Dallas activated Adrian Griffin and placed Evan Eschmeyer on IR with a sore left ankle prior to the Seattle game. USA Basketball added Raef LaFrentz to Team USA. LaFrentz joined Michael Finley and 8 others on the team (2 more to be named later). Team USA will compete in the World Championship tournament that takes place in Indianapolis this summer. Steve Nash (Canada), Dirk Nowitzki (Germany), Shawn Bradley (Germany), and Wang Zhizhi (China) are also competing in the tournament. Dallas held a players-only practice Sunday. Only the players were present during the 1 hour practice and Avery Johnson was coach for the practice. The practice was Don Nelson's idea. Golden State at Dallas (March 9) Dallas opened the 1st quarter with an 11-2 run. Golden State scored 6 straight points to pull within 16-19 with 4:25 left, but Dallas answered with an 11-2 run to go up 30-18 with 1:20 remaining. Dallas led 32-22 after 1. Michael Finley had 14 points. Dallas led 38-26 with 10:15 to go and Golden State got back into the game with a 10-2 run to pull within 36-40 with 8:15 remaining. Dallas held a single-digit lead the rest of the quarter and led 57-54 at the half. Bob Sura had 10 points in the quarter. Dallas shot 9-10 FT and Golden State shot 14-20 FT in the half. Gilbert Arenas opened the 3rd quarter with a 3-pointer to tie the game. Steve Nash answered with a 3-pointer and Dallas held a single-digit lead the rest of the quarter. Nick Van Exel converted a 3-point play and Dallas led 85-78 after 3. Jason Richardson had 10 points in the quarter. Golden State scored the first 6 points of the 4th to pull within 84-85 with 10:45 remaining and the game stayed close the rest of the quarter with neither team holding more than a 3 point lead. Golden State took their first lead of the game at 92-91 on a layup by Chris Mills with 6:45 remaining. Arenas tipped in a miss to tie the game at 100-100 with 3 minutes remaining. Raef LaFrentz answered with a layup. The teams traded a few misses and Bob Sura hit 1 of 2 free throws with 1:20 to go. Dirk Nowitzki hit a jumper and Arenas drove for a layup to pull Golden State within 103-104 with a minute remaining. Eduardo Najera missed a layup, but took a charge on the other end to get Dallas the ball back. Nowitzki drove strong to the basket for 2 with 19 seconds left. Jason Richardson hit a jumper with 8.3 seconds left and Nash was fouled with 7 seconds to go. Nash missed the first and hit the seconds and it was just a 2 point game at 107-105. Sura was behind the arc (but foot was on the line), faked as his defender flew by, and missed the long jumper at the buzzer. Dallas won 107-105. Yuch (I've been saying that far too often lately). The Mavs looked like they were going to do this the right way when they went up by 12 points in the 1st quarter, but slacked off and the result was a very tight game that resulted in the opponent, one of the worst in the league, having a good look for the win (the ref incorrectly had his arms raised signaling a 3-pointer for Sura's shot - may or may not have been corrected if it had gone in). But, a win is a win is a win. Give Golden State credit for playing very well, but Dallas is a much better team than they showed in this game. Michael Finley had another nice game with 28 points and 5 rebounds. Steve Nash had 22 points and 8 assists. Dirk Nowitzki had a double-double with 19 points and 11 rebounds. Eduardo Najera only had 4 points on a very poor 2-12 FG, but supplied the hustle, snagged 9 rebounds including 5 offensive, and got in front of Jason Richardson and set to take the key charge late in the game. Raef LaFrentz had 15 points and 9 rebounds and "only" had 4 fouls. Dallas only got 19 points from the bench as Nick Van Exel really struggled with 7 points including 1-7 FG. Richardson was the high man for Golden State with 21 points, including a spectacular break-away dunk, and 7 rebounds, but only had 4 assists and had 5 turnovers. Gilbert Arenas looked good for a rookie with 13 points and 7 rebounds, but only had 1 assist while playing guard. In a stark contrast to his last visit to Dallas where he had 23 points in the 1st quarter alone, Antawn Jamison had just 13 points including 5-15 FG and 5 rebounds. The other surprise was that rebounding maniac Danny Fortson only had 6 