Dallas at LA Clippers (February 26) The game stayed close in the 1st quarter with Dallas mostly holding small leads. Dirk Nowitzki made a layup with less than a second left and Dallas led 32-27 after 1. Michael Finley had 11 points. Dallas pushed their lead up to 10 points at 40-30 with 9:30 left, but could not get their lead larger than 11 points and the Clippers were playing tough. The Clippers closed the quarter with a 7-2 mini-run capped by a layup by Lamar Odom at the buzzer. Dallas led 54-50 at the half. The Mavs did rest some players in the 2nd quarter (it was the first game of a back-to-back) as Steve Nash did not play and Dirk Nowitzki only played 3 1/2 minutes in the quarter. The Clippers scored the first 7 points of the 3rd quarter to take a 57-54 lead with 9:40 left. The teams would then trade leads over the next 4 minutes and Dallas led 64-61 with 4:45 remaining. Dallas held a single-digit lead the rest of the quarter. Dallas led 76-70 after 3. Dallas led 80-74 with 9:30 to go and scored the next 8 points, capped by a putback by Dirk Nowitzki, to go up 88-74 with 7 minutes remaining. The Clippers pulled within 9 points with 1:23 left, but Nowitzki hit a jumper and Finley hit a jumper to secure the win. Dallas won 103-92. It wasn't as easy as the Mavs would have liked, but the Clippers have a young and athletic team and have been playing with confidence lately - they had won 4 straight, including an upset of Portland. Dirk Nowitzki was quiet for the first 3 quarters, but turned it on in the 4th quarter with 12 points. He finished with 22 points on 8-11 FG and 6-10 FT (missed his first 2) and 5 rebounds. Michael Finley led the way with 23 points and 5 rebounds. Steve Nash struggled offensively (3-11 FG), but dished out 11 assists and had one of his circus shots to start the Mavs' 8-0 run in the 4th quarter. Shawn Bradley had a nice night and kept his mouth shut to the refs (you could tell he was intentionally not complaining). He had 10 points on a perfect 3-3 FG and 4-4 FT and 10 rebounds. Greg Buckner was his usual hustle self and did a good job defending Lamar Odom, despite giving up 6 inches. Buck had 12 points and 7 rebounds. Juwan Howard looked better in the Mavs' system and did take the open shots and had 15 points. I'm sure he looked at the fact that he only had 1 rebound and he'll get more tonight. Don Nelson did not play Howard in the 4th quarter, opting to go with players who were used to his system and playing together. Howard was often seen cheering from the bench during the 4th. I've said it before, but, man, is Darius Miles a natural talent. He's skinny as a rail, but very athletic. He only had 10 points, but you knew when he was on the court. Lamar Odom had a nice game and tried to carry the Clippers. He had a team high 22 points including 9-13 FG, 11 rebounds, 6 assists, and 3 blocks. Eric Piatkowski hit a number of outside shots and finished with 16 points. Quotes Don Nelson: "I'll tell you what, the days of beating up the Clippers are over. They are a much improved team. I give a lot of the credit to Alvin Gentry. He's done a marvelous job with this team - getting them from where they were, very disorganized, to where they're really running great stuff and playing together. They are fun to watch. I was really worried about this game." Nelson: "We're a pretty good team. Not a great team, but pretty good. We knew how important of a game this was to us. We did not take them for granted at all." Steve Nash: "I think we played good defense tonight. We played at a high level tonight with lots of energy because we knew coming in to play the Clippers was going to be tough." Nash: "We've all enjoyed some success here recently, and it's great. When we all got here, the franchise was in disarray. And now we've all been part of a revival, and it's exciting. The Clippers are in the