Game 1: Golden State at Dallas (April 22) The playoffs were here and the run-and-gun Golden State Warriors were in town. But the opening surprise went to Avery Johnson when the starting center was introduced as Devean George (actually Dirk Nowitzki played center with the small-ball lineup, but the introduction was so that Nowitzki would be introduced last). Instead of going with the lineup that brought the Mavs the best record in the league, Johnson felt that Erick Dampier would struggle with Golden States' small-ball (Al Harrington, a small forward, plays center for them). The playoff jitters were evident early as both teams struggled with their shot. Dallas jumped out to an early 7-2 lead with 9:20 to go as Golden State shot 1-7 FG to open the game. But Dallas' lead would get no larger than 5 points. A 3-pointer by Matt Barnes tied the game at 13-13 with 5 minutes remaining and a jumper by Baron Davis gave Golden State their first lead of the game. Josh Howard briefly gave Dallas the lead back with a 3-pointer, but the Warriors then scored the next 7 points to go up 22-16 with 1:50 left. Golden State led 23-17 after 1. Golden State shot 36% FG and Dallas shot 26% FG. Dallas scored the first 6 points of the 2nd quarter to tie the game at 23-23 with 10:25 remaining, but Golden State then scored the next 7 points to go up 30-23 with 8 minutes to go - a 3-pointer by Jason Terry ended the run. Jumpers by Terry and Nowitzki tied the game at 34-34 with 4 minutes left. The teams traded 4 points and it was tied at 38-38 with 2:50 remaining. And that would be the halftime score as Golden State missed 3 shots and committed 2 turnovers and Dallas missed 10 shots over the rest of the quarter. The shooting remained poor as Golden State shot 33% FG and Dallas shot 29% FG in the half. Andris Biedrins opened the 3rd quarter with a dunk and Howard answered with a 3-pointer to give Dallas a 1 point lead. Golden State then scored the next 7 points to go up 47-41 with 9:40 to go, but Dallas scored the next 9 points to take a 50-47 lead with 7:20 remaining. A 3-pointer by Howard gave Dallas a 58-53 lead with 5 minutes left. The teams traded 2 points and Golden State then went on a 14-4 run, capped by a 3-pointer by Davis, to go up 69-64 with 33 seconds to go. Davis hit a 3-pointer near the quarter's end to give Golden State a 72-66 lead after 3. Davis had 19 points in the 3rd quarter. Both teams some what found their shooting touch during halftime as Golden State shot 11-18 FG and Dallas shot 10-21 FG in the 3rd quarter. A 3-pointer by Stephen Jackson gave Golden State a 75-68 lead with 10:45 left, but Dallas went on a 6-1 run to pull within 74-76 with 9:10 to go. Golden State was able to hold on to a small lead as successive trips to the line saw Dallas shoot 1-2 FT and Golden State led 80-78 with 7:10 remaining. The Warriors then went on a 9-1 run to go up 89-79 with 3:20 to go as Dallas missed 3 shots and committed 2 turnovers. A 3-pointer by Barnes gave Golden State a 92-81 lead with 2:10 left. The teams traded 2 points and a 3-pointer by Davis gave the Warriors their largest lead at 97-83 with a minute to go. A layup by Howard capped the scoring. Golden State won 97-85. I was shocked. Not that Golden State won, but that Golden State won without playing a strong game. I had thought that the only way the Warriors would win would be if they got really hot and Dallas played poorly. The 2nd part happened, but the Warriors also struggled at points. I was complaining about it during the game and am still unhappy with Dallas playing Nellie ball. No surprise that the team that has played Nellie ball all season won against the team that pulled out Nellie ball for the first time all season. The Mavs did play better when they had a traditional lineup out there with DeSagana Diop, but he had some foul trouble and Avery Johnson wouldn't play Erick Dampier. Put a new lineup out there and it was no surprise that the Mavs were occasionally lost on defensive rotations and help. The other thing that drove me nuts is that if they are going to play small, make them pay - ATTACK THE BASKET! I don't know how many times I screamed, "DRIVE". With the exception of Devin Harris, the Mavs seemed happy to sit outside and shoot jumpers - a formula that definitely won't work when you are as cold as the Mavs were. The game also goes to show that if you don't take games seriously, the attitude can leak over into the next game. The finish of the regular season reminded me of how the Mavs approached the preseason - the Mavs opened the season 0-4 after not taking the preseason seriously. If it takes 4 games now to get back to form, the result will be an early summer for a team that had Championship dreams. As for the numbers, Golden State found their shooting touch in the 2nd half in shooting 53.8% FG including 8-17 3-pointers while Dallas shot 44.1% FG including 3-10 3-pointers as the Warriors out-scored Dallas 