The NBA fined Jason Richardson $35,000 for contact with a fan late in Tuesday's Game 5. While I am happy that Richardson was not suspended, I was surprised that he was not. The saving grace for Richardson was probably that there was no clear video of the event - the league usually comes down heavily (as in 10 games or more suspensions) when players have contact with fans (no matter what the circumstances). Richardson fell into the 2nd row of the fans in the corner after a play with about 20 seconds left and a fan (and witnesses) said he tried to help Richardson up and Richardson responded with "Get your hands off me" and curses and threatened the fan and shoved him in the chest. Again, I'm glad the league didn't suspend him as I want the games decided by the players, but I am _really_ surprised that he got away with just a fine. [Note: I have not yet seen the official press release regarding the fine.] Game 5: Golden State at Dallas (May 1) It was do-or-die time for the Mavs as they had to get a win to continue their postseason. Dallas led 10-8 with 9:30 remaining and the Mavs went on a 19-5 monster run to go up 29-13 with 4:54 left. A 3-pointer by Devin Harris gave Dallas a 34-19 lead with 2:30 left, but Golden State rattled off the next 7 points in a little over a minute to pull within 26-34 with 1:10 to go. For the 3rd time in the series, Dallas ended the quarter with an alley-oop from Harris to Jerry Stackhouse (with 4 seconds left). Dallas led 38-28 after 1. A 3-pointer by Jason Terry was the only points scored in the first 2 minutes of the 2nd quarter as Golden State missed their first 8 shots and Dallas shot 1-2 FG and committed 2 turnovers. Dallas led 44-32 with 8:10 remaining and Dallas scored the next 9 points, capped by a 3-pointer Austin Croshere, to take their largest lead at 53-32 with 5:20 to go. Dallas led 57-37 with 4 minutes left and the Warriors closed the quarter with an 18-5 run. Dallas led 62-55 at the half. For the half, Dallas shot 51% FG and Golden State shot 49% FG. The turnovers were high for both teams in the half as Dallas had 7 turnovers and Golden State had 10 turnovers. Golden State opened the 3rd quarter with a 5-1 mini-run to pull within 60-63 with 10:10 remaining. A 3-pointer by Jason Richardson tied the game at 76-76 with 7:55 to go, but the Mavs scored the next 4 points to retake a small lead. 4 straight Dallas points gave the Mavs an 86-79 lead with 2:05 left. Baron Davis hit a tough 3-pointer with 20 seconds left for the final points of the quarter. Dallas led 90-87 after 3. Davis had 13 points in the 3rd quarter. Matt Barnes scored the first 4 points of the 4th quarter to give Golden State their first lead of the game at 91-90 with 9:30 remaining as Dallas missed their first 4 shots and turned the ball over twice. Harris scored the next 4 points, but the game stayed really tight as a 3-pointer by Richardson tied the game at 94-94 with 8:50 left. Stephen Jackson hit a 3-pointer to give Golden State a 2 point lead, but Croshere answered with a 3-pointer (Harris assisted on the 3 and he had directly scored Dallas' previous 9 points) and Dallas led 102-101 with 7:05 to go. But Golden State then went on an 11-1 run, capped by consecutive 3-pointers, to take a 112-103 lead with 3:20 remaining. But the game wasn't over as Dirk Nowitzki came alive and answered with consecutive 3-pointers and Golden State (finally) started missing shots. A layup by Harris and 2 free throws by Nowitzki gave Dallas back the lead at 113-112 with 48 seconds to go. Golden State missed 2 3-point attempts and Davis ran into Josh Howard after Howard got the rebound (don't know how intentional it was (but they did need to make an intentional foul)) and it was Davis' 6th foul (and Golden State was in the penalty). Howard went to the line with 21 seconds left and hit the first free throw, but missed the 2nd, but Golden State was unable to corral the rebound and the ball went out of bounds off of Barnes. Nowitzki was fouled on the inbounds and he hit both free throws to give Dallas a 116-112 lead with 18 seconds remaining. The Mavs defended the 3-point line and the Warriors spent a little bit of time getting a shot off and Barnes missed a 3-point attempt with 8 seconds left and Nowitzki