Game Three, bitches: come get you some

[chumdawg]

The streets around American Airlines Center will run red with the blood of the infidels after this second-round meeting of NBA playoff foes. It will be known that the evil intruders from the north and west have not the physical prowess nor the moral rectitude to challenge our good and godly hometown squad.

The winner of this contest has been ordained, by a great god on high.

Let there be mercy on their fallen souls.

[Flacolaco]

Your unorthodox naming convention of this thread may lead us to greatness.

Then again, we may blame it, and you for not putting "GDT" in the title

Only time, and Josh's ankle will tell.

[chumdawg]

In times like these, flaco, the last thing we are worried about is orthodoxy.

It's time to pull out all the stops, to go hell bent for leather, and to the Denver Nuggets up the at each and every available opportunity.

I laugh at the people who say we are dead. We're a damn sight from dead yet.

[ghazi]

We ain't dead yet boys!

[nikeball]

LET'S GO MINING FOR SOME NUGGETS.

[fluid.forty.one]

Best GDT ever.

[Flacolaco]

Forgive me, Evil, my brother, because we haven't seen you in a long time.

We need a jolt.



The Skull of Roy Tarpley says: "Macuilxochitl, God of Gambling, we gamble the season tomorrow in hopes that we shall devour the hearts of the inked, thuggish ones, and scrape out the marrow from the broken bones of the ones called "Nuggets". When the JET is through with them tomorrow as the sun sets, their very souls will cry out, and their weary legs will take them scurrying in fear, their pants soiled, and their entourages sullied with the bird #@$% of a thousand angry avian Maverick minions.

[LonghornDub]

Yeah this is more or less the best GDT I've seen since I started here.

[mavs777]

Mavs by 10

[darkwitzki]

Damp will slap KMart in the head!

[rabbitproof]

Where the fuk is EvilMav?

[rabbitproof]

Anyways, this series is not over. Many times the opponent takes the early rounds only to come up like a dog later in the fight.

Make this series a series tomorrow, Mavs!

[ghazi]

Hope Howard is good to go.

all I can say is LESS turnovers and MORE transition DEFENSE. the two basically go hand in hand. That has been the biggest story of the first 2 games and I feel it is something the Mavs can control!

[LonghornDub]

Mavs 194, Nuggets 132.

[Dnowit41]

Game 3 is ours

[bernardos70]

Wow, what's going on here? Oh, you guys are getting the board ready for THE BLOODBATH OF NUGGET INFIDEL BLOOD???? COME, COME, ALL, COME AND WITNESS AS HEADS ROLL AT THE AAC AS WE CLEANSE OUR VERY BEINGS WITH THE BLOOD OF THOSE WHO DARE STAND BETWEEN OUR MAVS AND AN NBA TITLE!

BRING NOT ANY TOWELS OR HANDKERCHIEFS, BUT DO BRING YOUR AXES AND BLADES, FOR THE SLAUGHTERING WILL BEGIN AT 5PM (eastern, 4 central) AND THERE'S NO TELLING WHEN IT WILL END!

GATHER 'ROUND WHAT ONCE WAS A BASKETBALL COURT, BUT NOW TURNED INTO ONE TEAM'S GLORY AND ANOTHER'S GRAVE!

[Dirkadirkastan]

Bring these too:

[esoteric562]

GO MAVS! a win for sure! 109-93!

[Sportstudi]

Tough game, but the series ain't over yet. If we win this game, it would be huge. Hopefully Dirk will use the game to forget his personal problems for a while by dropping 40...

[darkwitzki]

The sunset will be bloody red, the chicken nuggets already cowering in fear, vultures will feed upon them... After the dust has settled in AAC.

[sefant77]

Lets fry them tonight



Josh still in pain and questionable with his new injuried ankle. I hope the series didnt end after that great first quarter in game 1

[Dirkgreatness]

GO MAVS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[twistaeffect2004]

I literally crushed a couple of chicken Mcnuggets last night in my hands. That's how pumped I am.

And I was hungry too.

Come to think of it I'm sort of regretting the decision at the moment, but I just thought I'd do my part.

Go Mavs!

[u2sarajevo]

Nuggets - Mavericks Preview

Originally Posted by Game Info

Time: 4:00PM CDT
TV: ESPN

DALLAS (AP) -- In their romp through the playoffs thus far, the Denver Nuggets have made only one mistake: blowing Game 3 of their first-round series.

Up 2-0 on the Hornets, and playing in New Orleans, the Nuggets jumped way ahead in the opening minutes -- then wound up losing. They bounced back in a big way the next game and haven't lost since.

On Saturday, Denver gets another Game 3 on the road, again while up 2-0. This time it's against the Dallas Mavericks.

Have the Nuggets learned their lesson? Do they now understand the difference between a playoff road game and a regular-season road game?

Denver coach George Karl is eager to find out.

"Game 3 always has a sort of home-court intensity that big-time pros know how to take advantage of, and I think Dallas is made up of big-time pros," Karl said. "They're going to have a home-court energy that's going to be more than New Orleans was. It's going to be hotter. It's going to be a hot building where we're going to have to keep 48 minutes of composure and focus and make sure we stay on track and on point to how to win the game."

