Utah at Dallas (April 7) Utah opened the game with a jumper and Dallas scored the next 5 points and held a small lead the rest of the quarter. Dallas led 21-17 after 1. Dallas led 27-22 with 10 minutes left and Utah scored the next 8 points, including 6 from Danny Manning, to go up 29-27 with 8 minutes remaining as Dallas had 3 turnovers and a missed shot in the 2 minutes of play. The game stayed close 4 minutes and Dallas led 42-37 with 3 minutes left. Steve Nash picked up his 3rd foul and left the game. Utah proceed to close the quarter with an 11-0 run to go up 48-42 at the half. Dallas committed 15 turnovers in the half [more than they average for a game]. As a result, Utah had 14 more field goal attempts than Dallas. Utah continued rolling over Dallas in the 3rd quarter by scoring the first 8 points to take a 56-42 lead with 10 minutes remaining. That's a 19-0 run. Dirk Nowitzki finally ended Dallas' drought with a bucket with 9:50 remaining. Utah led in the teens until the last minute of the quarter. Dallas pulled within 72-81 with 30 seconds left, but Bryon Russell nailed a 3-pointer with 10 seconds to go to give Utah a 84-72 lead after 3. Karl Malone had 11 points, Donyell Marshall had 10 points, and Nowitzki had 14 points in the 3rd quarter. Dallas whittled away at Utah's lead and pulled within 6 points as Juwan Howard converted a 3-point play and Utah led 89-83 with 8:50 remaining. Utah answered the challenge by scoring the next 8 points to go up 97-83 with 6:45 to go. Dallas did not have another push in them and could get no closer than 9 points the rest of the way. Utah won 116-103. This game was real simple: turnovers and rebounds. Dallas committed a season high 24 turnovers [averaged only 13.4] and only had 3 offensive rebounds [2 is the team record low]. As a result, Utah attempted 15 more field goals and scored 36 points off of the turnovers. Utah's defense does deserve some credit for the high turnovers as they were harassing the ball handlers and swiping at the ball. Dallas also wasn't able to make the stops defensively as they allowed Utah to score 30 plus points in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarters. Utah was led, of course, by Karl Malone with 31 points including 13-17 FT, 11 rebounds, and 5 assists. The surprise of the night was the great performance from Donyell Marshall who had 21 points including 9-12 FG [and 7-8 FG in the 2nd half]. John Stockton had 15 points, an opponent's season high 13 assists, and 4 steals. Bryon Russell had 18 points including 7-12 FT and John Starks had 16 points to round out the 5 Jazz players in double-digits. Juwan Howard had a nice offensive game with 24 points including 10-10 FT, but only had 4 rebounds. Dirk Nowitzki was the only Mav who rebounded well with 9 rebounds to go with 22 points. As is often the case, the defense focused on Michael Finley with him seeing a number of double-teams. Finley finished with only 14 points (only 10 field goal attempts) and 7 turnovers. Steve Nash had a double-double with 12 points and 11 assists. Quotes Jerry Sloan: "The only thing we have to worry about is just play and try to win. I don't worry about [home court], don't pay much attention to that. I'll know at the end of 82 games where we are." Sloan: "You have to play some kind of a team-oriented game. We're not good enough to play 1-on-1, they are. They're athletic, they can beat you end to end and they've done that." Sloan: "We were able to get the ball inside and get to the free throw line. That's one of the things we've gotten away from. We haven't been able to get the ball inside. It's been a shoot first mentality." Sloan on Dallas' turnovers: "I'm amazed because they are a great ball handling team. They don't make mistakes and they are a great basketball team. We just happened to be a bit lucky and they turned it over." Karl Malone: "This gives us some momentum going into the playoffs. When we play Jazz basketball, it's hard for anyone to beat us." Malone: "The way we've been playing, we needed a game like this. We needed to get back to playing a solid game." Malone: "We pounded the ball inside and good things happened." Malone on home court in the first round: "It's big, but it's overrated. I think home court in the playoffs is very overrated." John Stockton: "We played a pretty decent game - 48 minutes. It wasn't perfect, but it's nice to play fairly well and win." Bryon Russell: "The most important thing to me is that we played team defense tonight. We helped each other out. We came up with some big plays and we came up with some big steals and we hit some big shots when we needed them." Russell: "All we were