Game 3: Sacramento at Dallas (May 9) The teams traded buckets to open the game and Dallas went into its far to usual opening game slump and Sacramento scored the next 11 points to go up 13-2 with 8:20 left. Dallas used a 10-2 run to pull within 5 points at 16-21 with 3:40 remaining, but the Kings used their sharp shooting to push their lead back into the low teens. Sacramento led 38-25 after 1. Sacramento shot 14-19 FG and Dallas shot 10-27 FG. Mike Bibby had 10 points and Chris Webber had 9 points. Webber opened the 2nd quarter with a layup to give Sacramento their largest lead at 15 points. Sacramento led 45-31 with 10 minutes left and Dallas went on a 10-2 run, started by a 3-pointer by Raef LaFrentz and capped by a 3-pointer by Steve Nash, to pull within 41-47 with 7:25 to go. Doug Christie left the game with a sprained right ankle - he was able to return late in the 3rd quarter. Sacramento scored the next 4 points, but Dallas answered with 6 straight points. The Kings' lead fluctuated between 3 and 7 points over most of the rest of the quarter. Nash hit a technical free throw after Bobby Jackson threw a punch [the ref who initially made the call immediately tossed Jackson, but the refs huddled and talked and incorrectly decided not to toss him - the rules are black and white regarding a thrown punch], Dirk Nowitzki hit 2 free throws, and Wang Zhizhi stepped in and hit a 20-foot jumper at the buzzer to tie the game at 66-66 at the half. Dallas shot 15-22 FG and Sacramento shot 11-23 FG and Dallas out-scored the Kings 41-28 in the 2nd. For the half, Michael Finley had 22 points and Webber had 19 points. The game stayed close in the 3rd quarter with 4 ties and Sacramento's largest lead just 6 points. Peja Stojakovic, who was having a poor game, sprained his right ankle midway through the quarter and did not return. Sacramento led 89-83 with 2:10 left and Dallas scored the next 7 points, capped by 3 free throws by Nowitzki (fouled shooting a 3), that gave Dallas their first lead of the game at 91-89 with 25 seconds remaining. Hidayet Turkoglu hit 2 free throws to close the quarter. The game was tied 91-91 after 3. The teams traded 2 points twice to open the 4th and Bibby and Christie hit consecutive 3-pointers to give Sacramento a 101-95 lead with 10 minutes to go. Sacramento scored 4 straight points to go up 109-99 with 6:15 remaining. A 3-pointer by Nash pulled Dallas within 107-111 with 3:35 left, but Christie answered with a 3-pointer and Vlade Divac got a layup with 2:30 remaining. Finley nailed a 3-pointer and got a layup with 1:20 left to pull within 112-116, but Webber scored the next 4 points to give Sacramento a commanding 120-112 lead with 35 seconds remaining. Sacramento won 125-119. Sacramento leads the series 2-1. The first half was like a duplicate of Game 2 - Sacramento up by 13 after 1 and the game tied/Sac up by 1 at the half. Unfortunately, the 2nd half did not duplicate Game 2. Dallas continued to have a poor game, except for Michael Finley and (to a lesser extent) Raef LaFrentz, and Sacramento did not fall into the trap of playing Dallas' game. This was not the track race that Game 2 was and Sacramento played more of an inside game. Dallas' interior defense was more pathetic than usual and Sacramento took full advantage of it. And with Dallas' struggling offensively, it was a recipe for a loss. The only surprising thing was that the game stayed close. Sacramento shot 52.9% FG while Dallas only shot 45.7% FG and the Kings out-rebounded Dallas 47-38. Though happy with the win, which gives them back home court advantage, the Kings have to be concerned with health. Doug Christie was able to return during the game after suffering a sprained right ankle - and played very well in the 4th quarter - and hopefully there is no after effects for him due to the sprain. He is expected to play in today's game. Peja Stojakovic is a bigger concern. He left the arena on crutches and the soreness and swelling increased overnight. He is not expected to play in today's game and is listed as doubtful for the rest of the series. Rick Adelman on Stojakovic: "We've got to assume it's going to be a little bit of time for it to heal." Chris Webber had a stellar game for Sacramento with 31 points including 15-26 FG (I'm sure Kings fans will forgive him for shooting just 1-4 FT, even with one of them being an airball), 15 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 blocks and did not float to the perimeter and did play an inside game in constantly exploiting Dallas' biggest weakness - interior defense. Vlade Divac was also big inside with 19 points and 13 rebounds including 7 offensive. Mike Bibby directed the win with 29 points including 10-17 FG and 5-5 3-pointers and 9 assists. And Christie sucked up the pain and was the star in the 4th quarter where he scored 14 of his 20 points. He was a perfect 6-6 FG, 2-2 3-pointers, and 6-6 FT and also had 5 rebounds, but did turn the ball over 6 times. Stojakovic only had 6 points including 