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Dallas Mavericks 112, San Antonio Spurs 103
Rivalry games are tough to recap, especially after a tough loss like last night. It’s difficult to sit and gather your thoughts when the only thing running through your mind is how frustrating it is to hear the chants of the opposing team’s fans as they seemingly filled up nearly a third of the home court arena.
If the intensity of the rivalry is enough to skew my basketball analysis, it also was enough to push the Spurs out of character. It was an early night for Gregg Popovich, who was tossed in the first half by a (who else) Joey Crawford-led officiating crew that made several questionable calls —prompting a rare, antagonistic chant from an entire arena (well, two-thirds of an arena).
Without Popovich there to manage minutes the Spurs core players played well past their season averages (could we see a night off for a player or two Sunday?). And if anyone questioned how important the game was to the Spurs, they need only look at the decision to start Manu Ginobili in the third quarter.
“They are our archrival, everyone wants to own Texas,” George Hill said after the loss. “It’s always going to be like that. Dallas is a great team and you have to get them respect. They came out fighting and they happened to come out on top this time.”
There will be time to look through the game film later, but from my initial reaction—gathered from the upper deck without the benefits of advanced statistics or replays—the moral of the night’s story might be to let sleeping dogs lie.
Jason Terry is the Mavericks equivalent of Ginobili. He ignites the team and provides a swagger that can carry his entire team, especially when his two-man game with Dirk Nowitzki gets going. Through three quarters Terry had a mundane 10 points, shooting 3-for-9 from the floor. The Spurs had a comfortable lead and all seemed to be well.
Then a 42-point fourth quarter happened.
“Whenever you give up 40 points in a quarter it’s never just one thing,” Richard Jefferson said. “It’s a combination of a lot of things.”
Last night that combination was Nowitzki and Terry. While the newspapers and AP reports will (correctly) point out how Nowitzki shook off a horrible night to score 16 points in the fourth quarter, from the stands it seemed like many of the biggest blows were at the hands of Terry.
Going back to the third quarter, Terry was having a mediocre night and seemed content to simply go through the paces. Then with the Spurs surging, backup point guard George Hill and Terry got into an altercation, earning double technicals. From that point on Terry was zeroed in and on top of his game, not missing a shot on his way to 11 points and four assists in the deciding quarter.
Without looking through the tape, or having insight as to what pick and roll coverages the Spurs were using, it appeared that our point guards were allowing themselves to get taken out by the screen far too easily, forcing Tim Duncan in isolation situations with Terry. Now these moments certainly did not account for all 42 of the Mavericks fourth quarter points, but they did seem to go a long way in providing their momentum.
If our schemes were designed to switch, I have to believe that the Spurs would be better served bringing help earlier to force the ball out of Terry’s hands.
“We had our opportunities, being up 10, up 13,14 points like we were,” Jefferson said. “We need to take pride in our defense. I don’t think I did a very good job defensively in the second half and in the fourth quarter made some errors that you just have to learn from.”
While the defense could have been better, as Pop stated, “Dirk’s a hall of fame basketball player and he showed why.” We should expect him to get his numbers. But the longer we use small lineups with Jefferson as the big forward the more I am disturbed by our inability to create mismatches against opposing teams’ power forwards on the offensive end.
For all the talk about how Jefferson has not meshed with Parker, or our starting unit, at some point you have to be able to just grab the ball and go, right? Nowitzki is going to create mismatches on offense. Always. But as much as he has improved on the defensive end over the years Nowitzki should not be able to guard quality wings. Or a forward or center for that matter. Wouldn’t our best defense be to attack his?
I have trouble believing that given the ball 18-20 feet from the basket, Jefferson can’t simply just drive past Nowitzki. Or that a couple of pick and rolls between Jefferson and Duncan wouldn’t force the Mavericks to go small to match up, exposing Nowitzki’s defense to Duncan.
