Note that Thursday's game vs San Antonio at Dallas has an early start time of 7:00 pm instead of the usual 7:30 pm home start time. The game is being televised on TNT. LA Clippers at Dallas (February 24) For a change, Dallas came out strong and quickly pulled ahead 17-7 with 7:40 remaining as Dallas shot 7-8 FG to start. Dallas led 23-14 with 4:50 left and went on a 13-2 run to go up 36-16 with 30 seconds to go. Dallas led 36-18 after 1. Antoine Walker had 11 points. Dallas shot 14-21 FG and the Clippers shot 7-18 FG and the Mavs out-rebounded the Clippers 12-6. Dallas led 44-22 with 9 minutes left and the Clippers scored the next 10 points to pull within 32-44 with 6:45 remaining. But Dallas poured it back on with a 10-2 run to go up 54-34 with 3:40 to go. Dallas led 65-43 at the half. Dallas was still shooting well at 57% FG for the half and the Clippers were still struggling at 39% FG. Elton Brand picked up 2 quick fouls early in the 3rd quarter for a total of 4 fouls and sat with 10:30 left - it ended up being for the rest of the game. Dallas opened the 3rd quarter by scoring the first 8 points to take a commanding 73-43 lead with 10 minutes left and the blowout was on. It's hard to imagine a quarter in a blowout being painful when you're cheering for the winning team, but this one was as it was a foul fest - and the Clippers were throwing up a lot of bricks from the line. Both teams were in the penalty by midway through the quarter (with lots of free throws before that) and Dallas shot 14-16 FT and the Clippers shot 12-19 FT in the 3rd quarter. But the Clippers never got closer than 20 points in the quarter and Dallas led 92-66 after 3. The blowout continued in the 4th quarter as the Clippers got no closer than 22 points. Dallas won easily 116-91. It's been a long time since Dallas had a true blowout (a couple of earlier large margin wins only became blowouts late in the game) and this was a welcome sight, especially since Dallas had struggled (and lost) in the previous 2 games vs the Clippers. Dallas had it rolling offensively in this game and completely shut down Elton Brand (granted his minutes were limited some by foul trouble, but he wasn't very effective when he was in there). Dallas shot 49.4% (43-87) FG including 6-17 3-pointers and the Clippers shot 41.7% (30-72) FG including 2-11 3-pointers - they only got above 40% FG late in the 4th quarter. Add the shooting to Dallas out-rebounding the Clippers 48-34 including 16-9 offensive and it is easy to see why this was a blowout. Despite Brand's complaint about the officiating, the Clippers had an advantage at the line, but shot poorly in missing 13 free throws. The Clippers shot 29-42 FT and Dallas shot 24-28 FT. It was the 100th consecutive home sellout for Dallas. It was a balanced attack by Dallas as 6 players were in double-digits and no player played more than 37 minutes. 18 of Antoine Walker's 21 points came in the 1st half. He also had 5 rebounds and 3 assists, but did turn the ball over 5 times. Michael Finley had 20 points including 4-6 3-pointers and 5 rebounds. Dirk Nowitzki was the only Mav to struggle with his shot in shooting just 6-18 FG, but he played pretty good defense. He had 16 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists, and a career tying high 5 blocks [he was only credited with 2 steals, but I thought he slapped away at least 3 balls inside]. Steve Nash again wasn't looking to shoot (just 6 FGA) and had 12 points and 8 assists in just 24 minutes. Danny Fortson got the starting nod and his assignment was defending Elton Brand - which he did a very good job. In the first 8 minutes of the game Fortson shot 2-2 FG and 2-2 FT and had 1 rebound and Brand shot 0-3 FG (including 1 block by Fortson), had 1 rebound, and collected 2 fouls - Brand is averaging a 20-10 (and coming off of consecutive games of 30+ points). Numbers don't tell the story, but Fortson finished with 8 points and 2 rebounds in 16 minutes. Antawn Jamison had a double-double off the bench with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Josh Howard had 10 points and 6 rebounds and Eduardo Najera had 4 points and 4 rebounds in 15 minutes. The key to the game was that Elton Brand never got going - be it Dallas' defensive focus on him or his foul trouble. Brand had just 8 points including 2-6 FG, 1 rebound, and 4 fouls in 21 minutes. He hardly played in the 2nd half. Corey Maggette was the only Clipper who somewhat showed up, but he shot a poor 6-17 FG