New Jersey (38-22) at Dallas (45-14) (March 4) New Jersey opened ice cold as Dallas went up 9-0. New Jersey got their first points on free throws 4 1/2 minutes in and their first field goal 6 1/2 minutes in. Unfortunately, Dallas joined New Jersey in missing shots and the game got really ugly quickly. Dallas' lead got no larger than 9 points and New Jersey' chipped away at Dallas' lead and Dallas only led 15-12 after 1. Dallas shot 27% FG and New Jersey only shot 23% (just 3 made field goals) FG and the teams combined for 9 turnovers in the ugly quarter. The uglyness continued in the 2nd quarter with the teams shooting only slightly better and the game stayed close with neither team holding more than a 6 point lead. New Jersey scored 4 straight points to take their first lead at 31-30 with 4 minutes remaining. Dallas responded with a 7-2 "run" to go up 37-33 with 1:30 to go. Dallas led 39-35 at the half. New Jersey dominated the boards in the 2nd quarter in out-reboundeing Dallas 15-6, but hurt themselves by having 6 turnovers in the quarter. For the half, Dallas shot 38% FG and 7-8 FT and New Jersey shot 42% FG and 7-14 FT. Dallas was able to maintain a single-digit lead during the 3rd quarter. A 3-pointer by Michael Finley gave Dallas a 60-51 lead with 3:25 left, but Dallas wouldn't score again in the quarter and New Jersey scored 7 straight points to cut Dallas' lead down to 60-58 after 3. Kenyon Martin opened the 4th quarter with a putback to tie the game at 60-60 with 10:40 remaining and the game stayed close as the teams traded leads over the next 4 minutes. A 3-pointer by Lucious Harris put New Jersey up 75-73 with 6:40 left. Steve Nash drove for 2, had a sweet pass inside to Dirk Nowitzki for the layup, and drove and passed out to Nowitzki for the 3-pointer to put Dallas up 80-75 with 4:10 to go. After a minute of misses, Martin got a putback, Nowitzki hit a jumper, and Richard Jefferson hit a jumper to pull New Jersey within 79-82 with 2:30 left. Nash drove for the reverse layup and Finley hit a jumper to put Dallas up 86-79 with 1:25 to go. New Jersey missed and Eduardo Najera rebounded, Dallas missed, and New Jersey missed with 42 seconds left and Najera again got the rebound. Finley was intentionally fouled and hit both free throws. In a great example of how ugly the game was, New Jersey missed on 4 attempts on their next possession before the ball finally went out of bounds. Dallas won 88-79. Yuch. What an ugly game. There was ice cold shooting by both teams, physical play with not many whistles blown, and many sloppy turnovers (mostly by New Jersey). Dallas shot 42% (34-81) FG including 5-14 3-pointers and New Jersey shot 43.4% (33-76) FG including 2-12 3-pointers. Dallas shot 15-17 FT and New Jersey shot 11-19 FT. New Jersey dominated the rebounds 53-36 including 19-10 offensive, but killed themselves with turnovers. New Jersey committed 23 turnovers which Dallas converted into 23 points while Dallas committed just 9 turnovers (4 in the 1st quarter) which New Jersey converted into 5 points. It was a slowdown, halfcourt game as there were only 13 total fast break points by both teams. Steve Nash carried the way for Dallas. 11 of his 24 points came in the 4th quarter and he scored or assisted on 18 straight Dallas points during a 5 1/2 minute stretch of the 4th. He shot 10-16 FG and had 8 assists. Dirk Nowitzki had a double-double with 24 points and 13 rebounds. Michael Finley was the only other Mav in double-digits with 15 points, but he had a very poor shooting night in shooting just 4-17 FG. Eduardo Najera provided a boost off the bench with 7 points and 7 rebounds. Shawn Bradley was productive without many numbers, but got wacked in the face at the end of the 3rd quarter and left the game to get 7 stitches under his right eye and did not return. Kenyon Martin was the high man for New Jersey with 18 points on 8-16 FG and 9 rebounds, but he also had 5 turnovers. He did have the highlight of the game with an alley-oop where he skied and his hand must have been 2 feet above the rim when it caught the ball and he slammed it home. Jason Kidd didn't go off against his former team and had just 13 points including 5-15 FG, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, and 4 turnovers. Aaron Williams was the only other Net in double-digits with 13 points. He also had 8 rebounds. Jason Collins had 10 rebounds, but only 2 points including missing 2 free throws. Quotes Don Nelson: "What a game. It was a hard fought game. I thought the Nets came out and tried to break their losing streak that they are on. They played us extremely well. They guarded us well and it was like pulling teeth to score out there. Usually that is pretty easy for us, but boy it was tough tonight. I thought beside that, I thought a couple of guys didn't have very good rhythm. Both Mike and Dirk struggled to shoot a good percentage, but finally Dirk got it going at the right time. I think Nash really carried us in