rebounds. Bob Sura kicked in 14 points on 2-6 FG and 9-11 FT and 6 assists off the bench and Troy Murphy had 12 points also off the bench. In case you went "Huh?" or "come on Bradley" when a foul was called on Shawn Bradley after a Golden State inbounds near the end of the 3rd quarter, it actually was an intentional foul. Hack-a-Foyle was taking place. Adonal Foyle, shooting a mere 38% FT, did what was expected by missing both free throws and Dallas had the last shot of the quarter. Quotes Don Nelson: "Well, we dodged a bullet tonight. Thank goodness that we were able to defend them on the last couple of plays. We missed so many shots around the basket that we had normally been making. The good news is that we figured how to win the game. The bad news is that we had to struggle to get this win. My hat is off to Golden State. I never thought it would be an easy game, but I thought we would have played better than we did tonight. I think they had a lot to do with that. We are going to take a day off tomorrow again. We have a tough schedule ahead. Again, I'm waiting for the team to come together. Right now we are struggling a little bit here and there. We really dodged a bullet tonight. You can probably say that about 8 or 9 of the games that we have played. It could be the difference between being 1st place and 6th." Nelson: "And you can say after the game, 'Boy, I don't know how we won that game.' This one was right in that group." Nelson: "I think that the better your team gets then the more pressure you're under to do well. People expect us to beat Golden State for example. I'd rather have this than the other kind of pressure - none. The pressure is getting your team to play up to their potential every night. Nelson on Nowitzki's drive with 20 seconds left: "You usually don't get that good of a shot. [But] he found a way to do that." Nelson: "Nick is struggling to make shots. I guess thats just going to take some time. I had expected Raef to struggle more than Van Exel, but thats not happening. He's trying and we've got to help get him through this. Usually its easier to get over it on the road. We expect him to be a really good player." Dirk Nowitzki: "We're really not playing that bad offensively. We're just really having a bad defensive effort. We got up [12] in the 1st quarter and we didn't run away with it. And we were lucky at the end." Nowitzki: "It was a bad defensive effort. We had them pretty much in the 1st quarter, went up 10 quick. We just didn't do a good job and run away with the game. We made some decisions on the fast break." Nowitzki on Golden State: "They have a good team with a lot of talent. They just have to learn to win games like that." Nowitzki: "If we can get No. 1, why not go for the top? It's not going to be a cakewalk, though." Steve Nash: "We were lucky to win. We didn't play well once again. We survived, but we're going to obviously play a lot better and look for a lot better performance defensively on a consistent basis." Nash: "We're not playing up to our abilities. We're not seeing any improvements, certainly not much consistency. I'm not confident in the way we're playing." Nash: "I don't really care [about the standings]. I want us to play well and it doesn't feel good when you look in the paper and you got a great record but you're not playing well. For me, it's not all it's cracked up to be. I'd much rather feel good about our performance and feel confident about the way we're playing. I think we need to demand a lot more of ourselves." Nash on Nowitzki: "You've really got to guard him with the whole team. They were trying to guard him with just 2 guys." Nash on the strong performances of the big 3: "That's why our team is so good, because we don't have to rely on one guy." Raef LaFrentz: "Our effort defensively was not that good. Giving up 105 points to them is unacceptable, but we got the win." Eduardo Najera: "We definitely have to play better defense. Tonight we didn't do that good of a job on the defensive end, but if we want to win a championship we have to play much better defensively. They got too many easy shots, too many wide open layups." Najera on Nowitzki's last shot: "Dirk had a good look and he made a great play. He saw the double-team coming so he took it right to the basket. Najera