[dude1394]

I think the sonics are just a better team than we are right now. If you want to really point a finger somewhere point it at the rebounding and our unwillingness to take the ball inside on them. They have no shot-blockers.

When dirk tweaked his ankle he lost much of his aggressiveness on the boards as well as taking it to the rack. Didn't help.

Marquis played because they couldn't match up with them and our point guards were throwing the ball all over the place, so nellie broughit quis into back down their little guard and get some points inside. Damp wasn't playing worth a crap out there on the pick and roll, they were eating him up and that's why he was pulled.

Also because they were so small AND they were hitting their threes nellie almost had to match up with them. They shot 43% from 3pt for goodness sakes. Only a little worse than their 45% from 2pt.

We are a very,very sloppy offensive team out there right now, pretty good defensively, not stellar yet, but pretty good. We had 8 blocked shots and 9 steals so saying our defense sucked is just ridiculous imo.

If you had to put a name to it, I'd put howard on it, I thought his head was up his rear most of the game. 1 rebound for goodness sakes, when there is nobody out there 3 inches taller than he. He would normally clean up.

Good game by finley, would have been nice to have hit that last open 3, would have been sweet. My buddy said dirk should have gone ahead and taken it, but I was ok with the decision. The team looked actually better offensively in some respects, confused in others. Maybe mike being out there will take a few games to get in a rhythm a little bit.

Pretty exciting game against what looks like sort of a carbon copy of the mavs 2 years ago, if they are shooting well, they will kick your butt. Mavs competed, but aren't good enough YET.