Pop needs to call Nellie about how to guard Dirk

[SinBAD]

Obviously He is the only guy who shut him down in 2007.Jackson played great D.Hairston has the same body and would be a good job.forget about Bogans.Dyss or hairston.

[HarlemHeat37]

Hairston is 6'5, while Jax is like 6'8..it would be the same problem..

The only guy on the roster with the body to potentially guard Dirk is Ian..however, he obviously has other problems..

[DontStopBelieving]

I thought Dyes and Bonner played fairly decent on him. He just couldn't miss

[alchemist]

Hairston is 6'5, while Jax is like 6'8..it would be the same problem..

The only guy on the roster with the body to potentially guard Dirk is Ian..however, he obviously has other problems..
You want Mr. Foul on Dirk?

[phxspurfan]

Hairston sprained his ankle.

[aequitas090]

Dirk played well against the Warriors. It was everyone else that struggled. Spurs need to take the same approach to Dirk as we have against Duncan in the past. Allow him to get his, stop everyone else.

[ecksrobecks]

nellie would tell him to play 4 guards and a small forward at center

[MavDynasty]

Dirk played well against the Warriors. It was everyone else that struggled. Spurs need to take the same approach to Dirk as we have against Duncan in the past. Allow him to get his, stop everyone else.

Um...That GSW series along with Miami/Houston series was Dirks worst series

19.7 points per game on 38 percent shooting is playing well :rolleyes

Tbh Josh Howard was playing well while no one showed up.

[daslicer]

The guys who have bothered Dirk in the past usually are physically intimidating players. Kmart,Haslem,ZO,Posey,Jax,David West,Malik Rose. We don't have any of those type of players.

[mexicanjunior]

Only way to stop Dirk is hack a damp...

[Mr. Peabody]

What about Blair? He's about the same size Malik Rose was back when Malik would guard Dirk. He's physically intimidating.

[DubMcDub]

S-Jax is 5x the basketball player of Hairston or anyone else on the Spurs roster outside of the Big 3. Not only is he a good defender, but he really tired Dirk out on offense and got into his head.

[Lukor]

S-Jax is 5x the basketball player of Hairston or anyone else on the Spurs roster outside of the Big 3. Not only is he a good defender, but he really tired Dirk out on offense and got into his head.

Dirk is not the player he was 3 years ago. He is dealing with smaller players much better now.

[sefant77]

Warriors gave away Jax in november. Pop didnt want more drama. Now he got plenty with Bonner and Bogans on Dirk. Ship out RJ and a pick.

Parker
Hill
Jax
Duncan
Dice

Gino off the bench. I think even Jax got more matured...

But he didnt

[baseline bum]

What about Blair? He's about the same size Malik Rose was back when Malik would guard Dirk. He's physically intimidating.

Blair doesn't have anything approaching the mobility Malik had. There's really no one on the roster to throw at him.

[ducks]

sj anyone

[Mav-elous Man]

The best way to defend Dirk is to put somone on him who is slightly smaller and athletic and physical. He must also be a thug. I.E. Stephen Jackson, Kenyon Martin, Ron Artest, the Birdman, Master P, Udonis Haslem, and uhhhh whats-his-face that played in Miami on the championship team then played for Boston and was in N.O. the last time I heard of him.... James Posey!!! Thanks NBA.com!!!

[Mav-elous Man]

The best way to defend Dirk is to put somone on him who is slightly smaller and athletic and physical. He must also be a thug. I.E. Stephen Jackson, Kenyon Martin, Ron Artest, the Birdman, Master P, Udonis Haslem, and uhhhh whats-his-face that played in Miami on the championship team then played for Boston and was in N.O. the last time I heard of him.... James Posey!!! Thanks NBA.com!!!

BTW I was just kidding about Master P. Lol!

[Bob Lanier]

In that series Nellie somehow convinced the freaking Golden State Warriors to rotate on defense like the 1990s Bulls. So if he can get Parker, Ginobili, Mason, Bonner, etc. to swarm the ball like angry Africanized bees, you might have a chance.

The actual system was not complicated, but the effort was amazing.

[TD 21]

The Warriors had long, relatively athletic wing players to guard Nowitzki, who not only weren't intimidated by doing so, but relished the opportunity, to the point where, if anything, they intimidated Nowitzki. The Spurs have one wing player who's athletic, relatively long, but is a no confidence loser, while the Warriors were teeming with confidence.

I can't picture the Spurs winning a championship with Jefferson, Bonner and Mason in the rotation. By all accounts, nice guys, but just losing type of players. Mistake prone, choke in big games, you don't win with guys like this.

[duncan228]

Nowitzki is Spurs' worst nightmare (http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/nba/columns/story?columnist=caplan_jeff&id=5111653)
Popovich bound to lose sleep trying to figure out how to handle Mavs' shooting star
By Jeff Caplan
ESPNDallas.com

If Sunday night was Dirk Nowitzki getting lucky, then San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich will have to come up with something more creative and a whole lot more effective than his third-quarter Hack-a-Damp for when Nowitzki is just plain good.

