Did anyone tell the Dallas Mavericks that there was a game on Thursday night and they needed to show up? Evidently not by the way the game looked.
I had DVR’d the game so that I could watch it later and then also skip through some of the commercials and now I’m glad I did. This had to be one of the ugliest games that I have ever witnessed them to play, and that includes the ugly game last week against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
They also should have read the forecast before they stepped onto the court and realized that it sometimes rains, no, downpours inside the AT&T Center in San Antonio and they should have brought their defense against the rain.
We all witnessed Dallas to have a barrage of three’s against the Los Angeles Lakers in the Conference Semi-Finals last season, and that was fine because it was us doing the shooting and scoring, but to watch it on the other side of the fence, well needless to say it was not very much fun. I kep hitting my skip forward button on my remote to end the pain and shame faster.
The Spurs have been shooting an ungodly amount of threes this season and you would have thought that with the experience that the Mavs have, they would have studied that on film and done what they needed to do to defend against the 3 point line, but they didn’t.
It appeared every time the ball would go into the offensive end for the Spurs, they had 2 and sometimes 3 men stop at the 3 point line, the others on the interior and all our defenders went toward the interior and when they realized that the ball was being held at the 3 point line, well it was too late to defend and they were able to make open and I mean open 3 point shots; it was raining 3′s in the AT&T Center and we came without our umbrella.
As I had stated in a previous article, just because they are without one of their “big 3″, don’t underestimate the team as a whole. As a matter of fact, the other “big 2, Duncan and Parker, were really irrelevant as Parker only scored 11 points and Duncan only scored 10; it was the other part of their team that was dangerous. Matt Bonner led all scorers with 17 points and connected on 5 of 9 three pointers, Richard Jefferson added 16 and Gary Neal had 12. From these three players alone, was the biggest majority of the 3 point rain.
The Spurs attempted 33 three-point shots and connected on 16, making that 48.5% to Dallas’ 5.3%, in other words 1 of 19 from behind the arc; pathetic if you ask me, because the more the game was played, the more attempts were made and the uglier it got. Everyone was trying to make a 3 instead of driving the ball and getting to the basket and scoring or at least getting to the line for a free throw.
Even with that, the stats were atrocious for both teams when it came to field goal percentage and free throw shots. Dallas shot 35.1% from the field where San Antonio shot 39.5; Dallas did better at the free throw line with 76.2% compared to the Spurs 56.2. Dallas needed to have done better at protecting the ball because they committed 15 turnovers compared to San Antonio’s 9, but Dallas won the battle on rebounding (52-42). Wow, that was great, but the game was not.
Since the beginning of the season, there have been sparks and glimmers of success in this team, but this was not one of those nights. I realize there is not a lot of time to get this team to gel together, but everyone has had the same time frame we have; we have played 6 games in 8 nights which can be exhausting, but with a bench as we have, we should be able to contend with anyone and everyone out there.
When the season started, there were 2 ugly losses to Oklahoma City in the preseason, then the loss to Miami in the opener, I expected that one to sort of go that way, then another squeaky loss to Oklahoma City. We had the win against the Toronto Raptors and then the ugliest of them all, the loss to the up and coming Minnesota Timberwolves; since then we have tried to settle down and play the type of ball we are supposed to, until tonight.
Someone needs to step up and be a vocal leader in the locker room as well as on the court and display that leadership for all to see and take over this game; otherwise the Mavericks are going to be sitting at home come the end of this season and not make the playoffs and have less than none of a shot at a big name free agent next summer. If that’s what we are gearing for, we are not doing a very good job at trying to lure someone to our town, our team and our way of play. We need to get that defensive monkey back on our backs that started with Avery Johnson and continued last season with Casey. If we don’t have any defense, then we have less of a shot at winning no matter how good the offense is.
Next up will be the New Orleans Hornets here on Saturday; this is another team in rebuilding mode, but don’t underestimate them either, they have some talent that can work you to death if you’re not careful.
So I bid you a good day and say good luck and let’s go Mavs!
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