as part of his 21 points. Quentin Richardson struggled with just 7 points including 3-12 FG and 6 rebounds. The 5 Clippers starters combined to shoot just 12-39 FG and had 14 rebounds. Bobby Simmons had 16 points including 6-8 FG and 4 rebounds. Chris Wilcox had 12 points on 4-5 FG and 4-10 FT (ouch) and a team high 7 rebounds [your team shoots less than 42% FG and your high rebounder only has 7 boards is not a good thing]. Keyon Dooling was the only other Clipper in double-digits with 13 points. Quotes Don Nelson: "It's nice to have these once in a while. It seems like it's been a long time since we had a game we didn't have to worry about. I think the Clippers struggled tonight. I don't know if it's what we did - they've been on the road for a long time." Nelson: "I really liked the way Danny Fortson got a chance to play and start. He did a really good job on Brand, who is certainly the hot hand. We started Danny to see if he could match his strength. Danny played well and smart. He played 16 minutes and they were important minutes in the 1st and 3rd periods." Nelson: "It's good to get a game like this under our belts when Nowitzki is having a bad night. He couldn't seem to make a shot. It's good to get a win like this because we know what can happen when he does heat up. Hopefully, the next game or 2 he will as the competition gets tougher." Dirk Nowitzki: "We wanted to take care of Elton Brand. We kept him off the glass and made a concerted effort not to let him get going." Michael Finley: "The start was very important for us. We have to do that in every game. It'd not easy to play in a hole. We played with intensity and never let up. If we continue to play with a killer instinct, we'll see these kind of games more often." Finley on Dallas' 100th consecutive sellout: "It's been a long time since back when I first got here where a sellout was only when we played one of the top teams in the league. For the fans to be consistent no matter who we're playing is a good thing." Steve Nash: "It was great to have a good start tonight. It gave us a lot of momentum. I thought we played extremely well early and did a pretty decent job of keeping the lead through some tough patches where they were making a run at us. And we were obviously playing with some pressure and they were free and had nothing to lose." Nash on if good starts are a focus: "Well, of course. Obviously we want to start, finish, play well in the middle, and we want to play well all of the time. The way we've started slowly at times and we've given up leads, those are 2 important areas to address." Nash on beating the Clippers: "Definitely, I think we were stung by those 2 losses [to the Clippers]. One of them, we really should have won and the other one, we just got flat out beat. So for us to play as well as we did tonight was very sweet." Antoine Walker: "We just wanted to get off to a good start. This team, the Clippers, has dominated us the first 2 times and we wanted to come out and give ourselves a better chance to win the game. We were very aggressive as far as attacking the basket and we just played basketball the way were capable of playing. Danny did a great job of coming out and forcing Brand, because he's been the hot guy, and really putting a body on him and not let him get involved down low." Walker on his strong start: "They had a center guarding me early in the game. I just wanted to be aggressive. Steve did a good job of finding me around the basket and I was able to get going." Walker on the blowout: "It's been awhile. We've had big leads and we just let them go away for some reason. We've haven't held leads long and going into halftime tonight up 20 and still being able to maintain that lead is obviously a good sign. Being able to sit down in the 4th quarter - we haven't done that in awhile - is huge, especially with a big game coming up Thursday. It was good to finally hold a lead and actually put a team away." Antawn Jamison: "We haven't had many like that. It's good to know we can finish off a team when we get a big lead." Danny Fortson on defending Brand: "That was a tough assignment, but it worked well. I just wanted to be aggressive and stay out of foul trouble." Mike Dunleavy: "They are a very talented team and when they are stroking the ball, they are really hard to beat. We didn't do a very good job tonight defensively. We got beat too easily off the dribble. In the 1st quarter we gave up 11 points off of turnovers. We let