[u2sarajevo]

Originally posted by: TwoDeep3
I guess we will all see it as we do. Dirk scored alot of points.

But his stretch in the second half where he was doing nothing, just like every other Mavs player, is where the game was lost.

I think that is well established. What we were discussing however is that our "chances" of evening the score during the Finley jump shot sequence would have been greater had Dirk been the one shooting the ball.

The Kings offered that game up and a chance to even the series. The Dallas players choked and didn;'t take it away.

Now tell me what the score would have been had the real Dallas offense shown up.

Blaming one play and suggesting "if only Dirk had taken that shot" ignores Dallas scored about 25 points under their season average.

No, that is not being ignored. What is being discussed is what would have given us the best shot of evening up the game at that point in time.

And that comes down to the players on the court. They are responsible.

Agreed. The players on the court are the ones who scored 25 points under their season average. But you are ignoring the beginning argument. It was not a argument of how do we score more points, it was an argument of who should have been the option on that particular play.

You see it's easy to blame the coach. Because you can always get another coach. The posts about firing nellie have been growing every year since the Mavs have made the play-off with the big three.

Yet if you assign the failure to the players, you have a completely different set of circumstances. Because you can't fire them.

Path of least resistance for the fan.

Path of least resistance? If the coach draws up the play for the "wrong" person to take a shot, who else to you lay the blame on?

An illogical premise.

Ignoring that it was a wrong decision for the coach to not give the ball to his best player when the game was on the line seems to me to be illogical

Does Nellie bear some of the responsibility?

You damn right he does.

Does he bear the re4sponsibility for this game.

Not when a teamthat shoots well above 40% and posts over 105 ppg shoots under 40% and scores only 79 points.

At some point you have to look at the people with their hands on the ball.

At some point you need to get past the season average. Last nights average was 79, the play that would have gotten us to 81 points and even to the opponent is what I am complaining about.