Golden State at Dallas (November 4) Dallas started beating up Golden State early by scoring 13 straight points including 7 by Steve Nash to go up 23-11 with 6:15 left. Dallas led 32-20 after 1. Michael Finley and Dirk Nowitzki opened the 2nd quarter with a 12-2 run to go up 44-22 with 9:15 remaining and it was looking to be a really easy game. In what may have been a sign of things to come, Golden State did pull with 11 and 12 points during the quarter, but Dallas answered with 2 buckets both times. Golden State even helped Dallas out by tipping in a rebound into Dallas' basket at the end of the quarter. Dallas led 63-45 at the half. Nash had 17 points, Nowitzki had 16 points, and Jason Richardson had 19 points. Dallas shot 57% FG and Golden State shot 38% FG. Golden State was losing big even with help from the refs as Golden State shot 12-15 FT while Dallas shot just 4-5 FT. Unfortunately the Mavs forgot that the game is 48 minutes long, not 24, and lost their shooting touch during halftime. Golden State went on a 12-2 run to pull within 65-72 with 4 minutes left. Dallas only led 81-72 after 3. Golden State opened the 4th quarter with a 9-3 run to pull within 81-84 with 8:40 to go. Gilbert Arenas nailed a 3-pointer to tie the game at 89-89 with 5:15 left. But Nash hit 2 free throws and Nick Van Exel made the nice feed to Shawn Bradley for the power dunk. Richardson hit a 3-pointer to pull Golden State within 92-93 with 4 minutes left, but Dallas then went on a 10-1 run to go up 103-93 with a minute left. Dallas won 107-100. Ugh. I keep saying to myself, "A win is a win is a win," but this one was painful to watch and I wasn't smiling through most of the 4th quarter. This team has got to learn how to get a big lead and keep it. After shooting 57% FG in the 1st half, Dallas only shot 34% FG in the 2nd half (while Golden State consistently shot poorly throughout most of the game). It was a game of 6 players plus one more for a quarter. Dallas' Big 3 combined for 71 points and Nick Van Exel had 9 points in the 4th quarter (all but 27). Golden State's trio combined for 82 points (all but 18). And the Warriors don't have anything to complain about with the lopsided officiating in this game. Steve Nash had his offensive game clicking with a number of runners and layups and was the Mavs' high man with 30 points including 11-19 FG, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists. Dirk Nowitzki had a double-double with 24 points and 13 rebounds. Michael Finley was the only other Mav in double digits with 17 points. All of Van Exel's 9 points came in the 4th, where he was key to the Mavs hanging on for the win. No one else did much for the Mavs. Adrian Griffin started but hurt the Mavs in that his shot wasn't falling and the Warriors repeatedly left him open. Griff had 6 points on 3-11 FG, but did have 5 rebounds, 4 assists, and 4 steals in 25 minutes. Evan Eschmeyer was the 5th starter and had 5 points and 5 fouls in 17 minutes. Shawn Bradley had 6 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 fouls in 20 minutes. Walt Williams had 6 points in 12 minutes and Raja Bell had 4 points in 10 minutes. After 2 very good games, Eduardo Najera was invisible in 15 minutes with 0 points and 3 rebounds. The Mavs' zone continually left someone open and it was often Jason Richardson. You would think that the team would have eventually gotten smart and put someone on him instead of slagging off of him. Richardson finished with 39 points including 6-9 3-pointers and 8 rebounds. Gilbert Arenas had a solid all-around game with 22 points including 4-11 3-pointers, 6 rebounds, 7 assists, and 5 steals. Antawn Jamison was the 3rd Warrior in double digits with 21 points including 7-20 FG and 8 rebounds. Rookie Mike Dunleavy had 7 points including 2-10 FG and Adonal Foyle had 4 points and 7 rebounds before fouling out. Quotes Don Nelson: "It's good be back. We made again what looked like to be an easy game, a hard one out of it. I'm pretty disappointed with a couple of players and things that we weren't able to do against a simple defensive tactic. You would think an NBA player would be able to do what he is supposed to do, whether it be score or make a play." Nelson: "We didn't seem to be able to figure out the simplest things in the 2nd half. It disappointed me. We had some really good plays of a couple of guys. Certainly Nash was fantastic. Van Exel, although made it a close game with a lot of errors, came through at the end and made 2 big baskets when we went to him. I was happy to see that. Bradley was a very pleasant factor." Nelson: "I had to play some guys a few too many minutes. But I think it will have to be that way until we get Raef back. We have Raef and Popeye out and that makes us kind of small. We will take the win. We certainly needed that cushion at halftime to do it and we were able to overcome a hot team. We took Richardson out of his slump. We seem to be good at that. He was fantastic and made some outstanding plays. He really made it difficult for us." Michael Finley on Van Exel: "Nick came in off the bench and gave us some energy, which was something we needed." Dirk Nowitzki: "They came back hard on us tonight. We can't take teams like this lightly. We need to win these types of games and we have to pick it up now because we will be playing strong teams coming up." Nowitzki: "We made it hard on ourselves again. We know we're not playing great right now. These are not playoff teams we have played so far." Nowitzki on Van Exel: "He basically won the game for us hitting those 2 buckets back-to-back. It's nice to have different guys on this team that can hit those types of shots." Steve Nash: "It's really disappointing. It almost makes it feel like a loss. That's probably the worst thing that could have happened to us, to get a 22 point lead and lose our motivation and lose our aggressiveness and have them come back and pour it on. We handled