on Dallas having the most wins in the league: "We can't be thinking about that right now. It's great, but it doesn't mean anything because we have a lot of games left and have a lot of work left to do." Greg Buckner on Dallas' defense at the end: "We need to find a way to do that the entire game and not just the last 2 minutes." Buckner: "We shouldn't be in close games with teams that you should find a way to blow out. We need to better ourselves defensively. Golden State is not a playoff contender, but you cant take teams like that lightly, especially on the defensive end. We need to turn it up down the stretch because every other team is and we can't get lax and let a couple of games slip that shouldn't slip." Buckner on Nowitzki: "Dirk is an All-Star. Dirk is going to be an All-NBA pick. Dirk knows how to make the tough baskets down the stretch." Brian Winters on playing Dallas close but not getting the win: "No, there's never any solace when you lose. But we played a very competitive game and we had a lot of guys do a lot of good things but we still came up short." Winters: "Jason Richardson is as fine young player. He has an unlimited potential, as far as his future goes. It is up to him how good he wants to be. He's an explosive athletic jumper, very quick, smart kid, learns, wants to be good. Each and every night he gets a little bit better. So as the season goes along and as he goes along with the Golden State Warriors, we expect big things from him. He's a good player now and he's only going to get better with experience." Winters on Nash: "He's their All-Star point guard and he's a very good player, very smart. They've played in a lot more games with the intensity level [of tonight] than we have and he made a lot of very, very good plays for them. He's very good on the pick-and-roll, he creates a lot of opportunities for other guys and for himself. He knows how to get Nowitzki the ball when he gets a mismatch. They, together, play a great 2-man game, maybe the best in the NBA." Winters on Nash: "He's very smart and clever with the ball and he's an excellent shooter. He made some big shots." Jason Richardson: "The guys gave it their all against a great Dallas team. We should have made some free throws, but I am very pleased with our overall performance on a back-to-back game." Richardson on driving against Dallas: "We know they got shot blockers, but we knew we needed to be aggressive and drive to the basket and pitch. I think that is a good thing for our team because we have guys that can penetrate and get to the basket like Arenas, Bobby Sura, and Hughes. I think we can do that a lot. I think we did a great job of that." Richardson: "This is not one of those negative losses where you go out there and get killed. I think it was very positive for us to come out here against one of the teams competing for the World Championship. I am very pleased that we played hard, but we want to win." Dallas Mavericks 107, Golden State Warriors 105 at Dallas (March 9) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Dallas 32 25 28 22 - 107 .455 .400 .446 .826 Golden State 22 32 24 27 - 105 .522 .357 .494 .621 Halftime: Dallas 57-54 3rd Q: Dallas 85-78 Technicals: Dallas defensive 3 seconds 1:06 1st Refs: Joe Forte, Kevin Fehr, Tim Donaghy Attendance: 20,170 (sellout) Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Eduardo Najera 36 2-12 0-0 0-0 4 5-9 0 2 3 3 1 Dirk Nowitzki 42 7-15 0-2 5-5 19 3-11 4 3 2 2 2 Raef LaFrentz 35 6-14 0-1 3-6 15 2-9 2 2 4 3 2 Michael Finley 43 12-22 1-3 3-3 28 1-5 3 1 2 2 1 Steve Nash 30 8-13 5-6 1-2 22 0-1 8 1 3 0 0 Nick Van_Exel 18 1-7 0-3 5-5 7 0-2 3 0 2 0 0 Greg Buckner 14 2-5 0-0 0-0 4 3-5 0 1 2 0 1 Shawn Bradley 12 3-4 0-0 2-2 8 2-5 0 1 2 1 1 Johnny Newman 9 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 1 0 1 Avery Johnson 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 48 41-92 6-15 19-23 107 16-47 20 12 21 11 9 Golden State Warriors REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Danny Fortson 25 4-7 0-0 0-0 8 2-6 3 2 3 2 0 Antawn Jamison 38 5-15 0-1 3-5 13 1-5 4 1 4 0 0 Erick Dampier 10 1-2 0-0 0-0 2 1-2 0 2 1 0 0 Gilbert Arenas 28 6-11 1-3 0-0 13 2-7 1 4 3 2 0 Jason Richardson 38 9-17 3-6 0-0 21 2-7 4 5 2 2 1 Adonal Foyle 20 3-7 0-0 0-4 6 3-5 1 0 3 1 2 Bob Sura 24 2-6 1-4 