The Mavs set their opening day roster by placing Tariq Abdul-Wahad (left knee chondromalacia), Adam Harrington (left knee tendinitis), and Popeye Jones (back spasms) on IR. The surprise was that Harrington made the team. The coaches are fond of him and like him. Popeye's back is healing slowly and they are expecting him to be out another month. While serving their 1st of 2 games suspension, Don and Donn Nelson watched the game at Dave & Busters and, being the day before Halloween, they dress in stripped prison garb complete with a ball and chain. In inviting the public to watch the game with the Nelsons, the Mavs called it "Serve Time with the Nelsons". The Nelsons watched the 2nd game at Billy Bob's in Fort Worth and it was advertised as "Join the Outlaws". Raef LaFrentz suffered a high right ankle sprain during Saturday's Phoenix game. It was a scary looking injury and fortunately not as severe as initially feared (I thought he blew out his knee). He underwent an MRI yesterday and the results showed a 3rd degree sprain and he is expected to be out 3 to 6 weeks. Dallas at Memphis (October 30) The game was tied 19-19 with 3:30 left. Dallas closed the quarter with a 12-4 run to go up 31-23 after 1. Michael Finley and Dirk Nowitzki had 8 points each and Eduardo Najera provided the spark, energy, and defense in starting and had 4 points and 5 rebounds. Pau Gasol looked good and had 11 points. Dallas' lead fluctuated between 4 and 11 points in the 2nd quarter. Steve Nash's layup closed the quarter and Dallas led 64-54 at the half. Both teams were shooting around 50% FG, but Dallas shot 6-14 3-pointers and Memphis only shot 1-12 3-pointers. Dallas also had 7 more rebounds. Dallas came out on fire in the 3rd quarter and took their largest lead at 89-68 with 5:30 left. Dallas led 100-80 after 3. Nash had 10 points including 4-4 FG in the quarter. It should have been an easy coast to the finish, but Dallas made things difficult by forcing quick shots and Memphis took full advantage by hitting 7 straight shots and 4 free throws to go on a 22-6 run to pull within 102-106 with 4 minutes to go. But Nash drove to the basket for a layup and converted the 3-point play and Raef LaFrentz tipped in Nash's miss to give Dallas a 9 point lead with 3:15 left. Memphis would get no closer than 7 points. Dallas won 119-108. Despite having a 21 point lead at one point during this game, there were a lot of lessons to be learned. The Mavs can not slack off even when they have a large lead - they still need to run an offense and play smart. And they have to keep focused defensively and keep working on their defense - Memphis shot above 50% in each quarter and finished at 55.8% FG. Fortunately Memphis is a young team and prone to mistakes - they had 21 turnovers and allowed 24 2nd chance points. If Dallas had played the way they played in this game against one of the better teams in the league, they would have lost. On the plus side, Dallas did out-rebound Memphis 46-40, had 32 assists, and only committed 14 turnovers. It was a balanced attack and no one starred throughout the game. Steve Nash had 24 points (10 in the 3rd) including 3-4 3-pointers and 13 assists. Michael Finley had 21 points and Dirk Nowitzki had 20 points, 11 rebounds, and 7 assists. Eduardo Najera looked like his old self [banishing his early pre-season games as just a bad dream] and had 12 points on a perfect 5-5 FG and 2-2 FT and 10 rebounds in 24 minutes. Raef LaFrentz had 14 points and 6 rebounds, but picked up 5 fouls in the 4th quarter and fouled out with 1 1/2 minutes left. Nick Van Exel was the 6th Mav in double-digits with 16 points in 28 minutes. Walt Williams had 8 points, Shawn Bradley had 4 points, and Adrian Griffin did not score but had 6 rebounds. Pau Gasol started strong and looked good throughout [they should have gone to him more often) and finished with 27 points on 10-12 FG and 7-15 FT and 10 rebounds. NBA Rookie Gordan Giricek had a great debut with 29 points including 10-13 FG and 4-6 3-pointers and 5 rebounds. He was a key component of