Dallas at Utah - Game 1 (April 21) The game stayed close, but you could tell that Dallas wasn't quite in sync as Dallas committed 4 turnovers in the first 5 minutes of the game. Dallas led 9-8 with 6:50 left and Utah scored the next 8 points to go up 16-9 with 4:45 remaining as Dallas missed 6 straight shots. Bryon Russell nailed a 3-pointer with 7 seconds to go and Utah led 22-17 after 1. Karl Malone had 9 points. Dallas had 7 turnovers in the quarter. Utah led 26-19 with 10:10 remaining and Dallas scored the next 6 points to pull within 25-26 with 7:20 left. Malone hit 3 free throws and then Dallas went on a 14-3 run to go up 39-32 with 2:15 remaining. But Utah scored the last 8 points of the quarter to take a 40-39 lead at the half. Utah continued their run by opening the 3rd quarter with a 17-5 run and led 57-44 with 6:20 to go. Dallas finally re-gathered their poise and went on a 14-1 run, capped by a 3-pointer by Dirk Nowitzki, to tie the game at 58-58 with 1:20 left. Nowitzki tipped the ball in with less than a second left and Dallas led 62-61 after 3. Utah scored the first 7 points of the 4th quarter to go up 68-62 with 10:20 left. The teams trade baskets and Dallas went on an 8-1 run, with 7 of those points coming from Michael Finley, to take a 72-71 lead with 6:45 remaining. The 1 point from Utah came on a made technical free throw which came from Don Nelson receiving his 2nd technical for complaining about a non-call and he was ejected. Utah lead 76-74 with 5:15 to go and Dallas scored the next 8 points to go up 82-76 with 4 minutes left. Utah scored the next 4 points. The teams traded misses and then baskets and Dallas led 84-82 with 1:40 remaining. The teams traded misses and Steve Nash hit 2 free throws with 1:12 left. Dallas converged on Malone and he kicked out to an open Danny Manning, who swished the 3-pointer with 58 seconds remaining to cut Dallas' lead down to 1 point. Nowitzki missed and John Stockton pushed the ball up the court and was fouled driving. He hit both free throws to give Utah a 87-86 with 26 seconds to go. Nowitzki drove and Malone stripped him and Donyell Marshall picked up the loose ball and was intentionally fouled with 3.3 seconds left. He missed the first free throw and hit the second and Dallas called timeout to set up a play and move the ball to halfcourt. Finley inbounded to Nowitzki and he handed the ball back to Finley who attempted a poor 3-pointer that barely hit the front of the rim as 2 defenders covered him. Utah won 88-86. Dang. It was a great game, though. It was as close and exciting as most expected it to be. There were areas that Dallas can improve and, hopefully, they will learn from their mistakes. The primary one is that they have to stop worrying about the officiating. Yes, there were a lot of non-calls against Dallas (though, Malone's strip at the end was clean), but this is the playoffs. Even Don Nelson needs to learn that lesson. Yes, Dallas did play better following each of his technicals, but they cost Dallas 2 points and the reffing did not change. Dallas was hurt by 4 technicals assessed to coaches and players (and 2 for early illegal defenses). Utah did help by missing 9 free throws (and they attempted 9 more free throws). Another thing Dallas needs to improve [sounding like a broken record] is offensive rebounds. Not only gathering some themselves (only 9), but not allowing Utah to get soooo many 2nd chance points. Utah had 19 offensive rebounds. That won't cut it. Hopefully with a game of playoff experience under their belt, the Mavs will step it up, ignore complaints about the officiating, and take game 2. As for the individual players, both Michael Finley and Dirk Nowitzki struggled early, but managed to produce numbers, with Finley picking up his game in the 4th quarter. Finley had a team high 26 points including 4-9 3-pointers and 12 points in the 4th quarter. Nowitzki had 20 points including 7-20 FG and 12 rebounds. Both played all 48 minutes (only once before has a Mav played all 48 in a playoff game). Steve Nash played well and had 20 points and 7 assists, but turned the ball over 5 times. Juwan Howard couldn't do anything with Karl Malone and only had 14 points and 9 rebounds. Shawn Bradley and Calvin Booth weren't performing, so Nelson brought in seldom used Mark Bryant to defend Malone. Bryant did a great job, though Malone still did play well, but not as well before Bryant started defending him. For Utah, no surprise, Karl Malone was the man. He finished with 26 points on a poor 8-23 FG (his outside shots weren't falling) and 10-13 FT, 6 rebounds, and 7 turnovers. I expect he'll have a better game in game 2 [hopefully not, though]. John Stockton was an assist maniac and Utah suffered when he wasn't on the floor. In fact, Jerry Sloan said that he made a mistake by sitting Stockton too long in the 3rd quarter. Stockton had 18 assists to go with 12 points and 6 rebounds. Danny Manning didn't do much (12 points), but his 3-pointer was a killer. Bryon Russell had a double-double with 12 points (only 5-15 FG) and 12 rebounds. Donyell Marshall played well in his first playoff game ever with 12 points (including a monster