was again intentionally fouled. As the players were heading down the court to the free throw line, Jackson was clapping his hands the entire way and one of the refs (Ken Mauer?) decided he didn't like it and 1-T tossed Jackson. Nowitzki hit the technical free throw and then hit 1-2 FT for the final margin. Richardson missed a 3-pointer with 4 seconds left as Golden State missed their last 8 shots of the game. Dallas won 118-112. It was really a roller coaster game. The game was absolutely insane behind the arc. Dallas' 10-21 3-point shooting looks impressive until you looked at the Warriors, who shot 16-35 3-pointers - and that's including missing their last 5 3-point attempts as they finally went cold. Dallas looked dominate in the 1st half in building a 21 point lead, but the Warriors weathered the storm and chipped away at the lead. Then the game seemed over when the Warriors took a 9 point lead with 3:20 left in the game, but Dirk Nowitzki then stepped up and answered with consecutive 3-pointers to spark a 15-0 Dallas run to close the game. When Golden State got their 9 point lead, it looked like they started playing not to lose instead of playing to win as they were late in the shot clock on their next 4 possessions before taking a shot. The worst was with Stephen Jackson having the ball at the top of the arc and simply dribbling the clock down to 6 seconds and then doing a 1-on-1 move on Devin Harris that resulted in a missed 18-footer with a minute left (and they were down by 1 at that point) - I don't think I had seen that play with Jackson in control (with Baron Davis, yes) the entire series, it just didn't seem like Warriors basketball. The Mavs did survive with a great end of game performance, but Golden State also collapsed with a terrible end of game performance. The Mavs live another day. Game 6 is still do-or-die for Dallas and is in Golden State Thursday night. For the numbers, Dallas shot 50.6% (40-79) FG including 10-21 3-pointers and Golden State shot 47% (39-83) FG including an insane 16-35 3-pointers. Dallas shot 28-36 FT (6 attempts off of intentional fouls) and Golden State shot 18-26 FT. Dallas out-rebounded Golden State 44-38 and both teams had 11 offensive rebounds. Both teams had 15 turnovers. There were 9 lead changes and 4 ties in the 4th quarter. The heros of the game were easily Dirk Nowitzki and Devin Harris. Nowitzki scored 12 points in the 4th quarter - all of which came during Dallas' 15-0 finish to the game. He finished with 30 points including 14-15 FT and had 12 rebounds and 3 steals. Harris was the only Mav who would consistently attack the basket and he kept Dallas in the game early in the 4th quarter where he scored 9 straight Dallas points and then assisted on a 3-pointer. Harris had 16 points, 3 rebounds, and 7 assists. Josh Howard was again solid and had 23 points including 10-16 FG, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals. Jason Terry had a poor performance with just 11 points including 4-11 FG, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 turnovers. DeSagana Diop played well and even scored a career high 11 points as the Mavs went to him a couple of times inside. He hit all 5 shots he attempted and shot 1-3 FT and had 7 rebounds and 23 minutes. Erick Dampier again hardly played and he didn't attempt a shot and had 4 rebounds in 7 minutes. Jerry Stackhouse's shot wasn't going as he shot 4-13 FG. He had 15 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, and 3 turnovers in 31 minutes. It was a surprise when Austin Croshere came in during the 2nd quarter and even more of a surprise when he had a very nice impact. He had 9 points on 3-6 FG and 3-4 3-pointers and 2 rebounds in 12 minutes. Devean George had 3 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals in 15 minutes. Greg Buckner played just 30 seconds - I blinked and missed it. Baron Davis continued to play well and had a team high 27 points including 10-16 FG, 4 rebounds, and 9 assists before fouling out late in the game. Jason Richardson was a 3-point bomber and had 23 points on 9-16 FG and 5-10 3-pointers. He also had 7 rebounds. Stephen Jackson did not have a good game and had 16 points including 4-14 FG. He did have 4 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 