59-47 in the 2nd half. For the game, Golden State shot 43.2% (35-81) FG including 10-30 3-pointers and Dallas shot 35.3% (30-85) FG including 6-19 3-pointers. Golden State shot 17-22 FT and Dallas shot 19-25 FT. After a poor 1st quarter of rebounding (Golden State held a 20-13 advantage), Dallas did pick up their board work and ended up out-rebounded Golden State 50-45 including 19-14 offensive. Both teams had 16 assists and Golden State had 14 turnovers and Dallas had 15 turnovers. There were 9 ties and 7 lead changes in the game. Golden State leads the series 1-0. Game 2 is Wednesday in Dallas. No question who the hero of the game was. Baron Davis had a stellar night. The only surprise was that he didn't get a triple-double (he had 5 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 assists in the 1st quarter alone). Davis had game highs 33 points including 4-7 3-pointers, 14 rebounds, and 8 assists. He also had 3 steals and 3 turnovers. Stephen Jackson also played well with 23 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists. Jason Richardson was fairly quiet with 13 points including 1-7 3-pointers and 4 turnovers, but he did have 6 rebounds. Don Nelson cited both Jackson and Monta Ellis (7 points including 2-7 FG) as playoff-rookies showing first game jitters. Al Harrington only had 7 points including 3-14 FG, but did have 10 rebounds including 6 offensive. Matt Barnes had a nice outing with 10 points including 3-4 FG, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists in 25 minutes. Mickael Pietrus had 2 points on 1-5 FG and 0-3 3-pointers and 3 rebounds in 16 minutes and Andris Biedrins made his only shot in 8 minutes. Nelson went with an 8-man rotation. Dirk Nowitzki did not look good in this game - the only good thing is that MVP ballots are already in otherwise some people would have changed their vote based on this game. Except for one dunk, he wasn't aggressive and played poorly on defense - in fact he got yanked early in the 3rd quarter and sat for 5 1/2 minutes due to his poor performance. Nowitzki had 14 points on 4-16 FG and 6-8 FT. He did have 12 rebounds including 5 offensive, 4 assists, and 3 blocks, but the Mavs simply need a better performance from him. On the other hand, Josh Howard played well (though, like all the Mavs, struggled with his shot some) and kept the team in the game at times. Howard had 21 points including 8-21 FG and 3-4 3-pointers, 14 rebounds, and 3 steals. Devin Harris was aggressive and had 19 points and 3 rebounds and also played good defense on Jason Richardson. Jason Terry finished with 17 points, but most would be surprised to know that he had that many as he was fairly quiet on the court. Terry also had 4 rebounds and 3 assists. As usual, Devean George was on the court for his defense. He had 10 points and 5 rebounds. Besides DeSagana Diop, Dallas didn't get much from the bench. The Mavs did play better with Diop on the court, but he picked up 5 fouls in 16 minutes. Diop had 4 points, 6 rebounds including 5 offensive, and 2 blocks. Jerry Stackhouse and Greg Buckner were negatives in this game. Stackhouse missed all 6 shots he attempted and turned the ball over 5 times. He also had 1 rebound, 3 assists, and 1 steal in 20 minutes. Buckner was in the game for defense and didn't attempt a shot, but it seemed he got burned every time down the court, including not getting up on Baron Davis as Davis nailed a 3-pointer at the end of the 3rd quarter. Buck had 3 rebounds and 1 assist in 13 minutes. Erick Dampier only played 2 minutes due to coach's decision and had 3 rebounds, including 2 offensive, in that span for his only stats. Quotes Don Nelson: "Well, I guess that's why you're in this crazy business. When you have moments like this, it's really a super win for our team. We came in here and just played, you know, good enough in the 2nd half to win the game. So I was very, very pleased. It's something that was unexpected so it makes it all the much better. But it was a happy day for us and obviously a sad day for the Mavs. But anyway, we played our hearts out and that's all that I can say. So I'm a very happy guy at this point. And I think that more than anything else, we just caught them on a night where they didn't shoot the ball very well and they normally make those shots. And I don't know how they didn't go in, some of them. But ours did, so I was very happy with that. And really, I think, that's probably the key to the game - we made some more shots than they did, we made 5 more shots. And just kept our nose to the grindstone and things worked out this game. So it's just one game and it looks like it will be a long series." Nelson: "Baron Davis had an incredible 2nd half. And got poked in the eye, actually had blurred vision. At halftime I kidded him. I said, 'Well maybe it will make your shot go in a little bit better because you haven't made hardly any.' And sure enough, he started making