trying to do was win a game after losing two straight. We were not even worrying about how big of a game it is. Just winning feels good." Donyell Marshall on Dallas pulling within 6 points in the 4th: "I could see it in our players' eyes today. There was no way we were going to let this one slip away." John Starks: "We didn't let up. We stayed after them. We stayed and touched them. A lot of shots they [weren't] hitting was because they felt us, even though we [weren't] there. That's what you have to do in order to beat good teams like the Dallas Mavericks, the Lakers, Portland, Sac, and San Antonio - those caliber teams." Starks: "We needed to get back to playing defense and playing at a pace that is satisfactory to us. We did that against Sacramento but let up. Tonight, we didn't let up. We stayed after them." Don Nelson: "They were just better than we were in all aspects of the game. I don't know where to start, other than to just forget the game because we've been playing so well. You have to understand that these games come up every once in a while." Nelson: "We got taught a good old-fashioned lesson tonight. They outplayed us in almost every aspect of the game. They took control of the game and kept it. For whatever reason - and I'm going to give them all the credit - we couldn't get much going offensively, and we couldn't do much about them defensively. It's one of [those] games that you hope you don't have, but you have. They came in here and took the game. So, congratulations to the Utah Jazz." Nelson: "[Utah] was a high-priority game for me and the team didn't show well. I can easily put this in the background because we have been playing so well. We'll just leave this alone and not complain too much about it other than we were beat." Nelson: "Any time you turn the ball over as many times as we did against any good team, you're going to have a hard time winning. I was pretty disappointed by the turnover numbers, but defensively they were good. They had active hands and we didn't." Michael Finley: "We were trying to be aggressive. We were trying to make things happen. Sometimes you're overly aggressive." Finley: "Home court advantage is very important in the playoffs. People might not talk about it as much, but when you get into pressure situations, intense situations, you want that home court advantage. If we get it, fine. If we don't, life goes on. But we would like it." Juwan Howard on the turnovers: "That's what hurt us. Taking care of the basketball has been one of our strengths. But we made some mistakes we don't normally make." Howard: "Every time we tried to make a run it seemed like we would hit a stretch and turn the ball over or they would make a shot." Howard: "I'm going to look back on this game and reflect on it. It really hurts, it's hard to erase. Knowing that you had an opportunity to cover some ground with the playoff positioning. Tonight hurt some of our chances, but still, it doesn't stop here." Howard Eisley on the turnovers and steals: "They were very aggressive on the defensive end with active hands. You really have to give them credit." Utah Jazz 116, Dallas Mavericks 103 at Dallas (April 7) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Utah 17 31 36 32 - 116 .485 .700 .513 .744 Dallas 21 21 30 31 - 103 .578 .389 .524 .938 Halftime: Utah 48-42 3rd Q: Utah 84-72 Technicals: Olden Polynice 4:16 1st, Juwan Howard 4:16 1st Flagrant fouls: Olden Polynice 4:16 1st, Dirk Nowitzki 5:28 1st Refs: Joe Forte, Don Vaden, Blane Reichelt Attendance: 18,187 (sellout) Utah Jazz REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Karl Malone 41 9-21 0-0 13-17 31 2-11 5 0 4 1 0 Donyell Marshall 36 9-12 1-1 2-2 21 2-4 2 2 4 3 0 Olden Polynice 13 1-2 0-0 0-0 2 1-2 0 1 2 0 0 Bryon Russell 41 4-10 3-4 7-12 18 0-4 3 3 3 3 0 John Stockton 35 6-12 1-1 2-2 15 0-1 13 3 1 4 0 Jacque Vaughn 19 1-2 0-0 0-0 2 1-1 1 1 4 0 0 John Starks 34 6-12 2-4 2-2 16 0-4 2 0 3 1 0 Greg Ostertag 11 1-4 0-0 0-0 2 5-6 0 1 2 1 0 Danny Manning 10 3-3 0-0 3-4 9 1-2 0 1 4 1 0 Totals 48 40-78 7-10 29-39 116 12-35 26 13 27 14 0 Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Juwan Howard 38 7-13 0-0 10-10 24 0-4 2 3 5 1 0 Dirk Nowitzki 43 7-16 1-5 7-7 22 0-9 2 4 5 0 3 Calvin Booth 16 3-3 0-0 3-4 9 1-6 2 2 5 1 1 Michael Finley 45 5-10 1-5 3-3 14 1-3 4 7 4 2 1 Steve Nash 33 3-7 2-3 4-4 12 0-2 11 4 5 1 0 Shawn Bradley 18 1-1 0-0 1-2 3 1-2 0 2 3 0 1 Howard Eisley 19 3-6 1-2 2-2 9 0-1 1 1 1 0 0 Vernon Maxwell 22 3-6 2-3 0-0 8 0-0 0 0 2 2 0 Eduardo Najera 5 1-1 0-0 0-0 2 0-1 1 0 1 0 0 Wang Zhizhi 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 48 33-63 7-18 30-32 103 3-28 23 24 31 7 6 patricia