Memphis' comeback as 13 of his points came in the 4th quarter and he shot 4-5 3-pointers in that quarter. Drew Gooden looked nice and had 16 points - in 3 quarters; he only played 3 minutes in the 4th. No other Grizz was in double-digits. Starters Wesley Person, Jason Williams, and Michael Dickerson sat the entire 4th. Quotes Del Harris: "I'm not going to say we played an off-game by any means. That would be a lie. We played a good game. I just think Memphis has a nice team." Harris: "I thought tonight our defense in the 2nd half hurt us. When we got up 20, we were very frivolous with the ball." Harris: "We got careless. We got happy with our offense. You can't take a win for granted in the NBA. We got a little happy with our offense and had some untimely turnovers and paid the price." Harris: "When you get to the boards it makes a difference. That was an area that we were near the bottom of the league last year. We wanted to improve, so we've worked hard to get better at that." Harris: "We're always concerned. We're concerned with the defense. We're concerned with the offense. We're just kind of a concerned sort of staff. We don't want to give up 108 points a game. We think we'll be good defensively. But it doesn't happen overnight." Harris: "We don't want to give up 108 points, but we think our defense none the less is coming along." Harris on Giricek: "They made a great acquisition in him. He showed he belongs in the NBA." Dirk Nowitzki: "We should have blown them out. They kind of made a run, but we still hung in there at the end and we kind of got back to what we were doing in the 3rd quarter." Nowitzki on the 4th: "We got a little lackadaisical. We left them open, they started knocking down shots." Steve Nash: "We were making shots and moving off the ball well. In the 4th quarter we got sloppy with the ball and then they got hot. It was certainly a wakeup call, a situation you don't want to be in after being up 20 points." Nash: "We got a little full of ourselves. We got carried away. Maybe this will make us a little hungrier." Nash: "We showed that we can play defense. We just have to do it all the time." Nick Van Exel: "We kind of felt coming in that they would be real pumped up at the beginning and we would have to withstand their barrage. But their barrage came pretty late and we were able to get a big enough lead to hold them off." Van Exel: "When a team like this shoots 55%, that shouldn't happen. We have a lot of work to do." Raef LaFrentz: "The win outweighs everything. I don't think we played that great. We were bad in a lot of areas. But we got the win." LaFrentz on Memphis' high shooting percentage: "That's the area you've got to be looking at. That's discouraging. Close to 60% field goal percentage. That's not acceptable." Eduardo Najera on starting: "It makes it special to start on opening night. It's always a big deal for us as players to be in the starting lineup. But there are so many games, and the players know Don is going to use a lot of different lineups." Sidney Lowe: "We've talked about defense since the first day of camp. We had guys in there that weren't defending. Sure, you have guys who can score, but you have to play defense. Earl and Brevin did an outstanding job. Shane did too. We're going to go with guys who play defense. It's that simple." Lowe: "I want to win games. You've got to bust your butt. You've got to defend." Drew Gooden: "It was tough for me as far as rebounding because I was guarding guys on the perimeter." [Gooden averaged 11.5 rebounds in pre-season, but only had 4 rebounds in this game.] Gordon Giricek: "I was hot and my teammates got the ball to me a lot, so I was able to score. After 6 pre-season games, I knew what to expect. Where I come from, you always play as hard as you can." Pau Gasol on Giricek: "It was a great performance. He is talented and brave enough to go to the hole every time and shoot the ball." Jason Williams: "We're still not in great shape, and the season has started. You can't give up easy baskets. First of all, they make all the