1-7 FG before his injury took him out of the game. Scot Pollard saw his first significant minutes in this series and provided a boost. When Dallas brought in Wang Zhizhi, Sacramento brought in Pollard. Though Wang scored on one end, Pollard took advantage of Wang's various defensive flaws and scored 9 points himself on 4-4 FG and converting a 3-point play. Hidayet Turkoglu was quiet with just 4 points - just took 3 shots and Bobby Jackson had just 7 points including 2-10 FG. Gerald Wallace got off the bench at the end of the game. Finley had a strong outing with 37 points on 13-23 FG and 10-11 FT, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, no turnovers in playing all but a handful of seconds in the game. The only other Mav to show up was LaFrentz, who also made a number of defensive mistakes. LaFrentz had 24 points including 10-16 FG - a number of them off putbacks - and 13 rebounds including 5 offensive before fouling out near the end of the game after 37 minutes. Dirk Nowitzki did have 19 points, but he hit a meaningless 3-pointer with 11 seconds left to get that. He passed up a number of looks and wasn't taking the ball to the hole - he was even pulled twice due to his play. Sacramento did a good job of bothering him with the aggressive double-teams, but his shot was also not falling when he came out to shoot prior to the game. And he didn't makeup for his poor offensive game by stepping up in other areas during this game as he had just 5 rebounds and his defense was worse than usual. Steve Nash also wasn't clicking or looking for his shot, but I was surprised with the high number of assists he had. Nash had 15 points including 5-19 FG and 2-10 3-pointers, but did dish out 15 assists - the 2nd highest assist total for a Mav in the playoffs. Johnny Newman started, but only lasted 3 minutes on the court before being subbed out. A 3-point attempt was the only stat he had. Dallas' usual 4th scorer was also absent in this game. Nick Van Exel had just 7 points including 3-11 FG despite playing 39 minutes. He did grab 5 rebounds. Greg Buckner and Eduardo Najera were not effective in the 10-plus minutes they played. As mentioned above, Wang did come in a knock down some shots, but the Kings went right at him on the other end and, thus, Wang only played 4 minutes despite scoring 7 points on 3-4 FG. Shawn Bradley was part of the more interesting substitutions you'll see for his handful of seconds on the court. At the end of the 1st quarter with Finley shooting free throws, Don Nelson subbed in 4 players. 10 seconds later with Webber at the line, Nelson switched the 4 players back out. And a note on the refs: Joey Crawford had a very poor and inconsistent outing. Instead of citing many that affected Dallas (and risk being called a homer), let me refer to one series that hurt Sacramento. Bibby was out on the wing and slowly working his way inside and Crawford called a touch foul on Nash - the contact had no affect on the play. Sacramento inbounded and Webber drove to the basket and got hacked hard in front of Crawford with no call. You call a touch foul and then don't call a hard foul??? And his overturning Bobby Jackson's ejection was inexcusable. I don't care if it is a weak punch, a pseudo-punch, or that it didn't really connect. The league has been very clear that if you throw any punch (open or closed fisted, weak or strong) in a game then you are gone, no discussion. Quotes [The thunderstorms in the area took out reception for the post-game interviews of Nelson, Webber, and Bibby (got Adelman's and got some comments right after the game from Christie and Webber - so I was only able to transcribe those [the rest, as usual, are from various newspaper and wire reports]). Michael Finley, who is very media friendly and savvy, obviously took the loss very hard in that his post-game press conference went as follows: Finley sits down. 6-count with no questions yet. Mavs PR Gregg Elkin: "Any questions for Mike?" 4-count of silence and Finley gets up and leaves. Stunned comments from the room after he left.] Rick Adelman: "Believe it or not in the 2nd game, I never changed my philosophy even though it seemed like I did. What we have to do is a combination of things. We have to get spacing right so that if they front us, we can attack them. Christ and Vlade have to work a little harder to get position, don't just allow them to front us. I thought we did a better job. I still think we can do much better than we did tonight. We got to make them play us. As much as Nowitzki is such a part of them offensive, he's got to play Vlade and Chris if he's going to play that 4 spot. If we allow him not to do that, then we're letting him off the hook. It's just going to be a consistent effort on our part. If we don't do it, then we're just playing into their hands." Adelman: "We talked about continuing to attack them, but being smart. If you don't have it, take it over and use the clock. But if we have an opportunity to attack them, cause they are very