Just to catch up before getting into the game report ... The big, good surprise was that Dallas signed Cedric Ceballos to a 1 year, minimum ($725,000 for a player with 8 years experience) contract. What a steal! The free agent money dried up before Ced got his share and he came back to the Mavs willing to play for minimum. Michael Finley has been bothered by back spasms and did not play in the second Phoenix pre-season game. Samaki Walker didn't play in either pre-season game due to a sprained ankle. Gary Trent missed the games with a hip flexor and Erick Strickland missed the games with a sprained ankle and the flu. The Mavs placed Ansu Sesay on IR with a broken right foot and he will likely be out for the season. The Mavs will probably carry him on IR for the rest of the season like they did with Ace Custis last season. The Mavs released Custis so that he could join AEK Athens of the Greek league. The Mavs had originally been talking with AEK about them finding room for Sesay, but convinced them to sign Custis after Sesay broke his ankle. The Mavs released Greg Buckner and he re-joined the Grand Rapids Hoops of the CBA. Dallas signed president and CEO Terdema Ussery (he deals with the business side of running the Mavs) to a 3 year contract extension. His current contract was to expire in May. Dirk Nowitzki was named as Player of the Year for the Bundesliga league of Germany. The negotiations are continuing with Samaki Walker's agent and the Mavs regarding signing him to a contract extension. The Mavs' last offer (reportedly) was 4 year, $20 million and the agent responded with 4 year, $30 million. The Mavs have until March 13 to signing Walker to an extension else he becomes a free agent this summer. Just real brief on the pre-season games. In a some what sloppy game by both teams, Phoenix defeated Dallas 117-109 in Dallas January 30. The Mavs defense and rebounding was sorry and Phoenix scored a lot of points inside and on the break. However, the Mavs were also able to run against Phoenix. In the second game in Phoenix, the Mavs' defense and rebounding was still lacking as Phoenix won 116-110 February 1. I was impressed that the Mavs were able to remain competitive even though Finley did not play. Ceballos carried the team with a monster game of 27 points and 22 rebounds. Onto where it counts. Game One (finally!) Dallas at Seattle - February 5 The Mavs were in Seattle for the opening game and what a game it was. The Mavs learned their lesson from the Phoenix games and their defense was vastly improved. However, their lack of rebounding is what killed them. I don't even want to know how many points Seattle got on second chances. The Mavs opened the game strong and held small leads through out the first quarter and led 27-21 after 1. Dallas shot over 55% FG in the quarter while Seattle was in the 30s. The Mavs continued their strong defensive effort in the 2nd quarter and built up a 8 point lead, but their lack of defending the boards allowed Seattle to remain in the game and cut into Dallas' lead. Seattle went on a 10-0 run to close the half and take the lead, but Michael Finley made a tough layup at the buzzer to stop the Seattle flow. Seattle led 46-42 at the half. The Mavs came on strong in the 3rd quarter and out scored Seattle 25 to 18 in the quarter, capped by a great offensive rebound and bucket by Gary Trent at the buzzer, to go up 67-64 after 3. Seattle came on strong in the 4th and it looked like they were going to pull away when Dale Ellis drained a 3 to tie the game at 72-72 with 8:30 left in the 4th and the momentum seemed fully on Seattle's side. Seatle pulled ahead and went up by 4 as the Mavs seemed to have crumbled. But the Mavs bounced back as two 3-pointers (one each by the offensively struggling Steve Nash and Finley) surrounded a Gary Payton basket to tie the game at 80-80 with 4 minutes remaining. The game was again tied at 82-82 with 3 minutes left after a Payton layup and 2 free throws from Cedric Ceballos. Payton dished to an open Vin Baker as the weak side defense did not rotate (Payton was being doubled) for the easy slam with 2 1/2 minutes left. The game got frustrating at that time as neither team could find the basket. Nash made a swing pass to A.C. Green who hit the 16-footer with the shot clock winding down to tie the game at 84-84 with a minute left. The frustration continued as Seattle couldn't score and Dallas could score on a couple of attempts. Nash missed a jumper and Green snatched down the rebound and Dallas called timeout with 3.7 seconds left in the game. Dallas called timeout, but the play was broken up when Ceballos fumbled the ball and Baker's 3/4 court fling went a foot to the right of the basket at the buzzer. Overtime. Well, it was fun until then. The Mavs dismal shooting continued as a number of open shots and layups were missed and Payton took his team on his back and carried them to the win. Payton scored the 6 of the 8 Seattle points of overtime, with the other 2 being meaningless free throws at the end of the game. The Mavs' only points of the overtime came from a John Williams basket with about a minute left. Seattle won 92-86. For the trivia: Green scored the