9-11 14 0-4 6 0 3 1 1 Troy Murphy 22 5-7 0-0 2-3 12 1-2 2 1 2 0 1 Larry Hughes 20 3-5 0-0 3-4 9 1-2 1 1 0 0 0 Chris Mills 15 3-6 0-0 1-2 7 1-6 1 0 2 0 0 Totals 48 41-83 5-14 18-29 105 14-46 23 16 23 8 5 Seattle at Dallas (March 11) The game was tied at 17-17 with 6:25 left on a 3-pointer by Brent Barry, but 2 3-pointers started a 12-0 run by Dallas and Dallas went up 33-21 with 2:15 remaining. Dallas led 35-28 after 1. Steve Nash had 15 points. A layup by Gary Payton opened the 2nd quarter and Dallas then went on a 13-2 run to go up 48-32 with 7:15 remaining. Barry converted a 3-point play to pull Seattle within 42-50 with 5:35 left, but Dallas scored the next 4 points to push their lead back into double-digits and it stayed in double-digits the rest of the quarter. Dallas led 71-60 at the half. 71 points was the most Dallas had scored in a half this season. Dallas took their largest lead of the game at 84-66 with 6:50 to go. Seattle then scored the next 7 points to stay in the game. Dallas led 98-78 with 3:20 remaining and Seattle scored the next 6 points to pull within 5 points. A layup by Greg Buckner capped the scoring for the quarter and Dallas led 91-84 after 3. Seattle pulled within 4 points with 9:50 left, but Nick Van Exel and Nash hit consecutive 3-pointers to give Dallas a 100-90 lead with 9 minutes to go. Payton and Shammond Williams hit jumpers to pull Seattle within 106-113 with 1:15 remaining, but Michael Finley drained a 3-pointer with a minute left to clinch the win. Dallas won 119-108. This was a much better performance by Dallas than in the past few games. It wasn't perfect as Dallas still could not maintain a large lead, but it was better. It helped that Dallas did seem to get some home cooking from the refs for a change. It wasn't as lopsided as Nate McMillan would have you think as there were bad/missed calls both ways in the 4th quarter, but I commented during the 1st quarter that I'd be surprised if McMillan made it through the game without being ejected. And despite McMillan's complaints, Dallas did attempt 7 fewer free throws (and 4 attempts came from technicals and 2 from a flagrant) and Dallas was called for 2 more fouls. The good news from the game was the re-appearance of Nick Van Exel. It was only his 2nd good game with Dallas (the Denver game being the other) and hopefully it will carry over into future games. Van Exel had 17 points including 3 3-pointers in the 4th quarter when Seattle was challenging. Michael Finley continued his string of solid performances with 26 points including 10-14 FG, 5 rebounds, and 7 assists, despite foul trouble - he guarded Gary Payton a good chunk of the time (while Steve Nash guarded Brent Barry and Seattle, strangely, didn't fully take advantage of their height difference). Nash had 23 points and 9 assists. Dirk Nowitzki had his 9th double-double in the past 12 games with 19 points and 12 rebounds. Raef LaFrentz was limited to just 26 minutes due to foul trouble and had 9 points, 8 rebounds, and 3 blocks. Greg Buckner was the 5th Mav in double-digits with 10 points including 4-4 FG in just 10 minutes. Desmond Mason had a variety of very nice moves and a team high 25 points including 11-11 FT and 5 rebounds. Gary Payton had 22 points and 7 assists. Rashard Lewis had a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds and also had 5 assists. Brent Barry had 14 points including just 4-12 FG and 1-6 3-pointers, 6 rebounds, and 5 steals. Art Long had 12 points on 5-7 FG and 2-6 FT and 7 rebounds as a starter and Shammond Williams had 11 points off the bench. Predrag Drobnjak looked completely lost on defense (especially the times he was supposed to guard Nowitzki) and the Mavs ate him alive in the 16 minutes he was on the court. Quotes Don Nelson: "This is a perfect way to start a road trip. We are counting this game as the toughest part of our schedule from the last 20 games. It would've been more difficult had we not won this game, but this was a good way to start us off. I am looking forward to getting on the road. I liked the way the team played tonight and Nick finally looked more comfortable than I've seen him. I think this is a good start for that too. I think teams come together on the road and I expect him now to pick his play up and be back to his dominant