dunk over Bradley) and 10 rebounds including 5 offensive. In an interesting twist, the Mavs wore blue socks. Shawn Bradley on the socks: "I look like I belong in a Jane Fonda workout video with these leg warmers." Quotes Jerry Sloan: "To be able to finish the ballgame the way we did, I think that's a pretty good sign as to where your team is." Sloan: "Everyone can play the game of basketball, but you have got to be able to play down to the last 3 or 4 minutes of the ballgame so you don't make defensive mistakes. You've got to know what you are doing, and you've got to have a little bit of luck." Sloan: "This is a tough team to play. They're very, very talented. They got guys who can shoot the ball." Sloan on Dallas' comeback in the 3rd: "I took Stockton out, and probably took him out too long. I question myself about that." Sloan on experience: "It's just basketball. Forget about age. Young, old, whatever. It's about who plays focused." Karl Malone: "Everybody talks about offensive execution. But down the stretch, our defensive execution was the best I've seen in quite a while." Malone: "We'll get better as this series goes on. But so will they. It makes for a really good series." Malone: "I think the biggest play of the day was that 3-pointer Danny shot. We were down by 4 points and he hit that 3 and it puts a little pressure back on them." Malone on Manning's 3-pointer: "It was the biggest play of the game. It put a little pressure back on them." Malone on Manning's 3-pointer: "Danny got a great look and knocked it down. We shoot those in practice a lot, but to make them in that situation is huge." Malone: "We were down by 6 points, and we still believed we could win the ball game." Malone on his strip of Nowitzki at the end: "Dirk puts the ball on the floor a lot. He likes to go to his left. He keeps the ball down low, and I was able to grab it." Malone on his strip of Nowitzki: "Dirk likes to put the ball on the floor. I was the help guy. He likes to keep the ball down low and I was able to get my hands on it." Malone on Nowitzki's drive: "Dirk was going to score. I was just in the right place at the right time to make a very rewarding play." Malone on doubling Finley at the end: "There wasn't a doubt in my mind Michael Finley wasn't going to pass the ball. I left Dirk open, but I knew he wasn't going to pass. Michael Finley is a great player. He wants the ball in that situation. He likes to take big shots." Malone on experience: "16 and 17 years of playing. That's a lot of basketball and mostly [there's] the belief that you can win the ball game." John Stockton: "That was a tough game. Those guys are so talented. They have a good team, and I expect this series to be a dogfight." Stockton: "I expect another dogfight come Tuesday. They've played great every time they've been in this building so I expect them to play great and I expect us to have to play better to beat them." Stockton on Utah's execution: "It's something that's going to have to pay off for us. We need to be very good at that or we'll lose. This is a very good team and, as you can see, they can beat you a lot of different ways and then comeback from just about any deficit. I feel very fortunate about that win. I expect us to have to play better to beat them." Stockton on Manning's 3-pointer: "That gave us some hope. And we needed that." Stockton on Manning's 3-pointer: "They had all the momentum and were hitting all the shots until Danny made his." Stockton on Finley guarding him: "My job is pretty much the same whoever guards me. I can't afford to get into a situation where I'm trying to prove a little guy is better than a big guy or anything like that. I'm trying to get us into our offense and make sure everyone is running it like we're supposed to run it." Stockton on experience: "It pretty much has to play the whole role for us because we don't have anything else. We have to use our heads." Danny Manning on his 3-pointer: "They went down to double team on Karl and I was at the top of the key, spotted up. Karl gave me a great pass and I had a clean look, and I was very fortunate that it went in." Manning: "Dallas is a very talented basketball team. They shoot the ball extremely well, they create a lot of match-up problems with their open court style of play. And their guys enjoy that system, and they make it work." Donyell Marshall on his first playoff game: "I was kind of nervous. Stockton was laughing at me, telling me to loosen up. That made me relax." Marshall on Stockton's 18 assists: "That's what Stockton does for our team. He makes sure the ball gets to the right person at the right time. That's why he's the player he is and why he will be in the Hall of Fame." Marshall on Stockton: "I think that's the experience. You look at Dallas, when Steve Nash is out, their team is not the same. When he's in, he's able to calm them down, and he runs the offense and makes sure they get a good shot. That's what Stockton does for our team. He makes sure the ball gets to the right person at the right time." Donyell Marshall on experience: "I think it helps a lot. You look at Dallas' experience and stuff, I think if they had the