The Mavs opened the night with bad news: Tony Delk is out 2 to 3 weeks with a 2nd degree sprained left ankle. Josh Howard continues to sit out, but will travel with the team to Denver and the Mavs hope he'll be ready to play either Friday or Saturday. Philadelphia at Dallas (January 14) Philadelphia was without Derrick Coleman and Kenny Thomas and Allen Iverson was playing with a mild case of the flu [though I think he's more dangerous when he's not feeling well]. The game stayed close in the 1st quarter as neither team led by more than 6 points and there were 6 ties. Dallas' offensive early was surprisingly Shawn Bradley, who scored Dallas; first 6 points. Dallas scored 8 straight points to go up 19-13 with 3:30 left and held a small lead the rest of the quarter. Michael Finley hit a jumper at the buzzer and Dallas led 25-21 after 1. Finley had 11 points and Bradley had 10 points. Iverson had 8 points in the first 7 minutes of the game, but didn't score the rest of the quarter. Dallas continued to hold a single-digit lead in the 2nd quarter as neither team had a big rally. A 3-point play by Antawn Jamison gave Dallas their first double-digit lead at 49-39 with 2 minutes to go. Rookie Kyle Korver missed a bad looking shot near the quarter's end, but Glenn Robinson got the rebound and short jumper at the quarter buzzer. Dallas led 55-48 at the half. Jamison had 15 points and Robinson had 14 points in the 2nd quarter. For the half, Antoine Walker was shooting terrible (just had 1 point), but did have 7 rebounds and 8 assists. Both teams were shooting fairly well, but Dallas had a 28-12 points in the paint advantage. Dallas opened the 3rd quarter with a 3-pointer and jumper to go up 60-48 less than a minute in. Philadelphia pulled within 59-66 with 6 minutes left, but Dallas scored the next 4 points and their lead varied between 9 and 14 points the rest of the quarter. Dallas led 84-70 after 3. Walker hit 1 of 2 free throws early in the 4th quarter to give Dallas their largest lead at 85-70 with 11:30 remaining. But there was no comfort in that lead as Philly connected on consecutive 3-pointers. Dallas led 91-82 with 8:45 left and Philadelphia went on a 13-4 run that was capped by 3 straight 3-pointers (with a jumper by Dirk Nowitzki sandwiched between the last 2) to tie the game at 95-95 with 5:15 remaining and the Mavs had once again blown a large 4th quarter lead. The teams traded 2 points and Michael Finley got a bucket to give Dallas a 99-97 lead with 4 minutes left. But Robinson drained a 3-pointer, Nowitzki missed 2 free throws, and Iverson nailed another 3 to give Philadelphia a 103-99 lead with 3:10 left. The teams traded jumpers, Dallas missed on 2 attempts, and Walker was fouled - but he only hit 1 of 2 free throws with 1:55 left. Neither team scored over the next 50 seconds and Nowitzki was fouled shooting - this time he made both free throws and Philly led 105-104 with 1:07 to go. Iverson missed, Dallas pushed the ball the other way, Finley missed the short hook and he went flying to the baseline, Philly was setting up their offense with the dribble near halfcourt when Finley came up behind and tapped the ball way to Steve Nash, Nash passed it to Travis Best, who took it in for the layup to give Dallas a 106-105 lead with 36 seconds remaining. Iverson missed another jumper and Korver committed the intentional foul sending Nowitzki to the line with just 20 seconds left. It was Korver's 6th foul [thank goodness] - he was white hot behind the arc, but could not guard Nowitzki in picking up 5 fouls in the 4th quarter. Nowitzki continued to struggle at the line and only hit 1 of 2 free throws. After the timeout, Robinson nailed the mid-range jumper to tie the game with 14 seconds left. After the timeout, Dallas ran the clock completely down and Finley missed the fade-away jumper at the buzzer and we had overtime at 107-107. Robinson had 11 points and Korver had 11 points in the 4th quarter. Philadelphia shot 7-9 3-pointers in the 4th quarter. Bradley came in for the jumpball and gave Dallas possession and Nash was fouled. He hit both free throws to give Dallas a 2 point lead. Neither team scored over the next minute. Samuel Dalembert got a dunk to tie the game. Best drained a 3-pointer, but Iverson answered with a 3 to again tie the game at 112-112 with 3:15 left. Best missed a jumper and Iverson nailed another 3-pointer to give Philly the lead with 2:15 remaining. The teams traded misses and Nowitzki swished a 3-pointer to tie the game at 115-115 with 1:30 to go. Nowitzki stole the ball as Iverson got in traffic, but Nowitzki missed the shot at the other end. Iverson missed and there was 40 seconds left. Nowitzki was backing down 6-3 Eric Snow in the post when Nowitzki simply lost the ball out of bounds with 20 seconds to go and Philly had the chance for the