self in the over the next 20 games and then into the playoffs, I hope anyways. It just was a pretty good basketball game all the way around. They shoot the ball as well, or better, than we do and they are tough to guard. We always thought Seattle was a very fine team and certainly a playoff team. I think they will be." Nelson on Van Exel: "We've been telling him to be more dominant, get his own way. He's not going to be playing the minutes, so it will be less wear and tear on his body. We still want him to be as big a factor as he can be. I think he has been trying to fit in and when he has, it hasn't been there. He's his biggest critic. I've never been worried. He hadn't played for quite a while before he got here. I really liked his movements. They were crisp and he was able to get into the paint, make plays and finally make shots." Nelson on the players only practice: "It is none of my business to know what was said in there. I thought the effort was really there defensively. We are trying to play together and play defense. Everybody made the extra pass tonight. The ball movement was crisp. We had a couple of times, were we struggled, but overall we did a good job tonight." Steve Nash on Dallas' defense working when needed: "Yeah, when you have the most wins in the league you are going to get the stops when you need them for the most part, but we'd like to be more consistent overall." Nash: "We definitely have a lot of good shooters and we like to push it and create mismatches and really move the ball around and make the defense pay." Nash: "We definitely have a lot of shooters who can stretch the floor. We like to push it and create mismatches and really move the ball around, get them in between and try to make them pay. That's really our forte. That's why we score so many points and tonight everybody got involved." Nash: "I think it's a step in the right direction. It wasn't perfect and it wasn't great, but it was good enough. It was definitely better than we've shown lately at the defensive end." Nash on Van Exel: "He played great in the 2nd half and picked it up for me. In the 1st half I played well and then after the 1st quarter I really didn't shoot it that well. He came in and made some huge shots for us in the 4th quarter." Nick Van Exel on shooting well: "Oh, man, it was good, it was real good. I finally felt like I was part of the team out there contributing. I've been down on myself lately with my shot. I've been releasing it a little bit quick. I've been doing a lot of shooting with Rolando. He's been helping me out a lot. Tonight, I finally made some shots." Van Exel: "When I'm shooting well, I feel like everything will go in. I just need to keep getting into the gym and keep working on my shot. The coaches talk about defense a lot. It's just a matter of us taking an individual stand and locking our man down. It has to be a collective team effort." Van Exel on being on the court with Nash: "Any time one of us has the ball and penetrates, the court becomes so spread and there are guys open all over the court. It's just a matter of finding the open man." Van Exel on being encouraged to shot: "Nellie and Del Harris and even Avery told me, 'We don't want a choir boy Nick. Basically, we want the wild Nick that goes out there and attacks.'" Van Exel: "It's tough when you come to a team that's been winning. You don't want to step on anyone's toes or anything. This team was winning before I got here, so I've just got to be careful." Nate McMillan: "They have a lot of firepower. They have a good team over there. They have a solid team. They have a very good chance at going very far in the playoffs, if not reaching the Finals. They continue to come at you in waves with all of the firepower that they have. They pose all kinds of mismatches against you and it is difficult to match-up with them. They have 5 guys on the floor that they have a good match-up. They made some good trades to get some key guys and make that bench even stronger." McMillan: "I thought our guys hung in there, they played hard. They didn't quit and tried to make another run. They fought to the end. There was no quit in our guys; they continued to play. Dallas just had a lot of firepower out there." McMillan on the reffing: "There was way too much grabbing on