steals, but also turned the ball over 5 times. Al Harrington and Monta Ellis continue to perform below their regular season level. Harrington had 7 points on 3-4 FG, 3 rebounds, and 3 turnovers in 15 minutes. Ellis had 4 points on 1-5 FG, 2 rebounds, and 2 assists in 26 minutes. Matt Barnes played well and had 16 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists. Mickael Pietrus had a double-double with 11 points including 3-10 FG and 10 rebounds before fouling out with 8 seconds left. Andris Biedrins had 8 points and 2 rebounds in 13 minutes. BTW, there is no way Stephen Jackson should have been ejected for his actions. At the most, one technical could have been assessed, but even that seemed too much. Unlike the incident with Baron Davis in Game 2, I didn't see the ref warn Jackson to stop clapping like happened with Davis, and even then Davis was only assessed 1 technical - it was just that he already had a technical earlier in the game that Davis was ejected. The good news is that the game was already over when he was ejected so it had no real affect on the game. The bad news is that Don Nelson said that he will fine Jackson for his ejection. Quotes Avery Johnson: "Yeah, we finished the game tonight. We were down for a minute and they hit a couple of big 3s. But like I've been saying, our guys are very resilient and they have a lot of pride. We made some big shots. Dirk just was huge in that stretch. Devin Harris carried us. Boy, he was special with some of those finishes and drives. And just a total team effort with Diop and Cro [Croshere] and everybody. But we finished the game. We didn't lose our confidence. I was just trying to tell them in the timeouts to just stay positive. It can turn for us and fortunately we got some stops where we needed to and rebounded." Johnson: "Yeah, you know if we can keep DeSagana and Devin out of foul trouble, we are just a much better team. When Devin gets in foul trouble, it hurts us. But he was going to have to foul out tonight because I wasn't going to sit him because we really needed him on the floor. But DeSagana had some nice finishes around the basket. We talked to him about it before the game and he was a threat offensively. If he can just be a threat, those 8 or 10 points in there, those little chippies, just being aggressive helps us out a lot." Johnson on playing Croshere: "You know, it's just one of those 'feel' things. You know, Stack's pretty much the only one that had given us production off of the bench and George has been battling foul trouble, so you just need somebody to make a shot. We didn't tell Cro he was going to play. It's just a feel and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. But Cro got in there, he was aggressive, he had hard fouls, and he rebounded. He did a good job." Johnson on Harris: "Yeah, Devin was aggressive. Something that again we watched on film, there was some opportunities that he passed up up in Oakland. So hopefully he'll be just as aggressive because we've got to find ways to make Davis play defense." Johnson on Nowitzki at the end of the game: "Yeah, pretty special. Came up big and, you know, he hit some big 3s. But again the way Dirk has been played these days, it opened up things for Devin to drive and Jason to drive and Stack to make plays, DeSagana to get open. So when Dirk, even though he doesn't get a lot of assists, it's good when he's a threat inside because they're always surrounding him with 3 guys." Johnson: "Hey, this is a battle. And they're not playing like an 8th seed. But now there's a lot of pressure on them. They got 10,000 pounds on their right arms up there in Oakland. There's a lot of pressure on them to come out and play well and win that game." Dirk Nowitzki: "This team has a lot of heart, a lot of pride. We fought our way to the finals last year. We won some tough games on the road. This team will never give up." Nowitzki: "We realize we have to take it from them. They're not going to give it to us. We hope to go down there and steal one so we can get Game 7 on our home court." Josh Howard: "It was a blessing for me to play that many minutes for us. Coach asks a lot from me and I try to give it my all out there, and that's what I did