tough shots, then you give up the easy ones." Dallas Mavericks 119, Memphis Grizzlies 108 at Memphis (October 30) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Dallas 31 33 36 19 - 119 .521 .417 .495 .750 Memphis 23 31 26 28 - 108 .679 .238 .558 .531 Halftime: Dallas 64-54 3rd Q: Dallas 100-80 Technicals: Dallas defensive 3 seconds 4:22 4th Refs: Bernie Fryer, James Capers, Leon Wood Attendance: 16,638 (cap 19,342) Did not play due to injury: Stromile Swift (flu) Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Eduardo Najera 24 5-5 0-0 2-2 12 4-10 1 0 3 2 0 Dirk Nowitzki 41 10-20 0-5 0-1 20 1-11 7 4 2 1 1 Raef LaFrentz 32 6-10 2-3 0-0 14 4-6 2 0 6 1 0 Steve Nash 37 8-14 3-4 5-7 24 0-1 13 3 4 2 0 Michael Finley 38 9-23 1-4 2-4 21 2-3 3 2 1 1 0 Adrian Griffin 10 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1-6 0 0 4 1 0 Shawn Bradley 13 1-4 0-0 2-2 4 0-3 0 0 1 2 1 Nick Van_Exel 28 5-13 2-6 4-4 16 0-2 4 3 2 1 0 Walt Williams 17 3-6 2-2 0-0 8 1-4 2 1 2 0 1 Totals 48 47-95 10-24 15-20 119 13-46 32 14 25 11 3 Memphis Grizzlies REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Wesley Person 23 0-2 0-2 0-0 0 0-6 2 1 2 1 0 Drew Gooden 27 8-12 0-0 0-2 16 1-4 2 2 2 1 1 Pau Gasol 40 10-12 0-0 7-15 27 4-10 3 5 3 0 1 Jason Williams 27 4-11 1-6 0-0 9 0-4 8 6 0 0 0 Michael Dickerson 18 3-6 0-2 0-0 6 0-1 1 2 2 0 1 Gordan Giricek 31 10-13 4-6 5-8 29 0-5 1 3 1 1 0 Shane Battier 29 4-10 0-3 1-2 9 0-3 3 1 0 3 0 Lorenzen Wright 6 1-4 0-0 3-4 5 1-3 0 0 1 0 0 Brevin Knight 22 2-3 0-0 1-1 5 0-3 4 1 3 1 0 Earl Watson 17 1-4 0-2 0-0 2 0-1 4 0 4 2 0 Totals 48 43-77 5-21 17-32 108 6-40 28 21 18 9 3 Phoenix at Dallas (November 2) The game got off to a rocky start as Shawn Bradley picked up a foul on the jumpball - before any time had run off the clock. He then stunned everyone a few minutes later by diving to the floor after a loose ball and passing it to Steve Nash while Bradley was on the ground and the Mavs got a fast break as a result of his hustle. The game was tied at 19-19 with 4:30 left and Dallas scored the next 7 points to go up 26-19 with 3 minutes to go. Dallas led 31-25 after 1. Nash had 11 points, Dirk Nowitzki had 10 points, and Shawn Marion had 10 points. Dallas led in the high singles mot of the 2nd quarter. Nick Van Exel's running 3-point banker rattled in at the buzzer to give Dallas a 55-43 lead at the half. Both teams were shooting around 46% FG, but Dallas shot 7-12 3-pointers and Phoenix shot 1-6 3-pointers. Phoenix also had 12 turnovers. Dallas had a very scary moment early into the 3rd quarter when Raef LaFrentz landed awkwardly and had to be helped from the court - I saw his knee buckle and feared he had blown out his knee, but fortunately it turned out to be "just" a 3rd degree sprained ankle [and kudos to Mark Cuban for instructing that they stop replaying the video of the injury on the jumbotron (I couldn't watch it the 2nd time they replayed it)]. The team was visibly shaken by the injury, but managed to focus on their game in going on an 18-7 run to take a commanding 77-54 lead with 2:20 left. Dallas led 81-58 after 3. Having learned their lesson from their previous game, Dallas did not let up in the 4th quarter and Phoenix got no closer that 16 points until scoring the last 7 points of the game as the Mavs were purely jacking up 3-pointers to try to win chalupas for the fans - 4 missed 3-pointers. Dallas won 97-83. Phoenix started well in shooting 61.1% FG in the 1st quarter, but still trailed by 6 points and only shot 36.1% FG in the last 3 quarters. Phoenix out-rebounded Dallas 49-34, but only took 1 more shot than Dallas. The thing that stood out to me while watching the game was the disappearance of Shawn Marion. Marion had 10 points in the 1st quarter, but only had 3 points the rest of the game. Acting coach Del Harris gave Dirk Nowitzki some credit for his defense on Marion. Nowitzki was the high man for Dallas as the Mavs again had 6 players in double-digits. Nowitzki had 22 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 steals. Michael Finley had 17 points and Steve