aggressive at coming at us, we want to continue to do that. We had a couple of sequences of plays where the ball just hopped and we got great opportunities. I was really pleased with that. That's the action we have to have. They're a great offensive team, but we're pretty good too and we got to believe that they have to guard us every possession." Adelman on Bibby: "He was unbelievable. I don't even know what period of the game it was, but the one 3 he hit when they were on a run and they seemed to have the crowd and he hit a drilled 3 that just kind to quiet everything. He seemed to make big plays. I was only worried that he was going to just run out of gas cause I couldn't get him out of the game. But that's Mike. I've said it all along, he's been in this kind of game in college. It's his first year of doing it in the pros. Every time he struggles in one game, he responds the next game. He's just going to get better in these situations the more experience he gets. I think him and Chris, they carried us tonight. They both had their moments where they just carried us." Adelman on losing Christie and Stojakovic: "When those 2 guys are both out, we got real thin. I just hoped we had enough energy, but when Doug came back - that was huge." Chris Webber: "To me the biggest thing was winning this game. We couldn't go down 2-1." Webber: "I think that we are the underdogs in this series - that's just my honest opinion. I still think that. I'm just going to do whatever I can to help my team win the series." Webber: "We wanted to stay aggressive and we can with this team. We have a point guard that runs the pick-and-roll very well and we just want to play our game." Webber: "You hear so much about the players saying that they're taking the blunt of criticism and everything. Since it's going to happen, you have to go out there and take some chances. I just really didn't want to take our team out of position to be able to win. We got a lot of guys playing well. By me being hurt this year, I changed my role a little bit, but right now It's time to win and, come on, jump on my back, let's go." Webber: "Because I think when you listen to criticism, all you try to do is go inside. Where you're not getting the fouls called inside, sometimes you got to go outside and switch it up. Great players have always told me that you have to be versatile. Sometimes maybe you lean one way or the other towards your favorite habits, but I'm just trying to do the best that I can. I just want to win." Webber: "This is a very big victory because you don't want to comeback here down 1 and playing in their home town." Webber on losing Christie: "My thoughts was we just lost one of the toughest players we have and we're going to have to try to do something to make up for it. Doug is tough. He's going to be back on this floor. You're not going to be able to hold him off. There is only a handful of players that's going to come back after injuring himself and we're lucky to have Doug on this team." Webber on when Christie and Stojakovic went out: "Coach definitely thought we could win the game. But I was a little worried when Doug went out. He's our Superman. He's tough. He played a tough game. Webber on Christie: "Doug's the superhero on this team. He never gets credit unless he does something that's extreme. But he plays hard every night, and just seeing him come back on the court and helping us keep our groove going says a lot about Doug Christie." Webber on Christie: "Doug's so tough. I was worried when he left. Not many players have his heart." Webber on Christie: "I didn't know he played this well - 6 for 6 and 20 points. We joke about it but that's the leader of this team. He's the Superman. He does everything for us and never gets the credit unless he does some type of Willis Reed-type thing like this. He plays hard every night and he was a big factor in this one." Webber on Pollard: "Scot was big for us. I think Scot wanted to play well. We joked with him last game because he didn't get in. He didn't play because he isn't good; coach just felt that the match ups weren't there for us. So we gave him a hard time. You can do that with a good player like Scot. He gave us some energy. He plays hard every night." Mike Bibby: "I just told myself to be aggressive on the offensive end and the defensive end. We have a good team that can score and we need to make them play defense." Bibby: "We just wanted to be aggressive, because we felt we didn't do that in Game 2. When I'm aggressive, good things happen. When I'm making shots, it opens up everything for everybody else." Bibby: "I was going to be aggressive. They didn't have to be wide-open shots. I was trying to get into the key, and I started out trying to get there and create stuff, and I think that opened up stuff for everybody else. Then they had to help, and I started dishing out. But the main thing was to get to the basket." Bibby: "Every chance I got, I was going to run the pick-and-roll with Chris. And I know it's