first points of the game and Payton was the first opponent to score. As for the individual performances: Finley really struggled and you had to wonder how much his back was still bothering him (the announcers kept commenting on how flat his shot looked). He only had 9 points on 4-17 FG and actually was benched by Nelson during the end of the 4th and overtime. The good news was that the Mavs played great even though Finley struggled. Dirk Nowitzki looked like a rookie in his first game and struggled with only 2 points off free throws as he missed all 5 shots he attempted. Green was solid and had some key baskets in the 4th quarter. He finished with 8 points and 11 rebounds. Nash struggled defensively and had the impossible task of defending Payton. He didn't do too bad of a job - Payton is just that good. Though he only had 9 points on 3-13 FG (and 3-9 3-pointers), 2 of the 3-pointers were part of Mavs' rallies. He only had 5 assists as the Mavs' strategy involved keeping the ball as far away from Payton as possible (Payton is a very good thief). The surprise performance came from Shawn Bradley. He played very well with 11 points on a perfect 4-4 FG and 3-3 FT and had 7 rebounds. He was part of the effective team on the court during the 3rd quarter. As usual, his height caused some Sonic players to pass that ball outside when they got it in the paint. I was actually a little disappointed that he didn't play much in the 4th after his solid performance in the 3rd. The star for the Mavs was Ceballos. He played great and finished with the team high 16 points and 8 rebounds. Samaki Walker played limited minutes and showed flashes of the potential he showed last season. Erick Strickland hit some key baskets in the 4th as the shot clock was running down. Gary Trent's rebound and basket to end the 3rd was impressive, but he only played 10 minutes. Robert Pack had a couple of nice dishes and slashing baskets in his limited minutes. John Williams did a decent job, but nothing memorable. Hubert Davis and Chris Anstey were non-factors in very few minutes. Don Nelson played 13 players. The bench was very effective and can prove to be a major factor in this short, game intensive season. The Mavs' bench out-scored Seattle's bench 47-21. As for Seattle, Gary Payton is the man. Even with the defensive focus Dallas gave him (and it was good defense most of the time), he scored 28 points, had 6 assists, and had 7 rebounds. Olden Polynice killed the Mavs with 7 offensive rebounds (he had 13 total boards) and he had 11 points with most of those coming from putbacks. He also got a technical for taunting after one of those. Vin Baker had a solid performance with 18 points and 7 rebounds. He hit a number of outside shots and benefited a couple of times from missed Mavs' defensive rotations. Quotes: Paul Westphal: "Gary was sensational. He showed why he's one of the best players in the league." Don Nelson: "It was a pretty gutsy effort. All game long (Finley) was not in his rhythm. He didn't have a good game, but he hung in there. Other than that we played pretty well. Opening night, overtime, the game was there for us. You have to be pleased." Nelson: "I was real proud of the way the team hung in there. It feels great to be competitive." Steve Nash: "Gary's probably the best point guard in the world and we compounded that with a couple of miscommunications on switches that gave him easy layups. Those are back breakers." Seattle Sonics 92, Dallas Mavericks 86 OT at Seattle (February 5) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th OT - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Seattle 21 25 18 20 8 - 92 .440 .273 .402 .615 Dallas 27 15 25 17 2 - 86 .424 .333 .405 .800 Halftime: Seattle 46-42 3rd Q: Dallas 67-64 Technicals: Olden Polynice (taunting) 4:18 2nd, Dallas Illegal D 3:01 2nd Refs: Bruce Alexander, Terry Durham, Ken Mauer Attendance: 17,072 (sellout) Seattle Sonics REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Vin Baker 45 9-20 0-1 0-2 18 3-7 2 1 3 1 3 Detlef Schrempf 36 3-10 0-0 3-4 9 2-10 3 1 3 0 0 Olden Polynice 41 5-10 0-0 1-3 11 7-13 2 0 2 0 0 Billy Owens 22 2-8 1-2 0-0 5 4-4 1 1 1 1 0 Gary Payton 44 12-28 2-9 2-2 28 2-7 6 1 3 1 0 Dale Ellis 24 3-8 2-5 1-1 9 1-4 1 0 1 1 0 Hersey Hawkins 31 1-6 0-2 0-0 2 0-6 6 0 2 1 0 Aaron Williams 13 3-4 0-0 1-1 7 1-1 1 0 0 0 1 Moochie Norris 9 1-3 1-3 0-0 3 0-0 2 2 1 0 0 Totals 53 39-97 6-22 8-13 92 20-52 24 7 16 5 4 Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Dirk Nowitzki 16 0-5 0-1 2-2 2 0-0 4 0 1 0 0 A.C. Green 25 4-7 0-0 0-0 8 1-11 0 0 0 0 0 Shawn Bradley 26 4-4 0-0 3-3 11 1-7 0 0 0 0 2 Michael Finley 37 4-17 1-2 0-0 9 3-4 5 0 3 1 0 Steve Nash 40 3-13 3-9 0-1 9 2-2 5 1 3 1 0 Robert Pack 13 2-5 0-0 1-1 5 0-0 4 0 1 0 0 Cedric Ceballos 37 6-10 0-2 4-6 16 2-8 2 3 3 0 0 Samaki Walker 18 3-8 0-0 0-0 6 0-3 0 1 1 0 0 John Williams 24 1-2 0-0 2-2 4 2-4 1 0 2 0 2 Hubert Davis 3 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0-1 0 0 0 0 0 Erick Strickland 14 4-6 2-4 0-0 10 0-1 0 2 1 0 0 Gary Trent 10 3-6 0-0 0-0 6 1-1 0 1 2 0 0 Chris Anstey 2 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 1 1 0 0 Totals 53 34-84 6-18 12-15 86 12-42 21 9 18 2 4 patricia