Rolando Blackman signed a 1 year contract worth $400,000 with AEK Athens of the Greek Basketball League. Terry Davis dislocated his ring finger on his right hand (non- shooting) in practice today. He is questionable for Saturday's game against Utah. Dick Motta was named as Coach of the Month. Jim Jackson was runner up to Anfernee Hardaway (Orl) for player of the week last week. Addendum to the listing of 50 point duos from yesterday: the Dallas Morning News mentions that Jackson and Mashburn became only the 6th set of players on one team to score 50 points in a game in one season in the entire 49 year history of the NBA. Denver at Dallas This game should have been a blow out. I don't know what Denver's excuse is - they even had revenge on their side and didn't blow the Mavs away. The Mavs were throwing up bricks all night. 3-pointers were missed, jump shots were missed, lay ups were missed, free throws were missed, and even dunks were missed. It was as if there was a lid on the basket. The Mavs started the first quarter by shooting a wonderful 2-18 FG. They finished the quarter at 5-28 FG. Despite that Denver was only up 24-17. Two big helps to that were Denver shooting only 38% and Popeye grabbing a team tying record of 11 rebounds in a quarter. You'd think that shooting that bad couldn't last forever. It did. Denver built an 18 point lead in the middle of the 2nd and were up 52-33 at the half. Mashburn was 0-7 FG. Popeye had 7 points and 12 rebounds, Jackson 11 points including 5-13 FG, Rodney Rogers 10 points, and Dikembe Mutombo 9 points, 9 rebounds, and 2 blocks in the first half. Dallas was shooting just 24% (12-50) FG and 50% FT. Denver had their lead up to 22 points before the Mavs started to come back. The Mavs managed to cut that large lead down to just 5 points towards the end of the 3rd. And they were still only shooting around 30% FG. A 3-pointer by Dale Ellis pushed the Denver lead up a bit and a little bit later, the quarter ended at 67-58 Denver. In the 4th, Denver's lead fluctuated betwen 8 and 14 points. Jamal Mashburn finally got his first, and it turned out only, basket of the night when he made a 3-pointer with just over 3 minutes left. [To be fair, he did have a field goal earlier in the game that got waived off by a loose ball foul on Denver off the ball - it was just one of those nights.] The Mavs, behind Jackson and Kidd, managed to make the ending much more exciting than it should have been by cutting Denver's lead to just 86-80 with 1:22 left. The Mavs had a couple of turnovers and all shots were still falling flat. Denver got 3 more points off of free throws. Denver 89, Dallas 80 Denver did try to help Dallas by committing 29 turnovers. Dallas returned the favor by missing 12 free throws. Denver also seems to a have a lot of personel problems. When Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf was replaced in the 3rd quarter, his replacement went to give him a high-five and Abdul-Rauf ignored him and walked right past him. He, among others, has been publically complaining about his playing time. 1 2 3 4 - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Denver 24 28 15 22 - 89 .509 .294 .458 .667 Dallas 17 16 25 22 - 80 .363 .630 .313 .613 Halftime: 52-33 Denver 3rd Q: 67-58 Den Denver's largest lead: 56-34, 10:10 3rd Dallas never led Attendance: 13,929 Technicals: Denver team T (only 4 men on court [I told you they were really trying to help Dallas]), Denver illegal D 8:48 4th Officials: Jake O'Donnell, Tommy Nunez, George Toliver Denver FG 3pt FT Reb Player Min M-A M-A M-A Pts O-T Ast TO F Stl Blk Brian Williams 28 7-9 0-0 1-2 15 3-13 0 3 4 2 1 Rodney Rogers 34 7-14 3-6 3-6 20 1-4 4 4 3 2 0 Dikembe Mutombo 44 4-8 0-0 5-7 13 4-14 3 4 3 0 4 Dale Ellis 39 5-13 1-4 0-0 11 3-5 1 3 3 1 0 Robert Pack 31 4-11 1-4 2-3 11 1-6 7 7 3 0 0 Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf 19 2-7 0-1 2-2 6 1-4 2 0 0 1 0 Reggie Slater 14 1-4 0-0 1-1 3 0-1 1 2 3 0 0 Jalen Rose 17 1-4 0-2 2-4 4 0-1 1 4 2 0 0 Tom Hammonds 13 2-2 0-0 2-2 6 2-6 0 2 1 1 0 Cliff Levingston 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 1 0 0 0 0 Totals 240 33-72 5-17 18-27 89 15-54 20 29 22 7 5 Dallas FG 3pt FT Reb Player Min M-A M-A M-A Pts O-T Ast TO F Stl Blk Jamal Mashburn 31 1-11 1-3 5-8 8 1-1 1 3 4 0 0 Popeye Jones 37 4-15 0-0 3-6 11 7-22 1 2 3 1 0 Lorenzo Williams 32 1-4 0-0 0-0 2 1-3 1 0 4 1 2 Jason Kidd 33 3-10 0-3 1-3 7 2-5 5 3 1 4 0 Jim Jackson 41 10-25 0-2 6-8 26 7-9 1 6 3 1 0 Donald Hodge 9 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 1-1 4 0 2 0 0 Lucious Harris 11 3-5 0-2 0-0 6 0-2 0 1 2 1 0 Roy Tarpley 22 5-14 0-1 2-4 12 4-5 2 1 5 1 2 Doug Smith 6 1-2 0-0 0-0 2 0-0 0 0 1 0 0 Terry Davis 5 0-2 0-1 0-0 0 1-3 0 0 0 0 0 Morlon Wiley 13 2-6 0-4 2-2 6 1-2 2 1 2 1 0 Totals 240 30-96 1-16 19-31 80 25-53 17 17 27 10 4 patricia