the game. He made so many big plays and made their defense pay for the way they were playing our screen-and-rolls. They were switching it and we took advantage of the big guy by driving and also scoring on the outside on him. It was a playoff type atmosphere the whole game. I think it was good for us to play in the game. We had a veteran [ref] crew and there weren't many fouls called. We had to toughen up and play playoff basketball. Coupled with San Antonio losing tonight, it was a bigger win for us. Now we are watching those scores diligently and I would imagine they are watching ours. It was a good game for us to pull out. I was really worried about it. We couldn't seem to pull away from them. When a team hasn't had luck with them and then all of a sudden they have luck, you just don't want it to be against you. Thank goodness it didn't come this particular game, but I am sure it will because they are playing so hard." Nelson: "Well, a grown man like me shouldn't have to work so hard. It's good to be able win those kinds of games. The rebounding deficit was incredible. To think that by being out-rebounded by that many rebounds and still win, you just don't know how you do it. Normally you don't. Tonight the force was with us and managed to pull it out. We just have to find a way to get more rebounds. I had a big lineup out there and we couldn't rebound. I just don't know where to go other than to try and get some more rebounds from our guards. But I have pretty small guards. Mike is a pretty good 2 rebounder, but not a very good small forward rebounder as far as numbers go." Nelson on Bradley's injury: "He got an elbow. A pretty severe cut. He will be black and blue. We will definitely look at the play to see if it was intentional or not." Dirk Nowitzki: "Steve really hit a lot of big shots for us tonight. It was a really weird game. We went on an early run and then we couldn't find our jump shot anymore and the next thing you know they've tied the game up. Our man-to-man defense was brutal tonight. They got whatever they wanted. Luckily, the zone was good enough for us to win the game." Nowitzki on if it was a playoff style tempo: "I don't know. It just was an ugly game. They just tried to take our fast break away, we knew that was one of their strengths. I'm just happy that we found a way at the end to win. We made a couple of big stops and made a couple of shots, but it was one of the ugliest games that we have played all season." Nowitzki: "I had a brutal shooting performance today and I was trying to hang in there and take my shots with confidence. In the end a couple of them went down, but I think Steve won us the game today." Nowitzki on Nash: "Steve really kept us in the game tonight. He had a great game and made some big shots for us. He put us in position in the end to win the game." Steve Nash: "It was a tough game. We couldn't really separate ourselves from them and they kind of killed us on the glass and kept themselves in the game. It was frustrating, but in the end we were the aggressor and that obviously was the difference in the game." Nash: "Down the stretch we rebounded well. We really did play some good defense towards they end of the game. If it wasn't for offensive rebounds, we would have really held them down, but that kept them in the game and in the end we really got some good defensive rebounds off some stops." Nash on the halfcourt game: "It was kind of a sluggish game. No team really got into a great flow, but fortunately we made enough plays down the stretch when it was imperative for us to break away. Maybe we learned a lesson or two by executing down the stretch." Eduardo Najera: "They play very physical, which is a really good test for us. We still won the game, which is very important, but we have to get better." Najera: "We've got to rebound a lot better. As a team, we've just got to get better at that." Najera: "We basically played a halfcourt game. Our game is to run and we just didn't do it tonight." Raef LaFrentz: "It was an East Coast game. It was a grind-it-out, sloppy kind of game. When somebody says that it was 'playoff atmosphere,' you have to remember that we've been playing playoff games against Sacramento and San Antonio. This wasn't quite like that." Byron Scott: "Great players make great plays toward the end of the game. Steve Nash made some big buckets for them. Dirk hits some big shots for them toward the end. For the most part, our game plan was pretty simple and we stuck to it. We did a good job defensively. Any time you hold Dallas to 88 points you've done a pretty good job because they have so much fire power. The 2 negatives for us tonight were missing free throws and turning over the ball. We played hard, challenge every shot, and rebounded the heck out of the ball. I can't ask for anything more. We just have to continue that the rest of the trip." Scott: "For 48 minutes, we were very competitive. We did everything but get the win. If we