last shot. They ran the clock down and found Aaron McKie in the corner, but his long baseliner rattled out as time expired. And we had a 2nd overtime at 115-115. Bradley was back in for the jumpball, which he again won, but Dallas turned the ball over. Neither team was able to score in the first minute and a half of the 2nd overtime. Nowitzki hit a jumper to give Dallas the lead with 3:30 to go. Robinson was fouled shooting, but hit only 1 of 2 free throws. Nowitzki missed and Iverson traveled [yes, they actually called it]. Finley nailed a jumper to give Dallas a 119-116 lead with 2:15 remaining. Iverson missed and Nowitzki was fouled at the other end. But Nowitzki only hit 1 of 2 free throws [geez]. Robinson missed, but Snow stole the ball and took it in for the layup to pull Philly within 118-120 with 1:10 left. Nowitzki missed and Robinson was fouled with 41 seconds left - it was Walker's 6th foul. He hit both free throws to tie the game. Nowitzki missed, but Jamison got the rebound, but his layup attempt missed [with the help of a forearm in the lower back on a veteran move by Robinson], Jamison again got the rebound and put the ball back up, but it missed and the rebound popped into the middle of the paint and into Best's hands and he passed out to Nowitzki, who stepped in and nailed the jumper to give Dallas a 122-120 lead with 24 seconds to go. Philly used their last timeout. Jamison fouled Dalembert with 18 seconds left, but he only hit 1 of 2 free throws. Best was intentionally fouled and he hit both free throws to give Dallas a 3 point lead with 11 seconds left. After Philadelphia inbounded, Dallas committed the intentionally foul to make sure there wouldn't be a game tying shot [I hate that move]. Snow hit only hit 1 of 2 free throws and Finley was intentionally fouled with 7 seconds left. But he only hit 1 of 2 free throws and Philadelphia still had a shot at tying the game. But Snow's 3-point attempt was well short and the airball went out of bounds. Dallas used a timeout to advance the ball to halfcourt with 2 seconds left and they got the ball into Nash and time expired. Dallas won 125-122 in 2 overtimes. The team drove my nerves nuts with this game. There were so many goofy things that happened - Philly draining 7 3-pointers in the 4th, so many missed free throws at critical moments, McKie's shot rattling out, Nowitzki simply losing the ball while posting up Snow, no teammate warning Snow that Finley was sneaking up behind him for the steal, ... It just wasn't an easy night for either team and both can point to things they should have done better/different. But the Mavs did manage to win and that is all that goes down in the books. As much as the New York blown lead was the Mavs fault, the blown lead in this game was more to Philly's credit. When a team gets that hot from the outside, they are hard to defend. The Mavs did make an adjustment with 3 minutes left in the 4th quarter in having Travis Best and Steve Nash on the court at the same time (which left Antawn Jamison as the odd man out). This enable Dallas to switch on Iverson's cuts through the paint or picks instead of a bigger man cheating in trying to help out, which is where Philly got a number of their outside looks. It worked as Philly did not make a 3-pointer the rest of the quarter (after making 5 in a 3 minute span). Dallas did have a monster 56-28 points in the paint advantage, but both teams stuck mostly to outside shots in the 2 overtimes. Dallas was very clean with the ball with just 6 turnovers in 58 minutes - Philly wasn't too bad themselves with 15 turnovers. Dallas had a slight rebounding edge at 58-56 and had an impressive 21 offensive rebounds (which is part of how they got an incredibly high 113 field goals attempted). Dallas also had 37 assists. There were lots of good performances by both teams and there wasn't a single hero. He didn't have the numbers that the other players did, but Travis Best deserves first mention. Best came in off the bench and gave the Mavs a boost on both offense and defense. He had 13 points including 5-6 FG, 3 rebounds, and 3 assists in 32 minutes. Michael Finley was the high man with 32 points and 8 rebounds in 51 minutes (he was cold in the overtimes, though). Dirk Nowitzki had 25 points including a poor 6-10 FT, 14 rebounds, and 3 blocks. Antoine Walker finally got his triple-double and finished with 11 points including a miserable 4-19 FG, 17 rebounds including 8 offensive, and 13 assists in 51 minutes. He had a double-double minus points going into the 4th quarter and didn't surprise me when he attempted a couple of dumb shots early in the quarter. Antawn Jamison had 23 points including 9-15 FG and 7 rebounds including 6 offensive. 