It was Nowitzki who called himself lucky, mentioning really just a few off-balance toss-ups early on that found the bottom of the net. Then just about everything he touched ripped nylon in a huge 36-point effort on just 14 shots.

Nowitzki made 12 of them and he drained all 12 of his free throws. That's a final tally of 26 shots, 24 buckets and one perturbed Popovich, who mostly tried, unsuccessfully so, to employ single coverage on the Dallas Mavericks' star.

A few attempts at double coverage turned into a Mavericks layup drill and ultimately Pop took out his frustrations on the mediocre foul-shooting big man Erick Dampier in Dallas' 100-94 Game 1 victory at American Airlines Center.

"We wanted to put him at the line," Popovich said of the stiff-shooting Dampier, "and hoped he would miss free throws rather than Dirk killing us the way he was."

Nowitzki had just finished off a critical seven-point spree on three consecutive third-quarter possessions that moved the Mavs in front, 67-61, less than two minutes after the Spurs had clawed their way back to take a 61-60 lead. Nowitzki brutalized overmatched reserve forward Matt Bonner each trip down.

On the third possession, Bonner got Nowitzki's arm, but the 7-footer still drained the 13-foot shot for the and-1. It was his 11th point of 13 in the decisive quarter and his 30th of 32 by the end of the third quarter.

The next three times down the floor, Popovich instructed guard Roger Mason Jr. to slap Dampier, bear hug him, anything to draw a whistle and stop play before the ball could rotate to Nowitzki. Dampier made 1- of-2 on his first two trips and then hit both on the third straight Hack-a-Damp to keep the lead at six, 71-65 with 2:17 left in the quarter.

"I was surprised, but Pop, he's just like Nellie [Don Nelson]," Nowitzki said. "I played for Nellie for a long time and you got to be ready for everything with him. He's liable to do anything at any time. I actually thought Damp stepped up and made some big free throws."

Maybe it's a simple case of be careful what you ask for. Popovich swears he conceded the regular-season finale against the Mavs to rest his regulars and not as a message that he wanted the Mavs.

But, maybe all of the Mavs didn't take it that way. Maybe not even the even-keeled Nowitzki, who has never said a bad word about anyone. Not even Bruce Bowen.

"Dirk couldn't wait for the playoffs," Mavs guard J.J. Barea said. "The last game of the season he was so mad, he couldn't wait. He's ready, he's focused and he knows what he's got to do, and he's ballin'."

And the Spurs have a big problem. The 6-10 Bonner and the 6-9 Antonio McDyess can't handle Nowitzki one-one-on. At other times, the Spurs tried to go small and agitate Nowitzki with Richard Jefferson and then even smaller with Keith Bogans, the closest the Spurs can get these days to replicating Bowen.

By halftime, Nowitzki had 19 points on 7-of-9 shooting and had taken three more free throws than the entire Spurs team. In the third quarter, he made all four of his field goal attempts and all five free throws to outduel Tim Duncan, who had 10 of his team-high 27 points in the quarter.

"Early on they weren't doubling and they were just going to sit in his lap and see what he was going to do and early on he put a lot of pressure on them by taking the ball to the basket," said Mavs point guard Jason Kidd, who had a terrific game with 13 points -- including several big shots late -- 11 assists and eight rebounds. "And in that third quarter, he was great."

When the Spurs tried to come at him with a double team in the fourth quarter, it didn't work either. Nowitzki was adept at finding the open man, and the Mavs got good looks and made San Antonio pay. When he decided to keep it himself, he scored all four of his fourth-quarter points in succession, pushing an 89-84 lead to an insurmountable 91-84.

"I thought we had some great cutting going on when I caught the ball there in the fourth quarter when they came from the low side," Nowitzki said, singling out Jason Terry and Shawn Marion for the way they moved without the ball.

"You can't just sit there and watch. You have to have everybody involved, and the guys did a great job getting open."

Nowitzki won't hit 86 percent of his shots every game, but Game 1 showed how difficult the Spurs' job will be without the long, athletic defenders that seem to pester Nowitzki best. He can shoot over anyone they put on him in a one-and-one situation. And unlike past seasons, this Mavs team has four other players who average in double figures, making double-teaming a much greater risk.

Caron Butler was Nowitzki's main scoring complement Sunday with 22 points.

"When they were double-teaming, we were getting layups and everything," Marion said. "It's hard on rotations when you're double-teaming. When you have a team with the talented players we have, you can't do that. It's hard, but sometimes when you're small, you have no choice."

Nowitzki refers to Popovich as a defensive genius, and the Spurs coach will scheme up something in the two days before Game 2 on Wednesday. Pop's options, however, seem to be limited.

"I mean, he's 7-foot and can shoot that J," Marion said. "It's hard guarding him when he's doing that. The best thing to do is hope he misses. But, that's for them to decide."

[SenorSpur]

Pop needs to forget any and everything he ever learned from Nellie - including his love of small ball.