Nash had 15 points and 8 assists. Finley had the play of the night early in the 4th with a drive under the basket, elevated with his back to the basket and spun in mid-air and flipped in the about 2-footer. Shawn Bradley gave the team a nice lift and played well. He had 11 points including 3-4 FG [but uncharacteristically missed 3 free throws - he only missed 5 free throws all of last season], and 8 rebounds before fouling out with 4 minutes left in the game. Hopefully he can continue to play well with Raef LaFrentz being out. Eduardo Najera continued to play well and had 13 points including 6-7 FG and 5 rebounds. Nick Van Exel had 13 points. Walt Williams had a donut in missing 4 shots in 22 minutes and Raja Bell, Avery Johnson, and Evan Eschmeyer did not score in a handful of minutes. [Don't know why Adrian Griffin did not play, maybe Nelson was just resting him. For Phoenix, no one had a good night besides Tom Gugliotta, but he only took 6 shots. Googs had 13 points on a perfect 6-6 FG and 1-1 FT and 8 rebounds. Stephon Marbury was the high man with 15 points including 5-17 FG, 6 rebounds, and 10 assists. Marion had 10 rebounds in addition to his 13 points. Amare Stoudemire showed some athletism, but is still young and raw. Quotes Del Harris: "I thought we played a solid defensive game particularly the middle quarters were very good. Our game plan was to at least to make it difficult for Marbury and Marion and our guys were able to do that. In the 4th quarter of course we did not want to have a repeat of our situation up in Memphis where we had a 20 point lead." Harris: "It's not easy to play with a 20-point lead. If you keep firing away, you give the other team extra possessions, which gives them a chance to catch up. If you slow it down, you make your offense look so ugly." Harris on Bradley: "Shawn really got us off to a nice start defensively and then Eddie came in. If you look across at the stats of Shawn's and Eddie's, you can tell they had nice games from a statistical point of view. But I thought their defensive efforts increased and they were both big time factors defensively." Harris: "I have to give Dirk credit for terrific defense on Shawn Marion. For anybody watching Dirk that knows anything about basketball, if they compare Dirk today to Dirk last year and you talk about his defense, this guy has done it again. Every year he has come back and has something better about his game. And this year he is really digging in on the defense. It is really going to make a huge difference for us." Harris on Nowitzki: "[Aggressiveness] is a part of his improvement. But it is not just that. That is a part of it. But I think it is just the commitment to it. As you know, he is a very tough guy and determined mentally. It would be easy for him being a great offensive player to give it 3 quarters of an effort and everybody would think he is better anyway. But he is giving it 100%. You can see it in his body position, his footwork, his hand activity, and his talking. It is just a great thing to see." Michael Finley: "It was tough to see Raef going down. Not only to lose him for this game, but for probably a couple of games. Hopefully, he can come back with a speedy recovery. We have enough troops to hopefully replace his void, and we did that tonight." Steve Nash on the defense: "I think we are improving and we're showing that we have concentrated on it in practice and we're getting better. By no means were we perfect, but we're going to take small steps and hopefully we can keep improving." Nash on Bradley going to the floor to get the ball: "I don't remember the last time I saw him do something like that. That was a great play and I think it fired the fans up and fired us up too." Nash: "It's always tough when someone goes down because it takes the wind out of your sail, but we did a good job of staying focused." Nash: "Tonight I started out hot and I'd like to keep it going." Raef LaFrentz on his ankle: "It feels okay. I just went down and rolled the ankle. I felt something pop so it kind of scared me