tonight." Howard on the comeback: "I think we used those other games as an example not to quit. We had an opportunity to quit, you know, I think they was up by 9 with about 7 minutes left. I think everybody had a gut check, and strapped it on and came out and won the game." Howard: "We're a hard working team. We were a team that has tough the adversity." Howard on Nowitzki: "Aggressive, a whole lot more aggressive. And we need that, we needed him on the block to draw those fouls. If it wasn't for him, a lot of the shots that me and JET and Stack and Devin get wouldn't be there, so we need him to stay aggressive these next 2 games." Howard on Diop: "Gana was a big lift for us, just being real active. You know, we need that. I think we kind of made a mistake going small that first game, I think we should have kept our centers in the game. But Gana, Damp, Cro even gave us big minutes tonight. And you know, we need that to beat those guys." Howard on Harris: "That's our spark plug. Coach gets on him a lot, but he keeps fighting. Any time he sees an opportunity to get to the basket, he's going to take it. And I think he made 2 big layups and got fouled on them." Devin Harris on the end of the game: "We didn't let them close out the quarter like they did the in the previous 3. They've been making runs on us at the end of quarters and we've been struggling late in the quarters giving up a lot of points. We buckled down, guys matched up, we gave up some shots but we didn't get down. We knew it was going to come down to the end and we made shots and they didn't." Harris on his drives: "The way that they are playing Dirk we really can't let them get away with that. I really concentrated on finishing my layups and being aggressive." Harris on Nowitzki at the end of the game: "We needed some buckets late and he came down and hit 2 huge 3s for us and really gave us a boost. He got some huge defensive rebounds and we got the stops that we needed." Devean George on Nowitzki: "We got on Dirk's back and he carried us. That's who he is for us. We're going to ride with him." George: "We'll build off this. We've been fighting all year. We'll do the same in the next game." Don Nelson: "Well it was a terrific game. I was proud to be part of it. And we just made some very poor judgements down the stretch, letting Nowitzki get open for 2 3s with a nice lead and then not keeping Devin Harris in front of us on about 3 tries really cost us a lot. And I thought their doubling of Baron, you know getting the ball out of his hands, was a good move by them. But our counter was to get the ball to the open man and we didn't make the shots. So anyway it was good strategy and unfortunately we didn't win. It was an excellent game. We played our hearts out and I'm pretty proud of our guys. By the way, Jackson will be fined by me a substantial amount for getting thrown out again. I guess he doesn't understand why clapping and not saying anything gets you thrown out. But it has before and he's going to have to figure it out - just don't do it, and hopefully this will refresh his memory the next time, it will be of my fining of him getting ejected in a game again. But other than that, he played a really good game. I love the guy and he guards every night and his offense wasn't great tonight but it normally is. So I have no complaints. I thought it was a well officiated game." Nelson on the 2nd quarter run: "We started doing the things that we're capable of doing in the open court and we got some steals and they made some bad judgements and all of the sudden, we're back in the game. It didn't look good. Our start was terrible. But that got us back in and got us some confidence in the locker room. And, you know, going up 6, it was looking pretty good. All we had to do was guard and we didn't do it. And there was some breakdowns in strategies that we've had. And we just, for some reason, we just didn't do what we'd been doing all game - it cost us, big time." Nelson on Nowitzki: "Well, Dirk was terrific tonight. I think their whole team played extremely well. We played well. I thought that we were about up to par. I mean, we didn't play well at the beginning, but we played 3 quarters of really good basketball." Baron Davis: "I felt it was