shots. He's a tough guard anyway, but when he's got his stuff going, and he can also make the pass, he's very difficult." Nelson on Nowitzki: "I just think he had a bad night. Just missed some shots." Nelson: "We don't expect to be world champs at the end of the playoffs. But every time we play in a high-intensity game like these are going to be, we gain experience. I'm really happy about that." Baron Davis on the low halftime score: "You know, 1st game, it's always tough because you're going to miss layups, you're going to miss wide open shots because your adrenalin is pumping. Didn't think we'd score 38 points, neither did I think Dallas would either. But it was just one of those games in the 1st half. We knew that if we could keep the score close, hopefully we would get hot and catch fire late in the ball game, and we were able to do that." Davis: "We knew if we could keep it close we could have a chance. This win gives us a lot of confidence, but this team has been to the championship and 1 loss is not going to affect them." Davis on the 3rd quarter: "You know what, I just lost myself to the game, really. Guys told me that I needed to get going and I came out pressing, trying to get myself in rhythm. And once I got in a rhythm, I just stayed locked in and I knew I had a job to do and that was scoring the basketball at that point and try to make plays to make us successful out there." Al Harrington: "We wanted to win. We didn't care how we got it done. To be quite honest, we don't think we played well. I didn't play as good as I could have, JRich [Richardson] didn't, Monta [Ellis] didn't, but we still found a way. I think that just shows the growth of our team." Harrington on early in the game: "I don't think it was jitters. I just think we just missed shots we usually make, it happens like that sometimes. The good thing is that we didn't get down on ourselves, we just stuck with it. That's big for us to win this game the way we did." Harrington on if the win had sunk in yet: "Not yet. The only time it's going to hit us is if we won the series. Right now, 1 game means nothing. It's a 7 game series and you know this team is going to respond because of all the experience they have. So we expect a very tough game 2." Stephen Jackson: "We're not in their head at all. They're a great team. They played through adversity and they've shown that, and that's why they have the best record. So I don't think we're in their head at all. When you have the possible MVP on your team, I think that team is still confident, I think Avery's going to have those guys ready to play next game." Jackson on if he thinks it will be a long series: "I'm not going to say that. I just want us to come out and play every game and give ourselves a chance. We've got a tough job for the 1st round playing against the best team in the league, so I think we're going to approach every game with going out there and giving them respect because they are the best team. We don't feel like we're in their head, we don't feel like we did anything today. We've got a lot of work to do in playing against a great team." Jackson on Davis: "I'm not surprised because I know what he can do. I trust Baron with my life. He played like the franchise player and that's what we expect from him and I love him for the way he played today." Avery Johnson on Nowitzki's struggles: "Yeah, very surprised. I would have never have expected it. I thought overall as a team we were ready to go. We had a good practice, especially on Friday. But his shots just didn't fall. They're doing a good job of hanging all over him and we're just going to have to make strong moves and get to the basket and make our shots. But how many nights do you see him have like this - not very often." Johnson on playing small-ball: "It was just something that we've evaluated that times that we've play them, our 5s just could not keep up. They start 2 point guards, 2 2s [shooting guards] and a 3 [small forward]. They put us in a really big bind and we haven't been able to make them pay on the offensive end when we came down the floor. I didn't think the small team did that bad to start the game. We had a bad finish to the 1st quarter. But I thought overall, they didn't score much on us early, but we turned the ball over quite a bit at the end of that 1st quarter. And just didn't make them pay on the offensive end, and that's really what hurt us. But going into halftime, the score was tied for the most part and we were right there even with that lineup. Diop did come in and do a good job for us in that 1st half." Johnson on Davis: "Yeah, we were trying to slow him down. We trapped him he got the ball back. He still made some tough shots. He made some fall away 3s from spots that he hadn't really been making 3s from. So, that's what happens in the playoffs you know, a guy can get hot. We tried to give him some different looks. Now we've got some stuff on film and