular season - if we do, then Dallas is in trouble. After starting Steve Nash, Adrian Griffin, Raef LaFrentz, Dirk Nowitzki, and Evan Eschmeyer. Dallas took an early 12-4 lead and never looked back. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but I never got the impression that Dallas was taking the game very seriously (the lineups used gave me that feeling). Finley came in for Nowitzki midway through the quarter. How bizarre did the lineups get? Camp fodder Derek Hood was sent in with about 4 minutes left in the 1st quarter. Dallas led 27-21 after 1. Dallas' ugly lineup of Finley, Adrian Griffin, Avery Johnson, Shawn Bradley, and Raja Bell opened the 2nd quarter and the group had trouble scoring. Denver used an 11-2 run to take and 32-29 lead with 8:30 left. However they weren't able to hang on to the lead and Dallas used a 12-4 run, including 8 points by Bradley, to take a 52-40 lead at the half. If I gave you 5 guesses prior to the game as to who would be the only player for either team in double-digits, I bet you wouldn't have guessed Bradley. Bradley had 15 points and 5 rebounds. Denver was very turnover prone and committed a very high 17 turnovers in the half. They also were foul prone as Dallas shot 22-26 FT while Denver shot just 6-9 FT [I'm biased, but it didn't feel like the Nuggets were getting screwed by the refs and they did double the Mavs' free throw attempts in the 2nd half]. The weird lineups continued as Nelson brought out the Oatmeal Gang - Nash, Nowitzki, LaFrentz, Eschmeyer, and rookie Adam Harrington (all white) - to start the 2nd half. Despite the weird lineups, Dallas maintained a double-digit (or near double-digit) lead for the entire quarter and led 76-61 after 3. The ugly game continued in the 4th quarter before finally, mercifully ending - Dallas went through a 4 minutes scoreless stretch starting with 7:15 left and Denver was able to only score 7 points during that span. The only highlights of the quarter were 2 spectacular dunks by Chris Andersen. Dallas won 91-83. It's hard to take anything out of this game with the bizarre lineups used and Denver's pathetic team. It's hard to analysis how effective Dallas' defense really was since most of the Denver players were so inept. Denver committed a near NBA regular season record 31 turnovers in the game and neither team shot well. As I said, it felt like Dallas never took this game seriously. Shawn Bradley had a solid game with 19 points on 5-6 FG and 9-10 FT, 6 rebounds, and only 4 fouls - he was never in foul trouble. Raja Bell also had a nice game and seemed more comfortable with his shot. He had 14 points and 6 steals. The only other stats that were interesting were the minutes. Michael Finley played 22 minutes and had 12 points and Dirk Nowitzki played just 16 minutes and had 12 points. No other Mav was in double-digits. Steve Nash played 24 minutes and Don Nelson has said that he won't play in tonight's game vs Milwaukee. I'm not going to go into the details of anyone else's game (trying to make this short). Popeye Jones (sprained right ankle), Nick Van Exel (sore right knee), and Tariq Abdul-Wahad (sore right knee) did not play. For Denver, Juwan Howard didn't do much in his 22 minutes as the focus was on the younger players. Rookie Nene Hilario has a big body and showed some promise and had 14 points and 9 rebounds before fouling out in 22 minutes. Mark Blount had 14 points on 7-11 FG and James Posey had 12 points (just 1-7 FG and 10-11 FT). No other Nugget was in double-digits. Marcus Camby (hip surgery) and George McCloud (strain groin) did not play. Since I bashed them in the last game, I have to say that I thought the ref crew in this game did a good job. I didn't scream at them once [a really bad call or a series of bad calls gets me vocal] and agreed with most of the calls that went against Dallas. [I probably won't have a write-up for tonight's game vs Milwaukee since I'm going out of town and wont' be listening to it.] Quotes Don Nelson: "It was pretty ugly basketball. I helped create the problem, so I deserved to watch it. I wanted to give the bigger guys a chance to get in the game and play a little bit. We struggled at times against a team that is not that good and we played at their level. Mostly what happened is that I wanted to look at a lot of different combinations." Nelson on not starting Bradley: "I like Shawn coming off the bench as a general rule, but sometimes it depends on the match-ups. He is playing very well." Nelson on AJ: "I gave Avery an unorganized team to play with, but we know what Avery can do. He has played a lot of years. I wanted to give him a good run. Nelson: "We struggled and when you play a team that's not good, you play down to their level. But you had to like Shawn Bradley out there tonight. He had another strong game." Steve Nash on the different lineups used: "It's so early that it doesn't even matter. We just need guys to get out there and get a run and get in