19 of his points came in the 1st half. Steve Nash is still struggling with back problems. In fact, he left the game a mere 2 minutes into the 3rd quarter and went to the lockerroom. He did return with 2 minutes left in the 3rd. He had 9 points including 2-8 FG and 12 assists. Shawn Bradley had an awesome 1st quarter and a miserable 3rd quarter, but got the jumpball for both overtimes. He finished with 10 points including 4-10 FG (all made in the 1st quarter), 2 rebounds, and 2 blocks in 22 minutes. Marquis Daniels played 7 minutes and Danny Fortson played 6 minutes. Philadelphia had a couple of hot shooters. Glenn Robinson was the high man with 34 points including 14-20 FG and 7 rebounds. Rookie Kyle Korver impressed with 17 points including 5-9 3-pointers, but couldn't defend without fouling, thus only played 19 minutes and fouled out in regulation. Samuel Dalembert had a very strong outing with 24 points on 10-17 FG, but only 4-7 FT, 16 rebounds, and 3 blocks in a game high 54 minutes. Allen Iverson went through streaks where he couldn't miss and streaks where he couldn't hit. He finished with 31 points on 10-27 FG and 5-10 3-pointers, 8 rebounds and 7 assists, but also had 6 turnovers in 50 minutes. Eric Snow had 6 points including 2-8 FG, 7 rebounds, and 12 assists and Aaron McKie had 7 points including 2-7 FG, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists. Quotes Don Nelson: "It was such an emotional game. It had everything you could want or ask for: great shooting, bad shooting, good plays, bad plays. It was anybody's game. I thought they were sensational. Iverson and everybody else that played in the game found a way to hurt us no matter what defense we played. We couldn't stop them man-to-man and when we went to zone they lit us up from the 3. I want to say something about Travis Best. Best, who hasn't played a lot for me this year, played a big part in this game. I am amazed that he was able to do that. He's a pretty special guy to be able to stay focused and to continue to work hard and wait his turn. It's not easy to be that guy, but he certainly took a step in the right direction as far as playing more for me. Antoine Walker had another triple-double, but couldn't make a shot. It was a tough ball game for him. He was so good at certain times and so bad at other times. He couldn't get anything to go. I know he was really down and when I needed him to take a shot when he was open, he was reluctant to do so. I kept telling him he was going to make the next shot. Nash couldn't do much offensively, again. He's really beat up. I had to end up playing him 41 minutes to win the game. There's a lot of guys who stepped up tonight." Nelson: "They lit us up from the 3. It was a coach's nightmare." Nelson on again losing a 4th quarter lead: "That's the way the season has gone. We haven't been able to sustain leads and we can lose them in a hurry because we are not effective on the defensive end. We'll be better when Bradley is able to play more and we get Najera and Howard back. Those are my best defenders. Defensive is a tough thing for the 5 guys that are playing most of the time." Antoine Walker: "I'm trying to tell myself to keep playing and keep getting guys involved. That's the great thing about being on this team - having different weapons you don't have to bring it in the scoring category night in, night out." Antawn Jamison: "We keep shooting ourselves in the foot. We have to understand the urgency of the situation. We have to fight and stay competitive." Jamison: "We had a mental lapse there in the 4th quarter, but the guys stayed focused in both overtime sessions. We were very fortunate to pull it out." Shawn Bradley: "It was good the way the game ended, but we're right now in a process of finding our identity, finding some continuity, finding some chemistry, and these are the ways that we're going to build that, going through times like this. It is a big fight right now and you can tell in the last couple of games that we're glad we've won, but they are really character building games. Those are the things that are going to help develop chemistry and do the things necessary to make this work or not." Bradley: "One thing about our defense is when it's playing good or decent then it spawns our offense. We're able to go down and really get good things offensively in transition and get guys open shots. When we're struggling defensively, we don't get that first step on them coming down on the offensive end. That's probably our biggest thing right now, our defensive intensity during crunch time." Travis Best: "The opportunity presented itself. Steve's been ailing a little bit and Tony Delk went down last game, and I knew I had to be ready today. That's exactly what I tried to do, just be ready and let the game come to me." Best on the 4th quarter letdown: "We're still working on that. We allowed them to get back into the game. We had some breakdowns and they