[jthig32]

Couple of tidbits from Stein about the game:

Best Story That Got No National Play: J.J. Barea

...But Barea's tale was even better.
As a rookie in 2006-07, Barea was jokingly dubbed "Rudy" by teammates who loved having him around but generally saw him as the NBA's equivalent of a walk-on. As recently as the start of this season, Mavs sixth-man extraordinaire Jason Terry still occasionally called him "Barrera."

You can be sure that the Spurs know exactly how to pronounce the 24-year-old's name now. Believed to be closer to 5-foot-10 than his listed height of 6 feet, Barea tormented them once during the regular season with his combination of fearless driving and confident shooting from the perimeter and shredded San Antonio's vaunted defense again Saturday night.

With San Antonio shadowing Dirk Nowitzki and Terry even tighter than usual, daring their lesser-known teammates to win Game 1, the Mavs needed a difference-maker in the fourth quarter, since third-quarter spark Josh Howard continues to face playing-time restrictions because of his long-standing ankle injury. Into the breach stepped Barea, who had so much success attacking Tony Parker -- thus gradually wearing down the Spurs' main offensive threat -- that Mavs coach Rick Carlisle was able to send the flu-ridden Jason Kidd into the weak-side corner to be a decoy.

Barea wound up with only a modest 13 points in 26 minutes but was legitimately the best crunch-time point guard on a floor shared by Parker and Kidd, validating the Mavs' repeated refusals to trade him over the past year-plus. Interested teams used to be told that Dallas wouldn't part with Barea because Nowitzki liked him too much as a teammate to let him go. It's fairly clear now that the Mavs, who were convinced Barea eventually could score in the NBA like he did in college (Northeastern) and with Puerto Rico's national team, regard him as one of the league's best bargains, having signed him last summer to a two-year deal worth $3.2 million and containing a team option for the third season.
It remains to be seen how many more times Barea can hurt the Spurs in this series, but he suddenly is at the heart of the biggest question entering Game 2: Will San Antonio try to trap Barea and force the ball out of his hands with an extra defender, thereby exposing themselves to Terry's dead-eye shooting on the weak side?

Best Resourcefulness: Kidd

They weren't the finest 38 minutes of his playoff career, but Kidd was so determined to get through his Game 1 illness that, with no airplane sick bags available, he settled for a Gatorade cup on the bench whenever necessary so he could keep playing.

Best Random Numbers To Drop First-Round Knowledge On Your Friends Via Twitter: 0, 33, 6, 4, 2, 9, 57

• 0: That's how many blocked shots Duncan had to go with 27 points and nine rebounds in a 104-97 loss to Dallas. The consensus we're hearing from both teams in this series: Duncan's trademark bank shot might be smooching in nicely off the window, but he clearly is still laboring on those two cranky knees and thus struggling to impose himself defensively at the rim.

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