shape. It doesn't matter what the combinations are because we need to stick to the fundamentals and try to improve every night." Nash on the improvements from game 1: "We just showed that we are improving a little bit. I don't think that we were necessarily much better in game 2 than game 1, but we showed that we have implemented some of our work in practice into the games." Raja Bell: "I was a little nervous the first game. I'm really not worried about the offense because I know I'm here to play defense and my offense will be all right because you can't help but get open looks playing with these guys. I was able to get open on the break and Avery and Steve found me a couple of times and the ball was just going into the basket a little bit more for me tonight." Bell on how unselfish this team is: "I was thinking that after the last game. I played on a team last year where the majority of our scoring went through one guy. Here everybody scores and I get more looks than I ever did in Philly. It's pretty amazing how unselfish everybody is." Bell: "We went out and tried to focus on defense. We still have to shore up the wall [defense] on the weak-side penetration and help each other out, but overall I think we played well." Jeff Bzdelik: "They did a nice job tonight. I was very pleased with our effort. There were some things that we weren't prepared for. We weren't prepared for a zone. We spent 5 minutes today talking about how to attack a zone. Of course Shawn Bradley caused some problems. I thought our players handled the zone and the trap well for not even practicing against it. We tried to do it on the fly, so that bothered us some. There were a lot of good things out there. Now we just need to take it step by step, and watch the tape, and drill it, and practice it, and we'll keep going forward day by day." Bzdelik: "There were a lot of good things out there." Bzdelik on Hilario: "He's a young man who's just turned 20. He has an impact on the game. I am hard on them because I want them to grow up faster, so it's being really positive and then really being tough in them. They need to grow up fast and it will help them develop. Bzdelik on Blount and Hilario: "They did a nice job. They're going to get an opportunity." Mark Blount: "Until Marcus comes back, hopefully I'll keep playing well. I'm just going to go out and keep working hard." Chris Andersen: "We all went out there with a new perspective on things when they were throwing things at us that we haven't really gone over. I think we did well just from the fact that we were going out there and playing our hearts out." Dallas Mavericks 91, Denver Nuggets 83 at Dallas (October 10) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Dallas 27 25 24 15 - 91 .406 .333 .400 .806 Denver 21 19 21 22 - 83 .468 .286 .449 .704 Halftime: Dallas 52-40 3rd Q: Dallas 76-61 Technicals: Denver defensive 3 seconds 6:41 1st, Dallas defensive 3 seconds 4:54 1st, Donnell Harvey (hanging on the rim) 2:05 1st, Denver defensive 3 seconds 5:56 2nd, Dallas defensive 3 seconds 4:22 2nd, Dallas defensive 3 seconds 6:43 3rd, Denver defensive 3 seconds 10:41 4th Refs: Tom Washington, Derek Richardson, Michael Henderson Attendance: 16,231 (cap 18,042) Did not play due to injury: Popeye Jones (sprained right ankle), Nick Van Exel (sore right knee), Tariq Abdul-Wahad (sore right knee), Marcus Camby (hip surgery), George McCloud (strained groin) Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Steve Nash 24 2-8 1-1 2-2 7 1-2 6 3 1 0 0 Adrian Griffin 21 1-3 0-0 4-4 6 0-2 1 3 2 0 0 Raef LaFrentz 29 3-6 0-2 2-4 8 0-3 1 1 2 0 0 Dirk Nowitzki 16 5-7 0-0 2-2 12 0-3 0 0 1 1 0 Evan Eschmeyer 13 3-4 0-0 0-0 6 0-2 0 0 5 0 1 Avery Johnson 25 0-3 0-0 1-2 1 0-1 4 2 2 0 0 Raja Bell 23 5-10 0-0 4-4 14 0-3 2 3 4 6 0 Eduardo Najera 23 0-9 0-0 0-0 0 4-8 0 0 1 0 0 Shawn Bradley 22 5-6 0-0 9-10 19 3-6 1 2 4 0 2 Michael Finley 22 4-11 0-1 4-6 12 2-4 1 0 0 1 0 Adam Harrington 13 2-5 1-2 0-0 5 0-0 0 1 3 1 0 Derek Hood 9 0-3 0-0 1-2 1 2-3 0 2 1 1 0 Totals 48 30-75 2-6 29-36 91 12-37 16 19 26 10 3 Denver Nuggets REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Kenny Satterfield 22 1-7 0-0 0-0 2 1-5 1 1 1 1 0 James Posey 21 1-7 0-2 10-11 12 1-6 1 3 2 2 0 Juwan Howard 22 2-6 0-0 0-0 4 1-1 2 3 3 0 0 Ryan Bowen 16 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 1-2 1 1 1 1 0 Mark Blount 23 7-11 0-0 0-0 14 2-5 1 3 4 1 0 Chris Andersen 23 4-7 0-0 0-1 8 0-5 3 4 3 0 4 Nene Hilario 22 4-7 0-0 6-10 14 4-9 2 5 6 3 0 Junior Harrington 20 3-5 0-1 0-0 6 0-1 2 3 4 0 0 Predrag Savovic 15 3-5 0-2 0-0 6 0-2 2 2 3 1 0 Donnell Harvey 14 2-4 0-0 2-3 6 2-5 1 0 4 0 0 Rodney White 12 2-5 0-0 0-0 4 0-1 0 0 0 1 0 Nikoloz Tskitishvili 12 2-2 2-2 0-0 6 0-2 0 3 2 0 0 Vincent Yarbrough 11 0-1 0-0 1-2 1 1-1 2 0 2 0 1 Darrick Martin 6 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 2 1 1 0 0 Zendon Hamilton 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 48 31-69 2-7 19-27 83 13-45 20 31 36 10 5 patricia