had some easy looks at the basket. We just have to keep working on it." Best: "Any win is a good win and we had 2 tough games, 2 long ones, and it was good to pull those types of games out." Randy Ayers: "The first 3 quarters, the defense dug a hole for us. We didn't get our defense involved in the game at all for the first 3 quarters. They had 84 points at the end of 3 quarters and that is an awful lot of points to be giving up on the road. They only had 1 turnover at halftime, which was a concern of ours as well. Fortunately, we were able to hit some shots in the 4th quarter - Korver got hot, Iverson knocked some shots down, Glenn was on a roll, and we were able to get some shots to go down. I thought our defense picked up a little bit at that time as well. Dalembert was phenomenal again. I can't say enough. I thought he got a little more mentally tired in the game more than physically tired, which as a young players happens when you are playing 50-plus minutes. I thought Best was a factor for them. I thought he did a solid job defending Iverson and staying in front of him. He also got a big rebound in a late game situation and did a solid job for them." Ayers on Dalembert: "The things he's done the best is rebound in traffic. He's been able to go up with people around him and get clean rebounds. He wasn't able to do that coming into January." Ayers: "It's a loss. Dalembert was phenomenal. I thought Glenn and Allen had some good 2-man exchanges, but the bottom line is that we got beat." Allen Iverson: "No moral victories. I could care less about a moral victory. It was a winnable game for us. We had opportunities to win the game, we just couldn't get it done. That's the sad part about everything - the game was right there for us to win. We just didn't execute the way we needed to down the stretch." Iverson on McKie's shot at the end of the first overtime: "I thought it was over. I would rather he shot an airball or brick it real bad than for it to tease us like that. That was just a bad feeling having that shot right there and it not going down." Iverson on Dalembert: "That's the kind of game we expect from him. It was one of those special nights for him. If he gets on the floor, we expect him to play the way he played tonight. I tell him all the time he's the X-factor. A lot of times, as he goes, we go." Glenn Robinson: "There were a lot of good things. We did some good things and we did some bad things. The bottom line is that we are on the road playing a good team, this team has a great record at home, and we gave ourselves a chance to win. If we do that every night, we will come out on top more than we will on the bottom." Robinson on the 4th quarter: "We got stops then we got the rebound and got out in transition and opened the game up a little bit that way. They were starting to miss shots and it seemed like we couldn't get any stops until the 4th quarter. We picked up our defense and had some good results." Dallas Mavericks 125, Philadelphia 76ers 122 2OT at Dallas (January 14) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th OT 2OT - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Dallas 25 30 29 23 8 10 - 125 .478 .217 .425 .727 Philadelphia 21 27 22 37 8 7 - 122 .485 .433 .469 .679 Halftime: Dallas 55-48 3rd Q: Dallas 84-70 4th Q: 107-107 OT: 115-115 Technicals: Philadelphia defensive 3 seconds 4:11 2nd, Dirk Nowitzki 7:08 4th Refs: Jason Phillips, Mike Callahan, Scott Foster Attendance: 20,221 (sellout) Did not play due to injury: Josh Howard (sprained left hamstring), Tony Delk (sprained left ankle), Derrick Coleman (sprained left knee), Kenny Thomas (sprained right ankle) Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Antoine Walker 51 4-19 0-6 3-6 11 8-17 13 1 6 0 0 Dirk Nowitzki 48 9-22 1-3 6-10 25 1-14 4 2 2 1 3 Shawn Bradley 22 4-10 0-0 2-2 10 2-2 0 0 3 0 2 Michael Finley 51 14-32 2-8 2-3 32 1-8 3 1 0 2 0 Steve Nash 41 2-8 1-4 4-5 9 0-4 12 1 2 0 0 Antawn Jamison 32 9-15 0-0 5-5 23 6-7 2 0 2 1 0 Travis Best 32 5-6 1-2 2-2 13 1-3 3 1 1 0 0 Danny Fortson 6 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1-2 0 0 2 0 0 Marquis Daniels 7 1-1 0-0 0-0 2 1-1 0 0 2 0 0 Totals 58 48-113 5-23 24-33 125 21-58 37 6 20 4 5 Philadelphia 76ers REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Aaron McKie 38 2-7 1-5 2-4 7 0-7 6 0 3 1 1 Glenn Robinson 43 14-20 2-4 4-5 34 1-7 0 4 1 0 0 Samuel Dalembert 54 10-17 0-0 4-7 24 4-16 0 1 4 0 3 Allen Iverson 50 10-27 5-10 6-6 31 1-8 7 6 2 1 0 Eric Snow 47 2-8 0-1 2-4 6 2-7 12 3 5 1 1 Amal McCaskill 15 1-3 0-0 0-0 2 3-7 0 1 1 0 0 Greg Buckner 7 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 1 0 1 0 0 John Salmons 14 0-2 0-1 0-0 0 0-0 2 0 1 1 0 Zendon Hamilton 3 0-0 0-0 1-2 1 0-1 0 0 2 0 0 Kyle Korver 19 6-12 5-9 0-0 17 1-3 0 0 6 0 0 Totals 58 45-96 13-30 19-28 122 12-56 28 15 26 4 5 patricia