a little bit. It's not broken, so that's good." LaFrentz: "It scared everybody a little bit. It didn't scare me, because I knew where the pain was coming from. I'll be back. It's not like it's a knee." [LaFrentz blew out his knee his rookie season.] Nick Van Exel on the defense: "It was good tonight. We had a lot of communication and we did a good job of containing Marbury. Our big men did a nice job of stepping up and making it tough for them. Overall the defense was a lot better tonight." Van Exel: "The starting 5 really came out in the 3rd quarter and didn't let up at all. They kept the intensity level up and the defensive pressure on them, which was big. Najera really stepped up tonight and Bradley played a great game." Shawn Bradley: "One thing we did in this game better than we did in the Memphis game was communicate with one another defensively. A lot more guys were talking and letting people know when cutters were coming." Evan Eschmeyer on LaFrentz's injury: "When I saw it first on video, it looked bad, but when I got out there to help him, it was an instant relief. I'm glad it's not the second week of April [that LaFrentz will be out until]." Frank Johnson on playing the night before: "We have young guys. Young guys don't get fatigued. They have young legs." Johnson on Marbury: "He has to know when there's not something there and get us into something. Taking contested shots in transition is not what I'm looking for." Tom Gugliotta: "They have a lot of guys out there that can shoot. And they will give it up if someone else is open. We got bogged down. They played a lot of zone on us. They have 3 guys coming over to help. They are long too, so once you get in there, it is hard to distribute. We helped them out." Gugliotta: "They're a good team, but we helped them out quite a bit. I don't think we're as far away as we looked tonight." Gugliotta: "We can come out next game and look great. We have proven that. At times, we get bogged down, hold the ball, not trust what we are doing. We make plays at the wrong time. You can't turn the ball over against that team. We are not as far away as we looked tonight." Anfernee Hardaway on Dallas: "We're not on that level yet. They've played together for a while now, and they've got a lot of veteran players. Hopefully, by the middle of the season we'll be there." Dallas Mavericks 97, Phoenix Suns 83 at Dallas (November 2) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Dallas 31 24 26 16 - 97 .431 .450 .436 .741 Phoenix 25 18 17 23 - 83 .446 .286 .418 .684 Halftime: Dallas 55-43 3rd Q: Dallas 81-60 Technicals: Phoenix defensive 3 seconds 5:41 1st, Nick Van Exel 3:04 2nd Refs: Danny Crawford, Bill Kennedy, David Jones Attendance: 19,783 (sellout) Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Dirk Nowitzki 41 7-16 1-2 7-8 22 0-6 3 1 3 3 0 Raef LaFrentz 17 3-8 0-0 0-1 6 1-1 0 0 1 0 0 Shawn Bradley 24 3-4 0-0 5-9 11 4-8 0 2 6 3 1 Michael Finley 36 7-18 3-5 0-0 17 0-1 3 1 0 3 1 Steve Nash 32 4-10 2-2 5-5 15 0-2 8 3 1 1 0 Nick Van_Exel 19 4-8 3-6 2-2 13 0-3 3 4 0 0 0 Eduardo Najera 33 6-7 0-0 1-2 13 2-5 3 1 3 1 2 Walt Williams 22 0-4 0-4 0-0 0 2-4 1 1 3 0 0 Raja Bell 11 0-2 0-1 0-0 0 0-2 0 0 2 0 0 Avery Johnson 3 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-2 0 0 0 0 0 Evan Eschmeyer 2 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 1 0 0 Totals 48 34-78 9-20 20-27 97 9-34 21 15 20 11 4 Phoenix Suns REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Tom Gugliotta 25 6-6 0-0 1-1 13 4-8 1 2 1 0 1 Shawn Marion 41 5-13 1-3 2-3 13 2-10 0 3 3 2 1 Jake Tsakalidis 20 3-4 0-0 1-2 7 0-1 0 2 2 0 1 Joe Johnson 30 4-8 1-2 0-0 9 1-5 1 3 2 0 0 Stephon Marbury 37 5-17 0-4 5-6 15 2-6 10 5 3 2 0 Anfernee Hardaway 20 2-8 0-0 1-2 5 3-4 3 5 3 0 0 Amare Stoudemire 23 3-8 0-0 1-3 7 3-8 1 1 3 0 1 Bo OUtlaw 17 1-4 0-0 0-0 2 1-3 0 0 2 0 3 Randy Brown 5 1-2 0-0 0-0 2 0-2 1 0 1 0 0 Casey Jacobsen 19 3-9 2-5 2-2 10 1-1 1 1 0 1 0 Dan Langhi 3 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-1 1 0 0 1 0 Totals 48 33-79 4-14 13-19 83 17-49 19 22 20 6 7 patricia