hard to stop, and I kept telling him to keep running it until they do something with it." Bibby: "We know what we are capable of doing. When we go out and do it, play hard and help each other, it's hard to stop us." Bibby on Christie: "I looked up and saw he had 6 points [at halftime] and I didn't think he would be coming back. Then he came back in and he had 20. He's a warrior and he really played hard through some tough pain. He's a tough player every day in practice though, too." Bibby on the crowd: "I have fun in situations like that. I've always like visiting crowds being loud - I like that. You can't play in a better atmosphere." Bibby: "I have fun in situations like that. Them being loud and rowdy got me going. You can't play in a better atmosphere." Vlade Divac: "We worked the last couple of days on getting it inside and it worked tonight." Divac: "Usually, not on just this team, but other teams I've played on, when players go down, the team comes together and shows more determination. And that's what happened. Especially when you see Doug coming back, you know you must win." Doug Christie on his injury: "When I first did it, I looked up in Webb's face and he saw me do it. And it takes a second for the pain to hit and as soon as it hit, I just went, man, this is not good. We went back to the locker room and put some ice on it. When I saw Peja come down, I said I got to do what I can do for the team." Christie on deciding to return to the game with his sprained ankle: "With Peja out, I just said, 'I got to do what I can for the team.'" Christie: "The doctor wanted me to wait until Saturday and then I just said, 'Peja's out, let me see what I can do, let me see if it will get warm.' The trainer told me to go talk to the coaches and see if they'll let you get back in. Luckily, they did." Christie: "I just wanted to be aggressive. I didn't want to let the injury hamper what I was trying to do. Whatever pain was going to be there was going to be there. I understood that and I just tried to play as hard as I could." Christie on spraining his ankle: "I think I came off of the pick-and-roll on defense and when I went to step back to the floor I just twisted it. I knew right then that it was not feeling too hot." Christie on if he'll be able to play Saturday: "Unless it swells up or something. I plan on playing." Scot Pollard: "I was just happy that I made a positive contribution when I got my minutes. I don't ask for anything more than that. Sometimes the ball just comes to you when you're running to the basket. It's not like I was creating much. I just had to run to the basket, catch the ball and make a layup." Don Nelson: "We know how they felt after the last game at their place; it's not a good feeling. When you didn't play your best, and you wish you had played a little bit better. We played hard and we tried. I think we have to give them a lot of credit. I thought they made some super adjustments, going inside against us with their big people. They hammered it inside and made us defend, but of course we expected that. There is only so much you can do about that, but it was a good basketball game for a long, long time. It could have gone either way, but we were careless, and we had some turnovers that I wasn't very proud of. We didn't really turn the ball over very much, but we had some unforced turnovers when I didn't think we were very sharp." Nelson: "We continue to struggle with the Dirk Nowitzki facing something different than he has faced. That's their number one priority - not letting him open, double-teaming him, stepping up on him, taking everything away that he likes to do. I think they are doing a great job of that. That is a great learning situation for him. It's unpleasant to go through it. His next stage of being a great, great player is learning to add the pass to his beautiful game. They are forcing him to do that. That's his next step, and we know that, but I give them a lot of credit for doing a marvelous job on him. We are trying our best to get him free, but the bottom line is, there are 2 people on him so we need more ball movement and more assists. I thought it affected Dirk on the offensive end, so we weren't as effective there as we were in Game 2. We have to do a better job there." Nelson on Sacramento's defense on Nowitzki: "They're doing a marvelous job on him. We're doing our best to get him free, but the bottom line is that when there are 2 men on him, we need more assists. Whatever sub I put in there they put a big player on him, a small player on Dirk and then run that big player at Dirk when he has the ball." Nelson: "We will regroup. We certainly didn't expect to get through this playoff situation without some tough losses, so while it is not fun to lose, there are lessons to learn. I have been saying a long time, that when you have a young team and you are bringing them along through this playoff situation and you start playing against good teams, it's a great lesson for us. You see how they prepare