experience we had, they might have been able to pull this game out." Bryon Russell on Dallas' comeback in the 3rd quarter: "You get relaxed and they started hitting some big shots." John Starks: "True grit. We got down and didn't give up, and they didn't give up, either." Starks on Manning's 3-pointer: "The biggest shot of all." Donn Nelson: "Our execution was spotty down the stretch and you can't have that type of performance against teams the caliber of the Jazz." [Note: Don Nelson does not address the media following games he is ejected in.] Nelson of Dallas' jitters: "I thought there would be more, actually. There were, no question, but I thought we came out fairly loose. We didn't hit shots. Dirk, of course, struggled. We're used to him hitting a high percentage. But I think for the most part, we kind of pulled out of it, pulled together. We've always been resilient. All year long we've been resilient. I think that showed tonight and I think that will be the tale of this series. We're not going to go away. We're going to continued to do battle and we just have to get more consistent with our efforts, 1 to 12." Nelson on Dallas' inexperience: "We've got to learn fast. We're young. Not very experienced. And so if you don't learn quickly, you're going to have an early exit." Nelson: "Dirk taking it strong to the hole was something we've encouraged him to do all year. In the playoffs, a lot of times you don't get calls like that." Nelson on Nowitzki passing to Finley at the end: "Dirk's got the freedom to take that shot, but deferring to Mike isn't a bad thing." Nelson on Bryant: "We really thought Mark could help us in this series. He knows how to play." Nelson: "Sticking up for players is part of the job. We strongly disagreed with some calls and probably got too emotional." Nelson his his father's ejection: "I though that we hit a kind of lull. You have to stick up for your players. It's just something that every coach does and referees can't see everything, but they called a good game. One particular play there was a disagreement and coach got emotional. But I did think from that point on we had a little spark, a little pep in our step, and we ended up coming back strong." Nelson: "I really think, especially after the first [technical], we had a little spark, a little pep in our step. It gave us some confidence." Nelson on what the team learned: "I think that our guys will have a more realistic idea of the physicality that it takes to complete in these situations. It's got to be 1 through 5. It can't just be Mark Bryant to save the day." Michael Finley: "There's a lot of 'what ifs' right now. One thing we've learned is that the little things throughout the game add up. That's what ultimately gives the winning team the win. Loose balls, long rebounds we should scrap up, things like that." Finley: "All losses hurt. If we would have loss by 20, it still would have hurt. We had confidence even before this series, being that we beat them before. We know what they like to do, and we know what we can do against them well. It's just a matter of us putting a complete together, and we'll do that on Tuesday. Knowing that we had the game in hand, it leaves a bitter taste in our mouths. But at the same time, we're going to try to use that as a positive, knowing that if we play well we can beat this team." Finley: "We all in this locker room know that we can beat that team. We put ourselves in position to win the ballgame at the end, and we didn't win it. We can't hold our heads down. We still have to bounce back and be ready to play Tuesday." Finley: "We aren't frustrated by individual players. It's more frustrating because this is a game we could have won, and should have won. We didn't execute at the end. But the little things at the end - didn't execute as well offensively, defensively had some lapses - and because of it, we lost." Finley on Manning's 3-pointer: "If you had to pick anybody on the court to shoot that shot, you'd probably pick Danny Manning, and he knocked it down. He stepped up and made a big play." Finley on Nowitzki's drive: "Dirk made an aggressive play. How can you fault him for that? The call could have gone either way." Finley on his 3-point attempt: "We wanted the best shot possible. Coach told us if a 3 is available, go ahead and take it. I was just trying to get a good look." Finley on his 3-point attempt: "I didn't get the shot I wanted. It was on line. It just came up short." Finley on his 3-point attempt: "It's not the look that I wanted. If I could do it all over again, maybe I'll get a better look." Finley on his first playoff game: "It's nothing that I didn't expect. It's not as physical as everybody says it is. It's just less calls made. But it's the little things that wins playoff games." Finley: "I think we've learned a lot from this loss. We're not going to put our heads down because it's still a series and we just have to come back Tuesday ready to go." Finley: "You must win 3 games and we still have 4 games left. The pressure is still on them. They've got the homecourt and they still have to win." Finley: "Experience is good to a certain extent. But it's not going to