a great game. You know, they played a great game and I felt that they gave us a lot. They went up by 21 and we just kept fighting. We kept fighting and kept believing that we could come back and we wanted to cut that lead into single-digits going into halftime. Once we were able to do that, we felt that we could get control of the game. But they got some outstanding games from Stackhouse and Devin Harris and Diop played well for them and Dirk Nowitzki shot the ball, shot free throws well and hit some big 3s down the stretch. So we felt we had that game, up 9 with 3 minutes to go, be we let it slip away." Stephen Jackson on his ejection: "Life of Stephen Jackson. That's all I've got to stay. Life of Stephen Jackson. That's all I'm saying." Jackson on his ejection: "If anybody can go back and look at it and tell me I did something out of character - my mouth didn't open, I didn't say anything. I was clapping for the simple fact that we didn't win this game, but we're still up 3-2 and we're going home. And if somebody wants to take that another way just because I'm Stephen Jackson then so be it, but I was just getting my team motivated for the home game. I didn't say anything, I didn't do anything, and I don't feel like I should've gotten kicked out." Jackson: "We did everything we needed to do to win this game. I felt we did." Jackson on the end of the game: "The biggest thing was Dirk hit 2 3s in our zone and Devin Harris got an and-1. We went to the rack, things didn't go our way on that end, and they made shots at the end. It's hard to come back from 21 against the best team in the league but we did it, we just didn't make the plays down the stretch." Jackson on Golden State's comeback from 21 down: "No, no moral victory. I'm upset about a lot of things. Mainly the loss, but we're going to go home and close it out." Mickael Pietrus on coming back from 21 down: "We just kept believing. They had their run and then we had the run before the half and I think that we came out very aggressive in the 2nd half. It was a good win for them, we give them credit for that. When you're the #1 in the NBA you've got expect that. I think we just have to bounce back in the next game at home and everything will be fine." Pietrus: "Yeah, they have weapons. That's why they are the best team in the NBA - they have weapons everywhere. Josh Howard, Jason Terry, and Devin Harris came out very aggressive tonight and made big plays. I think it's going to be a fun game on Thursday and I hope you're watching." Game 5: Dallas Mavericks 118, Golden State Warriors 112 at Dallas (May 1) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Dallas 38 24 28 28 - 118 .517 .476 .506 .778 Golden State 28 27 32 25 - 112 .479 .457 .470 .692 Halftime: Dallas 62-55 3rd Q: Dallas 90-87 Technicals: Jerry Stackhouse 0:00 2nd, Jason Terry 9:07 3rd, Stephen Jackson (ejected) 0:08 4th Refs: Jim Clark, Bernie Fryer, Ken Mauer Attendance: 21,041 (sellout) IL: Dallas - DJ Mbenga, J.J. Barea, Pops Mensah-Bonsu Golden State - Patrick O'Bryant, Zarko Cabarkapa Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Devin Harris 32 6-11 1-4 3-4 16 0-3 7 1 4 1 0 Jason Terry 40 4-11 1-1 2-2 11 0-3 3 3 2 0 0 Dirk Nowitzki 40 7-15 2-3 14-15 30 4-12 3 2 4 0 1 Josh Howard 40 10-16 0-2 3-6 23 1-8 5 3 5 3 0 DeSagana Diop 23 5-5 0-0 1-3 11 2-7 1 1 3 1 1 Jerry Stackhouse 31 4-13 2-6 5-6 15 1-3 1 3 1 0 0 Devean George 15 1-2 1-1 0-0 3 0-2 2 0 2 2 0 Austin Croshere 12 3-6 3-4 0-0 9 1-2 0 0 1 0 0 Erick Dampier 7 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 2-4 0 1 1 0 0 Greg Buckner 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 48 40-79 10-21 28-36 118 11-44 22 15 23 7 2 Golden State Warriors REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Baron Davis 41 10-16 3-5 4-4 27 1-4 9 3 6 1 1 Monta Ellis 26 1-5 0-0 2-3 4 0-2 2 1 1 0 0 Stephen Jackson 41 4-14 3-8 5-8 16 0-4 5 5 2 4 0 Jason Richardson 42 9-16 5-10 0-0 23 2-7 2 1 3 0 0 Andris Biedrins 13 2-3 0-0 4-7 8 1-2 0 0 3 0 0 Matt Barnes 35 7-15 2-6 0-1 16 3-6 4 2 5 2 0 Mickael Pietrus 26 3-10 2-5 3-3 11 4-10 1 0 6 1 0 Al Harrington 15 3-4 1-1 0-0 7 0-3 0 3 2 0 0 Kelenna Azubuike 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 48 39-83 16-35 18-26 112 11-38 23 15 28 8 1 patricia Go Mavs!