we'll evaluate it and see what we need to do next time." Johnson on it not being an easy series: "Absolutely. This will be a tough series. Fortunately for us, this is not a 1 game series. We are a team that normally responds really well after losses and we're definitely going to have to do that right now." Johnson on the poor ends to the quarters: "Yeah, we didn't finish well in any of those situations. That's something we are going to have to evaluate and see why we didn't finish well. But again, our guys play hard and they made a couple of tough shots on us. A couple of tough shots, got a couple of rebounds on us, when we were small and when we were big. We can't give up 14 offensive rebounds - we got 19. But we just didn't finish our shots. I think we missed probably 5 or 6 layups tonight, which is not normally us. So we can't shoot 35% against anybody." Johnson: "Yeah, again, our bench has been really good for us all year. Tonight they just could not put it in the basket for us. But again, we have guys like Stack and Buck and those guys we've been going to those guys all year. They'll figure it out - we'll help them figure it out - and they'll have a better performance the next night." Dirk Nowitzki on if Golden State did anything special defensively: "No, I don't think so. Basically they did the same thing in that game they beat us in March. They play a small guy on me, front me everywhere, basically trying to limit my catches. And once I had it, they came from everywhere and they played my spin and they did a good job. I thought Baron got hot there, obviously. He made some tough shots, made some tough plays, and really won the game for them." Nowitzki on missing shots: "Early I had some good looks. I think we missed tons of layups in the 1st half there - we missed like 6 or 7 layups, I thought, which we should of instead of a tied game we should have been up at half by a couple of points. You know, tough loss. We got to watch some film and execute a lot better on Wednesday." Nowitzki on Golden State: "Well you know that they are so good. They make you really adjust with Harrington at the 5. They spread the floor and really you got to honor all their shooters. So it's tough to play at 5, but I think Gana [Diop] show it last year during the Phoenix series that when he's active, he can play even though they have a small lineup. And he did a good job today being out there and being active, but obviously they made us adjust with there small lineup." Nowitzki: "Obviously the pressure is on us all the way. They can come in here and free ball and shoot from anywhere and if they go in, great and if they lose, nobody really expected them to win. So this adds to our pressure and we got to handle it. Obviously, shooting 35% on our home court won't get it done. We've got to execute better, get better shots, and go from there." Jerry Stackhouse: "It was one of those games you just want to forget. We thought we'd handle things better than we did." Devin Harris: "We struggled to find our offensive touch in the 1st half. We did a better job defensively in the 2nd quarter, really holding them out of their transition game and we rebounded a lot better. Our first group really struggled to rebound the ball and that's what really got them going in that 1st quarter." Game 1: Golden State Warriors 97, Dallas Mavericks 85 at Dallas (April 22) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Golden State 23 15 34 25 - 97 .490 .333 .432 .773 Dallas 17 21 28 19 - 85 .364 .316 .353 .760 Halftime: 38-38 3rd Q: Golden State 72-68 Technicals: none Refs: Dick Bavetta, Mike Callahan, Bill Kennedy Attendance: 17,505 (sellout) IL: Golden State - Patrick O'Bryant, Zarko Cabrakapa Dallas - DJ Mbenga, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Maurice Ager Golden State Warriors REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Baron Davis 44 11-20 4-7 7-8 33 2-14 8 3 4 3 1 Monta Ellis 23 2-7 0-0 3-4 7 0-2 0 2 3 0 0 Jason Richardson 41 5-12 1-7 2-4 13 2-6 0 4 4 0 1 Stephen Jackson 45 9-18 3-7 2-2 23 1-5 4 3 3 2 1 Al Harrington 38 3-14 0-3 1-2 7 6-10 1 1 4 0 0 Matt Barnes 25 3-4 2-3 2-2 10 2-4 3 0 2 2 1 Mickael Pietrus 16 1-5 0-3 0-0 2 1-3 0 0 2 0 1 Andris Biedrins 8 1-1 0-0 0-0 2 0-1 0 1 0 0 1 Totals 48 35-81 10-30 17-22 97 14-45 16 14 22 7 6 Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Devin Harris 37 8-18 0-2 3-4 19 0-3 2 1 0 2 0 Jason Terry 37 6-14 1-4 4-5 17 2-4 3 0 2 1 0 Devean George 31 3-8 2-5 2-2 10 0-5 1 2 4 1 0 Josh Howard 43 8-21 3-4 2-2 21 4-13 2 2 3 3 1 Dirk Nowitzki 39 4-16 0-2 6-8 14 5-12 4 2 2 2 3 Jerry Stackhouse 20 0-6 0-2 0-0 0 0-1 3 5 2 1 0 DeSagana Diop 16 1-2 0-0 2-4 4 5-6 0 0 5 0 2 Greg Buckner 13 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1-3 1 1 0 0 0 Erick Dampier 2 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 2-3 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 48 30-85 6-19 19-25 85 19-50 16 15 18 10 6 patricia Go Mavs!