it again. We just have to learn from it again." Nash: "I guess it's a good thing when you're disappointed about being 3-0." Nick Van Exel: "We played pretty good defense for about 3 and a half quarters, but when a team gets hot like that, it's hard to stop them. We can't keep giving up open shots. Once they went into their gimmick defense, they got us to take quick shots and they were responding on the offensive end." Van Exel: "I had to continue to be aggressive. I was pretty much hiding in the 1st half, then Nellie put me back in there and he wanted me to be aggressive." Shawn Bradley: "We had to get back at the end of the game to what we were doing in the beginning of the game and not doing in the middle of the game." Bradley: "When we finally decided to play, we did what we had to do. We don't like to lose leads like that, and I'm sure we'll hear about it tomorrow in practice." Bradley: "We're 3-0 and obviously not disappointed about that. But we can't afford to lose leads like that and we have to play smarter." Evan Eschmeyer: "You take a win. They have a good team. Any time you get up that big early and don't knock them out, a team is going to come back on you in the NBA because they have good players that can make baskets and they hit shots. They made it a game and luckily we were able to hit some free throws down the stretch and get enough stops to hold them off." Eschmeyer: "They double-teamed the ball a lot in the 2nd half, and I didn't think we handled that very well. I am sure we will work on that tomorrow. It's early in the season, it's a win, and we are 3-0. The key for us at this point is to come back tomorrow and get a little better." Eschmeyer: "It's true that we're not where we want to be. But this is November, not March." Eric Musselman: "Dallas is a very solid playoff team and their experience down the stretch helped them tremendously. We're proud that we continue to compete hard, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." Musselman: "If you look at all of our 1st quarter scores, we've come out behind in every game. We need to figure out a way to come out more mentally ready. For a ball club as young as we are there's not a lot of teams that would have fought back after being down 20 and competed the way they did." Musselman on taking 30 3-pointers: "With Bradley back there and the fact that they played a zone we probably took a few too many 3-point shots tonight. We'll take 13-of-30 instead of 0-of-9 any night." Musselman on Jamison: "We've piled a whole lot of pressure on him and we're going to force him to play on nights where he's not performing well. He has to understand that there's nowhere to hide anymore." Antawn Jamison: "I'm telling you, we're right at that hill. Once we get our head above that peak and look over to the other side, it's going to be downhill from there." Jason Richardson: "That's what I like about this team, we're always playing hard until the 4th quarter buzzer. We compete hard and give 100% effort every game." Richardson: "Guys were knocking down some shots and we were doing a good job playing off the screens. It's a good learning experience, but we want to win." Richardson: "We have to be a little more patient in those situations. It's nice that we're able to get back into these games, but when we do we have to be smart and take care of the ball." Richardson: "Yes, it's a good learning experience, but we want to win. We've had losing years the past couple of seasons and we're tired of just coming close, we want to win games. We have to find a way to finish games and come out strong." Richardson: "We have to get those slow starts out of our system. That's no way to win a game, to get behind all the time and have to make a comeback like that." Gilbert Arenas: "In the last couple of games we have been doing the same thing falling behind early and then battling to get back into the game. We just need to come out hard from the beginning and we need to take the lead for once." Arenas: "The offense is going through Antawn and Jason most of the time and I take my shot when I feel I'm open or when I have a great opportunity to get into the lane. Tonight I was hitting so I kept shooting." Dallas Mavericks 107, Golden State Warriors 100 at Dallas (November 4) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Dallas 32 31 18 26 - 107 .493 .368 .466 .720 Golden State 20 25 27 28 - 100 .322 .433 .360 .793 Halftime: Dallas 63-45 3rd Q: Dallas 81-72 Technicals: Dallas defensive 3 seconds 1:47 1st, Dallas defensive 3 seconds 11:10 2nd Refs: Mike Callahan, Pat Fraher, Scott Foster Attendance: 19,368 (sellout) Did not play due to injury: Raef LaFrentz (sprained right ankle) Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Adrian Griffin 25 3-11 0-1 0-0 6 3-5 4 2 3 4 0 Dirk Nowitzki 43 8-15 1-3 7-10 24 3-13 3 3 3 2 2 Evan Eschmeyer 17 2-2 0-0 1-2 5 0-3 0 0 5 2 1 Michael Finley 43 8-18 1-5 0-0 17 0-2 2 1 3 0 1 Steve Nash 36 11-19 1-3 7-7 30 2-8 5 5 1 0 0 Nick Van_Exel 19 3-7 2-4 1-2 9 0-3 1 3 1 0 0 Shawn Bradley 20 2-5 0-0 2-2 6 2-8 1 0 5 0 2 Eduardo Najera 15 0-4 0-0 0-2 0 1-3 0 0 0 0 0 Walt Williams 12 2-4 2-3 0-0 6 0-0 0 1 1 0 0 Raja Bell 10 2-3 0-0 0-0 4 1-2 0 0 3 0 0 Totals 48 41-88 7-19 18-25 107 12-47 16 15 25 8 6 Golden State Warriors REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Troy Murphy 24 1-6 0-1 0-0 2 0-7 0 2 4 1 0 Antawn Jamison 40 7-20 1-4 6-7 21 5-8 0 3 4 1 0 Erick Dampier 27 2-4 0-0 1-2 5 2-5 1 3 1 0 1 Gilbert Arenas 42 6-16 4-11 6-7 22 1-6 7 3 5 5 1 Jason Richardson 43 12-27 6-9 9-11 39 0-8 2 0 3 1 0 Dean Oliver 7 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 3-5 3 1 0 0 0 Mike Dunleavy 20 2-10 2-5 1-2 7 1-3 3 0 2 2 1 Jiri Welsch 8 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Oscar Torres 5 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-1 0 1 0 0 0 Adonal Foyle 24 2-4 0-0 0-0 4 5-7 0 1 6 1 3 Totals 48 32-89 13-30 23-29 100 17-50 16 14 25 11 6 patricia