and how they play us, you grow in this situation. You don't just get to a world championship without going through a lot of bad times. It's a tough loss for us, but I will be very interested to see how we respond. This is a good indicator to see how we are coming along. I expect to have a great game our next game. It will show some real growth if we do, so back to the drawing boards and we will try and do a better job next time." Nelson: "I'm not going to kid you, this loss hurt. If we don't win our next game, it's going to be very, very difficult to win this series. Whatever it takes to win the next game, I'm going to do. We certainly didn't expect to get through this playoff situation without some tough losses. You don't become world champions without going through bad times. This was a tough loss and I'll be very interested to see how our team responds to this loss. I'd like to see us come back with a great game [Saturday] and that will be a great step forward for us." Nelson: "I'm so tired of these slow starts. If we've stubbed our toe more than we should, it's on slow starts. You like to think you can come back on anybody, but you can't come back on good teams. You spend so much energy trying to come back. I'm tired of that and I don't know exactly what the reason for it is. You think your team is ready and then that happens. My best players are in the game at that time." Steve Nash: "The whole game was frustrating for us on both ends of the court. We didn't play very well tonight so we really didn't deserve to win." Nash: "They were definitely more aggressive on defense and showed a lot harder on me. I still got a lot of good looks, but I didn't knock them down." Nash on allowing 125 points: "I think that was key to the game. We didn't play well enough defensively. They got too many open looks, too many putback layups, and scored too easily inside." Nash on Nowitzki: "They're paying a lot of attention to Dirk, and he didn't have a lot of bounce in his step. He looks tired." Nick Van Exel: "We have got to have a better mental approach to our game Saturday so we can tie this series up." Van Exel: "It's tough to win when you spot them 13 points again at the end of the 1st quarter. We had to fight to get back into the game and that takes a lot of energy out of you. In the 4th quarter, they knocked 2 big 3-pointers and that put us in the hole again. They are too good of a team to get behind early. We've got to come out and attack first." Raef LaFrentz: "It was kind of discouraging at times on defense because they were getting such easy looks. When we did make them miss, they got the offensive rebound and sometimes the ball bounces that way, sometimes that's the flow of the game. When you're caught in a game like that, you have to work extra hard and be extra scrappy to get the loose ball." LaFrentz: "In Game 2, we were able to get that stop, that rebound, that blocked shot. Tonight, we didn't." LaFrentz: "They are a great basketball team and they got a lot of pick-and-roll action tonight. Mike Bibby was really creating a lot of offensive opportunities." LaFrentz: "I won't call our team weak, but 125 points is too much. We all know that. We have a lot of confidence in our offense, but that just puts too much pressure on us." Game 3 Sacramento 125, Dallas Mavericks 125 at Dallas (May 9) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Sacramento 38 28 25 34 - 125 .551 .438 .529 .848 Dallas 25 41 25 28 - 119 .507 .320 .457 .862 Halftime: 66-66 3rd Q: 91-91 Technicals: Dallas defensive 3 seconds 10:48 1st, Chris Webber 0:03 1st, Shawn Bradley 0:03 1st, Don Nelson 3:07 1st, Bobby Jackson 0:11 2nd, Vlade Divac 11:05 4th, Michael Finley 11:05 4th Refs: Joey Crawford, Bob Delaney, Derrick Stafford Attendance: 20,265 (sellout) Sacramento Kings REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Chris Webber 44 15-26 0-0 1-4 31 5-15 5 0 4 1 3 Predrag Stojakovic 25 1-7 0-3 4-4 6 1-2 1 0 3 0 0 Vlade Divac 33 6-12 0-2 7-8 19 7-13 1 1 3 2 2 Mike Bibby 46 10-17 5-5 4-4 29 0-4 9 3 3 0 0 Doug Christie 27 6-6 2-2 6-6 20 0-5 3 6 5 1 0 Scot Pollard 11 4-4 0-0 1-1 9 0-2 0 0 2 1 1 Hidayet Turkoglu 25 1-3 0-1 2-2 4 1-3 2 2 2 0 0 Bobby Jackson 28 2-10 0-3 3-4 7 0-3 4 2 2 1 0 Gerald Wallace 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 48 45-85 7-16 28-33 125 14-47 25 15 24 6 6 Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Johnny Newman 3 0-1 0-1 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Dirk Nowitzki 42 6-15 2-3 5-5 19 1-5 2 3 4 1 0 Raef LaFrentz 37 10-16 1-3 3-4 24 5-13 0 2 6 0 2 Michael Finley 47 13-23 1-3 10-11 37 2-4 5 0 3 1 0 Steve Nash 45 5-19 2-10 3-3 15 0-4 15 3 4 3 0 Greg Buckner 12 2-4 0-1 1-2 5 2-3 0 1 2 0 0 Wang Zhizhi 4 3-4 1-1 0-0 7 2-2 0 0 1 0 0 Nick Van_Exel 39 3-11 1-3 0-0 7 2-5 2 2 3 1 0 Shawn Bradley 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 3 0 0 Eduardo Najera 10 1-1 0-0 3-4 5 0-2 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 48 43-94 8-25 25-29 119 14-38 24 11 26 6 2 patricia Go Mavs!