same situation. They're just a little farther back than we are at this point." Juwan Howard on not playing in the 4th: "It wasn't frustrating, even though as a player you want to play. That unit that was out there on the floor, they've been playing together for a long time. In the 4th quarter, they were the spark." Alvin Gentry: "They are a real quality team and anybody that plays them in the playoffs has to be a little nervous about facing them. They can hit you in so many different ways. [Having Howard] gives them another guy who can get 20 points on any night out." Gentry: "I wasn't disappointed with the way we played, I just thought that we never really got any stops so that we couldn't make any kind of run." Gentry: "We just never really got them stopped." Gentry: "We shot the ball well, we rebounded okay, but they've got so many weapons out there." Gentry: "What Dallas has done, we'd like for that to kind of be the blueprint for where we're going. They went through the hard times [and] just couldn't win close games. Now, I don't think you'll find a team in the West that'd say, 'Boy, I hope we get Dallas in the first round.'" Lamar Odom: "It wasn't like we didn't match up with them. But they just found something and ... it worked all night." Odom: "You can't even talk about the past with the Dallas Mavericks because they have a whole different program over there. Cuban has gone out and made a conscious effort to make his team better. You can see the results." Odom: "They're hard to match up with when they put 4 shooters on the floor." Odom: "Right now Dallas outnumbers us with the matchups. Once we find out how we match up with them, once we find out how to defense the pick and roll, things like that will be better." Quentin Richardson: "They definitely made a lot of tough shots. It didn't matter who it was. The shot clock would be running down and they would make a shot. Finley made a couple. Juwan made one. Nash made one. Everyone was making shots for them." Richardson: "They prevented us from getting out and running with their pick-and-roll. That made it difficult for us to get out and run and that's our strength." Dallas Mavericks 103, Los Angeles Clippers 92 at Los Angeles (February 26) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Dallas 32 22 22 27 - 103 .571 .167 .507 .806 LA Clippers 27 23 20 22 - 92 .500 .300 .474 .682 Halftime: Dallas 54-50 3rd Q: Dallas 76-70 Technicals: Lamar Odom 6:40 3rd, Alvin Gentry 1:22 3rd, Juwan Howard 0:05 3rd Refs: Joey Crawford, Mike Smith, Bill Spooner Attendance: 13,521 (cap 18,964) Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Greg Buckner 33 4-8 0-1 4-5 12 0-7 1 1 2 2 0 Juwan Howard 32 6-10 0-0 3-4 15 1-1 1 2 4 3 0 Dirk Nowitzki 39 8-11 0-2 6-10 22 2-5 1 1 3 0 0 Michael Finley 41 10-21 1-4 2-2 23 3-5 3 3 3 1 0 Steve Nash 32 3-11 0-1 4-4 10 2-3 11 2 3 2 0 Howard Eisley 33 2-8 1-4 2-2 7 0-0 3 0 1 4 0 Shawn Bradley 22 3-3 0-0 4-4 10 1-10 1 0 4 0 1 Eduardo Najera 6 2-3 0-0 0-0 4 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Obinna Ekezie 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Donnell Harvey 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 1 0 0 0 Totals 48 38-75 2-12 25-31 103 9-31 21 10 20 12 1 Los Angeles Clippers REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Corey Maggette 23 3-6 0-0 4-4 10 1-3 1 2 1 0 0 Lamar Odom 41 9-13 0-0 4-5 22 6-11 6 5 4 3 3 Michael Olowokandi 27 3-5 0-0 0-0 6 0-4 0 0 5 0 2 Jeff McInnis 31 3-9 1-3 1-2 8 0-4 6 0 5 0 0 Eric Piatkowski 32 6-11 1-4 3-3 16 0-2 1 4 2 0 0 Darius Miles 32 4-9 0-0 2-6 10 3-5 1 1 4 0 0 Cherokee Parks 11 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 1-4 1 1 0 0 0 Keyon Dooling 17 2-8 0-1 1-2 5 0-0 5 1 2 0 0 Quentin Richardson 19 6-9 1-2 0-0 13 2-4 0 1 0 1 0 Sean Rooks 7 1-6 0-0 0-0 2 2-3 0 0 0 0 1 Totals 48 37-78 3-10 15-22 92 15-40 21 17 23 4 6 patricia