play like this, we'll be in good shape." Scott: "It doesn't make it frustrating because of the fact that we are playing hard, smart basketball right now. When you have 22 turnovers, it's very uncharacteristic of our team, but you have to give them some credit too. They have some athletes too and they got back on the fast breaks and got their hands on the ball of few times and knocked it out of our hands. They caused some of those turnovers, it wasn't like we were just throwing the ball all over the place. We have to take better care of the ball, but I like the way we are playing right now." Scott: "We were very competitive. That's the one thing I can take out of this. It's like I told the guys in there, even though it's a loss and there's probably no consolation, we did a lot of good things tonight." Scott on Nash: "He's pretty damn good. The game plan was to switch out on him. When you switch out with someone big on him 30 feet out, [it] is to his advantage. He was able to break us down and get into the paint, knock down some shots." Jason Kidd: "We played the best team in the league down to the wire. Nobody gave up." Kidd: "We played the best team in the league down to 2 minutes. That's a positive. We've just got to be able to execute in those final 2 minutes." Kidd: "We put a lot of pressure on the offense due to not getting stops or if we got a stop, we turned the ball over." Kidd: "We just couldn't get baskets when we had the opportunity and we didn't get the stops. But we gave the effort. Again. We're so close but still so far. We still have our work cut out for us." Kidd: "You've got to be able to win and execute with 2 minutes left, and we didn't do that tonight. It's not shot selection. It's small details of understanding you don't have to be in a rush and at the same time, you have to play defense." Kidd: "Stevie carried the team until Dirk got going and Fin got going. That's just the type of team that they have. You can't keep all 3 down. One of them is going to get going. Stevie had his game going tonight." Kenyon Martin: "We tried to make it tough on them and stop them from running. For the most part, we did that." Martin: "We played hard but turnovers hurt us. We had a chance, but they made big shots when they needed to. They can put the ball in the hole, so we wanted to make them play at our pace and we did that for the most part." Martin on the close 4th quarter: "They scored, then we came down and scored. They'd get a stop and then we'd get a stop. That's what we wanted." Lucious Harris: "They made more shots than us. We gave them a lot of turnovers and gave them second chances at the basket." Harris: "It was a see-saw type of game in the 4th. We played good defense, we made shots, they made shots, and it went back and forth. Nobody really broke out and we played the best defense we could, but they played better and came out with the victory." Harris on their play in a loss: "This is the best that we have played. You hate to say that you played good in a loss, but if you can take something good from a loss is that we played good defense tonight." Harris: "I would say this is the best we've played lately. You hate to say you played good in a loss, but we did. We did everything but win." Harris: "We play the best defense I think we could. We could have cut down on our turnovers and made our free throws, but the better team won. If we play like this, I'm sure we're going to win some games on this trip." Dallas Mavericks 88, New Jersey Nets 79 at Dallas (March 4) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Dallas 15 24 21 28 - 88 .433 .357 .420 .882 New Jersey 12 23 23 21 - 79 .484 .167 .434 .579 Halftime: Dallas 39-35 3rd Q: Dallas 60-58 Technicals: Dallas defensive 3 seconds 2:50 3rd Refs: Ron Olesiak, Steve Javie, Tommy Nunez Attendance: 19,920 (sellout) Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Michael Finley 44 4-17 2-3 5-6 15 1-4 2 2 2 4 0 Dirk Nowitzki 42 8-19 1-6 7-7 24 2-13 3 4 2 0 0 Shawn Bradley 21 2-5 0-0 0-0 4 2-4 0 1 1 1 1 Raja Bell 13 2-2 0-0 0-0 4 1-1 1 0 3 0 0 Steve Nash 34 10-16 2-3 2-2 24 0-2 8 1 0 2 0 Adrian Griffin 9 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 0-1 0 0 1 0 0 Nick Van_Exel 22 0-5 0-1 0-0 0 0-1 4 0 3 1 0 Raef LaFrentz 24 3-5 0-0 0-0 6 2-3 1 0 2 0 0 Eduardo Najera 22 3-6 0-0 1-2 7 2-7 2 0 2 1 0 Walt Williams 9 2-4 0-1 0-0 4 0-0 0 1 2 1 0 Totals 48 34-81 5-14 15-17 88 10-36 21 9 18 10 1 New Jersey Nets REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Kenyon Martin 41 9-16 0-0 0-0 18 5-9 2 5 5 1 0 Richard Jefferson 31 2-8 0-0 3-4 7 2-8 2 2 1 0 0 Jason Collins 18 1-2 0-0 0-2 2 3-10 0 3 3 1 1 Jason Kidd 38 5-15 1-6 2-3 13 0-7 4 4 0 1 0 Kerry Kittles 25 2-10 0-3 2-2 6 1-1 3 2 5 0 1 Aaron Williams 30 6-11 0-0 1-3 13 5-8 2 1 2 1 1 Anthony Johnson 10 1-3 0-0 0-0 2 0-1 0 2 0 1 0 Rodney Rogers 19 4-5 0-1 1-1 9 1-2 2 2 3 0 0 Lucious Harris 28 3-6 1-2 2-4 9 2-7 2 1 1 2 1 Totals 48 33-76 2-12 11-19 79 19-53 17 23 20 7 4 patricia