It wasn't a masterful floor game by Booby, but he was easily the team's best PG tonight, in my estimation, and he made some absolutely essential plays down the stretch. I suspect that a collective fail by the refs and some lingering rust on Dirk made Booby/Dirk connection looks more dysfunctional than it really is.
The comeback was frustrating, and some of the Spurs looks in the 2nd half were undoubtedly the result of lackluster closeouts by the Mavs, but that was also a pretty low probability run even with the way the Mavs relaxed, so I'm not inclined to get too worked up about it. Mainly I'm just going to file it away in my "reasons why I hate the Spurs" folder and hope to not see a repeat any time soon.
And one thing in particular that I really don't want to see a repeat of is DoJo getting garbage minutes in a three-guard lineup that early in a game against a troublesome rival. It may seem a minor thing, and the Spurs only outscored the Mavs by 5 in DoJo's four minutes, but it was during DoJo's stint on court that the Spurs' subs found their rhythm and got their confidence. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little miffed at Rick for that one. Cardinal, Yi and Brandan would all have been better choices for those minutes, IMO, and I don't think I'm getting carried away with hindsight by saying so.
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"He's coming off the bench aggressive right away, looking for his shot. If he has any daylight, we need him to shoot the ball. We know it's going in."
-Dirk Nowitzki on Jason Terry, after JET's 16 point 4th quarter against the Pacers.
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