our players out there that weren't called and guys get frustrated. They get tired of being held and held and bumped and the same thing is happening on our end and we aren't getting any calls. It's tough for a team to keep their heads and play through that, especially a young team who hasn't gotten respect all season long. And to come in here and have to play a very good team and have to deal with that [stuff] is ridiculous." McMillan on the reffing: "We haven't had a fair game since I've been around. We're not getting a fair game and we don't stand to survive." [Anyone who watched the Minnesota-Seattle game had to laugh at this comment as during that game the ref whistled a double-technical on Gary Payton and Anthony Peeler and changed it to just a technical on Peeler when Payton complained that it would be his second technical and he would be ejected.] McMillan on the reffing: "When I tried to get ejected [in the 1st half], they didn't eject me. I saw a foul that was an obvious foul, Gary Payton getting grabbed for the 4th or 5th time. And I said it: 'They grabbed him.' And he ejected me. It was bad. All you have to do is be professional and call the game. You can't look at the elite teams and teams that are struggling. It is much easier to make a call on a Peja [Drobnjak] or an Art Long than it is on a Finley or Nowitzki. I know that. We are not getting a fair game, and we don't stand to survive in a game like that." McMillan on the reffing: "They have a lot of firepower, but we didn't get no calls. What we need to do is spend some of our money to evaluate the officials like Cuban has done. Ever since they hired people to cover these officials, I haven't felt like we've had a fair game [against Dallas] since I've taken over as head coach." Rashard Lewis: "They've got a good team. They've got a lot of weapons they can go to, a lot of guys that can score. If you pay a lot of attention to 1 or 2 guys, they have other guys they can go to. It's hard to defend, especially when you have a lot of shooters around the perimeter." Lewis: "It was one of those nights, but I thought we kept playing. We were down 5 at one point and they still were able to knock down big shots. I thought we played pretty well." Lewis on Seattle shooting 33 free throws and Dallas shooting 26: "It should have been more than that. We should have had more fouls than that. We were being called for touch fouls on our end, and we had to get tackled to get a call on the other end. I didn't think it was called evenly at all. I thought it was a lot of bad calls, especially against us. I thought the refs took us out that game. I don't think we took ourselves out." Dallas Mavericks 119, Seattle Sonics 108 at Dallas (March 11) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Dallas 35 36 20 28 - 119 .532 .500 .524 .769 Seattle 28 32 24 24 - 108 .522 .308 .488 .788 Halftime: Dallas 71-60 3rd Q: Dallas 91-84 Technicals: Predrag Drobnjak 3:13 1st, Nate McMillan 7:33 2nd, Gary Payton 2:43 3rd, Nate McMillan (ejected) 0:41 4th Flagrant fouls: Desmond Mason 1:54 2nd Refs: Bernie Fryer, Bill Kennedy, Ron Olesiak Attendance: 20,090 (sellout) Did not play due to injury: Vladimir Radmanovic (sprained toe) Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Johnny Newman 29 2-6 1-1 1-1 6 1-2 1 1 2 1 0 Dirk Nowitzki 42 6-13 1-1 6-9 19 1-12 3 3 2 0 2 Raef LaFrentz 26 4-9 1-3 0-0 9 1-8 1 1 6 0 3 Michael Finley 37 10-14 2-4 4-5 26 3-5 7 2 5 1 0 Steve Nash 37 8-19 3-8 4-5 23 0-2 9 1 1 2 0 Adrian Griffin 21 2-4 0-1 0-0 4 1-3 1 0 5 1 0 Nick Van_Exel 25 6-12 3-4 2-2 17 2-4 4 2 0 0 0 Eduardo Najera 13 2-3 0-0 0-0 4 1-2 0 0 2 0 1 Greg Buckner 10 4-4 0-0 3-4 11 1-2 0 1 1 1 0 Totals 48 44-84 11-22 20-26 119 11-40 26 12 24 6 6 Seattle Sonics REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Rashard Lewis 39 5-12 1-2 6-6 17 3-10 5 2 2 2 0 Desmond Mason 43 7-14 0-2 11-11 25 2-5 0 1 5 1 1 Art Long 22 5-7 0-0 2-6 12 2-7 1 1 3 0 0 Gary Payton 40 10-19 1-1 1-1 22 1-4 7 3 4 2 1 Brent Barry 40 4-12 1-6 5-5 14 2-6 3 2 4 5 2 Predrag Drobnjak 16 2-4 0-0 0-1 4 2-3 0 2 3 0 0 Olumide Oyedeji 6 0-2 0-0 0-2 0 0-1 0 0 0 0 0 Shammond Williams 30 5-8 1-2 0-0 11 0-0 2 1 1 0 0 Randy Livingston 4 1-2 0-0 1-1 3 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 48 39-80 4-13 26-33 108 12-36 18 12 22 10 4 patricia