get you wins just because you're more experienced than your opponent. We still had opportunities to win the ballgame." Dirk Nowitzki: "If I'd have made my shots we would've blown them out. I missed so many open shots, I guess my confidence got down a little." Nowitzki: "They took our fast break away. We had to play halfcourt basketball and still almost beat them. We know we can beat them." Nowitzki: "We should have won this game. We had a big chance today, and I think we have a great chance on Tuesday. We're just going to have to go back to the basics." Nowitzki: "Coach [Don Nelson] told us to hold our tempers, but it's hard when you can't buy a call. Nowitzki on Malone stripping him: "On my drive, I thought I got fouled. But you never get that call, especially on the road." Nowitzki: "I thought it was a foul. I guess to think I'd get that call in that situation is wrong. I'm learning quickly that you get no calls in the playoffs - none." Nowitzki: "Of course they got some breaks. They're an experienced team. It's their homecourt." Nowitzki on passing the ball back to Finley at the end: "That play has worked before a couple of times and Mike was shooting the ball so much better than me, I wanted him to have the last look. Maybe I should've looked at the hoop, but you're always smarter afterward, aren't you?" Steve Nash: "I think where they really won this game at our place 2 weeks ago when they beat us for homecourt. Homecourt is why they won. They got the calls down the stretch. They deserved homecourt and maybe that's why they deserved to win. But I also feel like we have a case for feeling as though we should have won." Nash: "We have 2 days to regroup and we will be just as emotional and energetic, but maybe more experienced and a little more poised and make a few more plays." Nash: "I think that we just have to realize that it's more than one game. We have to play a series and as fast as we can be positive again, the better. I think we can't waste any time being frustrated or feeling negative. Well we didn't play great today, but we had a great chance to win and we lost. I think it's really important that we realize it's a series and bounce back mentally and I think we'll be fine on Tuesday." Nash on experience: "I don't think the lack of experience hurt us. I don't think we felt any different than a regular season game. Maybe we wanted to win a little bit more because of the finality of it." Juwan Howard: "Looking back at what we did wrong and what helped the Jazz were turnovers and a lot of second chance points. Come Tuesday night, if we correct those errors, we'll win the ballgame." Howard: "Of course their experience helps. It helps big time." Mark Bryant on what his teammates learned: "They know what to expect now. They've been in a war." Bryant on his game: "I've been waiting all year to play. I wasn't waiting for the playoffs. I know I've still got talent to play. It just wasn't my time." Bryant: "Granted, I haven't played a lot this season, but I tried to keep myself ready. I tried to do the best I possibly could, but Karl's going to get the job done. We played well. They just ran their plays great at the end." Bryant: "I'm not going to go out there skipping around. I'm going to go out there and do my thing. You've always got to keep yourself prepared. I just tried to do the best I could possibly do." Shawn Bradley: "I didn't have a lot of expectations. I just wanted to come out and get the experience." Utah Jazz 88, Dallas Mavericks 86 at Utah (April 21) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Utah 22 18 21 27 - 88 .429 .300 .413 .704 Dallas 17 22 23 24 - 86 .462 .350 .431 .944 Halftime: Utah 40-39 3rd Q: Dallas 62-61 Technicals: Dallas Illegal D 3"35 1st, Dallas Illegal D 3:10 1st, Karl Malone 2:15 2nd, Don Nelson 7:43 3rd, Donn Nelson 7:43 3rd, Don Nelson (ejected) 7:20 4th, Mark Bryant 6:03 4th Flagrant Fouls: Mark Bryant 2:03 3rd Refs: Joey Crawford, Hue Hollins, Luis Grillo Attendance: 19,100 (cap 19,911) Did not play due to injury: Greg Buckner (dislocated left kneecap) Utah leads the series 1-0 Utah Jazz REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Karl Malone 41 8-23 0-0 10-13 26 1-6 4 7 1 2 1 Donyell Marshall 37 5-13 0-1 2-3 12 5-10 1 1 1 1 1 Olden Polynice 15 4-5 0-0 0-0 8 5-5 0 2 4 1 0 Bryon Russell 44 5-15 2-5 0-0 12 1-12 1 0 2 2 0 John Stockton 37 3-7 0-2 6-7 12 3-6 18 2 4 1 2 Jacque Vaughn 19 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 0-1 0 0 3 0 0 John Starks 13 2-5 0-1 0-0 4 0-1 0 1 2 0 1 Greg Ostertag 14 1-3 0-0 0-0 2 3-4 0 0 3 0 0 Danny Manning 20 5-7 1-1 1-4 12 1-3 0 2 2 0 0 Totals 48 33-80 3-10 19-27 88 19-48 24 15 22 7 5 Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Juwan Howard 44 5-11 0-0 4-4 14 3-9 3 3 5 1 1 Dirk Nowitzki 48 7-20 2-9 4-5 20 1-12 1 3 4 1 1 Shawn Bradley 17 1-2 0-0 0-0 2 1-5 1 0 4 0 3 Michael Finley 48 10-23 4-9 2-2 26 1-4 2 2 2 0 1 Steve Nash 40 6-11 1-2 7-7 20 0-3 7 5 3 1 0 Calvin Booth 13 1-2 0-0 0-0 2 2-2 1 0 0 0 0 Howard Eisley 12 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 3 2 0 0 Mark Bryant 18 1-1 0-0 0-0 2 1-2 0 0 3 1 0 Totals 48 31-72 7-20 17-18 86 9-37 15 17 23 4 6 patricia Go Mavs!