them beat us on the boards. We haven't had many of those nights and it has been a while. We didn't have our A or B game tonight." Dunleavy when handed the stats sheet: "I already know what it's going to say: We got our butts kicked." Dunleavy: "We've beaten them twice so we knew it would be a dog fight. This team is too good to have that happen again." Dunleavy: "The 1st half we missed some easy shots and didn't finish around the basket. We missed free throws. We got hurt in areas that we've been particularly good at." Dunleavy on playing the bench mostly in the 2nd half: "I didn't see the run I needed to give me the vision that I was going to be able to pull a miracle tonight. I just pulled the plug early on and hoped to got some guys some minutes. Then we had that spurt where we got it to 12 points, then 1 or 2 shots didn't go our way, and I saw it wasn't going to be our night tonight." Elton Brand on hardly playing in the 2nd half: "Definitely, I agree with coach. He knows, he's been there. But I thought we'd give a better effort than that. In fact, I thought that we'd beat them, again." Brand on his foul trouble: "I don't want to discuss it, but that was disgusting. They let somebody beat on you, you push them back and they fall on the ground and flop, it's a foul. ... You can't let nobody just come and hack you all the way down the court. It's ridiculous. I thought [the refs] were more intelligent than that. ... It needs to be addressed somehow. I think I'll send Stu [Jackson] a tape or something. Granted, we're not taking anything away from the Mavericks - they kicked our butts. But it's very disappointing that you let the refs take you out of the game. Literally." Quentin Richardson: "They got it going and played well. They scored off our turnovers. If you don't bring it defensively on this team, this is going to happen to you. There aren't a lot of teams that can go tit-for-tat with their 5, especially if they are on." Richardson: "I don't know if it was a feeling about them bringing it like this. We knew that they were going to want to win because we had beat them back-to-back games. Any team with a sense of pride is going to try and come to play at home like that." ?? [attributed to Cuttino Mobley is obviously wrong]: "It was a tough game. This was a night where Dallas hit shots. This was the night where they wanted to jump out on us. The first 2 games we played against them, we got them. This is a game where we weren't making shots, we weren't making free throws, we didn't execute right. One of our best players got in foul trouble early, and that hurt us. I just have to take my hat off to Dallas because they came ready to play tonight." Dallas Mavericks 116, Los Angeles Clippers 91 at Dallas (February 24) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Dallas 36 29 27 24 - 116 .529 .353 .494 .857 LA Clippers 18 25 23 25 - 91 .459 .182 .417 .690 Halftime: Dallas 65-43 3rd Q: Dallas 92-66 Technicals: LA Clippers defensive 3 seconds 7:52 1st, Mike Dunleavy 10:30 3rd, Marko Jaric 9:00 3rd Refs: David Jones, Nolan Fine, Rodney Mott Attendance: 20,070 (sellout) Did not play due to injury: Tony Delk (sore left ankle) Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Antoine Walker 30 8-13 1-3 4-5 21 0-5 3 5 3 0 0 Danny Fortson 16 2-4 0-0 4-4 8 1-2 1 1 2 0 1 Dirk Nowitzki 37 6-18 0-4 4-4 16 2-9 5 2 3 2 5 Michael Finley 36 7-15 4-6 2-2 20 1-5 2 1 3 0 0 Steve Nash 24 3-6 1-2 5-5 12 0-3 8 2 3 1 1 Antawn Jamison 30 3-7 0-0 5-8 11 6-10 2 0 1 0 0 Josh Howard 32 5-10 0-2 0-0 10 3-6 2 1 4 0 0 Eduardo Najera 15 2-4 0-0 0-0 4 1-4 2 0 2 0 0 Scott Williams 12 3-4 0-0 0-0 6 2-4 0 0 1 0 1 Marquis Daniels 8 4-6 0-0 0-0 8 0-0 3 0 0 0 0 Totals 48 43-87 6-17 24-28 116 16-48 28 12 22 3 8 Los Angeles Clippers REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Elton Brand 21 2-6 0-0 4-4 8 0-1 2 1 4 0 1 Corey Maggette 34 6-17 2-4 7-9 21 1-4 1 1 1 2 1 Chris Kaman 13 1-2 0-0 4-4 6 0-1 0 1 1 0 0 Quentin Richardson 32 3-12 0-3 1-2 7 1-6 2 3 1 1 0 Marko Jaric 16 0-2 0-1 0-2 0 1-2 5 2 3 2 1 Bobby Simmons 29 6-8 0-0 4-5 16 1-4 0 0 5 1 0 Chris Wilcox 19 4-5 0-0 4-10 12 5-7 0 0 1 1 2 Eddie House 24 1-6 0-1 2-2 4 0-4 3 2 1 0 0 Keyon Dooling 27 5-10 0-1 3-4 13 0-2 3 0 1 1 0 Matt Barnes 7 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-2 0 0 0 0 0 Predrag Drobnjak 12 2-3 0-1 0-0 4 0-0 0 1 1 0 0 Melvin Ely 6 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0-1 2 0 0 1 0 Totals 48 30-72 2-11 29-42 91 9-34 18 12 19 9 5 patricia