The Nuggets haven't had many problem with the Mavericks so far, using their size and strength to bully their way to the basket seemingly at will. Both games have featured stretches when everything came easy for Denver and nothing was easy for Dallas.

Yet the Mavericks haven't been total bystanders. In both games, they led early and got close with about a quarter left. The difference has been Denver pulling away and Dallas unable to stop it.

Mavs coach Rick Carlisle and staff have had three days to come up with some new strategies and some backups in case those don't work. There's also been time for Josh Howard to rest his ailing ankles. And there's the twin comforts of being home (where Dallas is 17-1 since mid-February) and being out of Denver's high altitude.

"Coming home is something that can help you, but it doesn't guarantee anything," Carlisle said Friday. "Our whole game's got to get better. There are a lot of things we can do in the first three quarters that will help us be in better shape going into the fourth."

Dirk Nowitzki is always Dallas' main man, but perhaps especially so Saturday. He's spent the days since Game 2 dealing with the arrest of a woman who was living at his house and the fallout from it, including constant media attention. Having a game to play should be a great release, and fans are likely to show him plenty of support.

"Watching him prepare the last two days, he looks like he's focused, ready to go," guard Jason Terry said.

In going 6-1 this postseason, Denver has won by margins of 12 points to 58. No nail-biters -- well, except for that 97-95 loss to New Orleans in Game 3.

"It's easy while you're winning and you're in front," Terry said. "We'll see what happens if we put a little pressure on them, come out and handle our business in Game 3 and see what happens in the next one after that."

Then again, the Nuggets are 6-0 against the Mavericks this season. They have won twice in Dallas, including that lone home loss by the Mavs the last three months, a fact Denver's Chauncey Billups and Kenyon Martin insisted Friday they didn't know.

"We're just trying to be better than we were in Game 2," Martin said. "It's going to be rowdy in here. We played here late in the year and it was loud. I can only imagine what it's going to be like now. There's a lot more at stake, so we've just got to stay together knowing we're in enemy territory."

Billups said he expects a more conservative approach, as in fewer risk-reward plays because part of the risk is giving up easy baskets that would fire up the crowd.

"A 9-0, 9-2 run makes the visiting team feel like it's a lot worse when you've got good fans," Billups said. "So we just got to control the tempo and not take as many chances offensively."

Carmelo Anthony said the lessons from Game 3 against New Orleans should help, too.

"I just think the intensity and the energy that we started off that game with, and then we kind of let up, kind of got relaxed, kind of got complacent," he said. "I think we've learned from that mistake."

[candid_snoop41]

THIS is the most important game of the season/series...

- REBOUND THE BALL (DIRK, Damp, BIGs)
- DONT TURN IT OVER!!! (Kidd..., JET...you feelin me?!)
- GET IT TO DIRK (Everyone)
- DONT SETTLE FOR CONTESTED 3s (JET again)
- DONT GET IN FOUL TROUBLE (DAMP)
- SHOW UP IN THE 4th (Everyone)
- GIVE THE TEAM ENERGY, MAKE SOME NOOOOOIIIISEE (Crazy as well as stuck up mavs fans)

LETS MAKE THIS A SERIES

[horse900703]

we will win this one~ lets go Mavs!!

[DubOverdose]

Based on Ron Artests flagrant 2 last night, KMart definitely should have gotten a flagrant 2, not a T (later upgraded). I don't even think Artest deserved a flagrant, period.

[DubOverdose]

GO MAVS

[Dirkadirkastan]

Long live chumdawg's tenure as the playoff GDT starter!

[Underdog]

[Lor20]

mavs will win this one. 'nuff said!

[alexamenos]

we come from the land of the ice and snow
from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow
the hammer of the gods
will drive our ships to new lands
to fight the hordes, sing and cry
valhalla I am coming

The Immigrant Song always gets me fired up.

[DavidDaMonkey]

Tonight is going to be brutal. I fear for all those watching that you may see something so horrific that it will be forever etched into the deepest recesses of your psyche. These Dallas Mavericks want blood, they want every last drop of it, and by all that has meaning, they will get it. This series may well reach its conclusion this very day, because the Nuggets will have to be swept off the floor by the AAC custodial crew.

[RaphAC]

As long as we stop letting nene destroy us, and getting costly turnovers, we should be fine.

We need josh's help, but weve kept it together and havent been destroyed as of yet, not by enough to feel like giving this series up.

especially after having semi lackluster efforts by damn near everyone.

we can definitely win tonight, especially with dirk pissed off about his woman.

Jet could also step it up.

Now that were outta the damn mountains of colorado and the altitude isnt screwing with people, we`ll see iff we can tie this thing up, and maybe be more acclimated to denver on our next go round.

anyway, GO MAVS!

[AxdemxO]

GO MAVS

[tcat075]

Let's go get a win!!

[BGMaverick9]

I'm gonna have to miss this one today because of work and other things going on today...ugh! I'm going to hate missing this one for sure. Someone will have to open up a post-game thread as well because I won't be back til pretty late tonight. I really hope we're talking about a great Mavs win!

Go Mavs!

[12 Tone Melodies]

http://www.nba.com/news/referee.html
Referee Assignments
May 9, 2009
Denver @ Dallas--B. Salvatore; K. Mauer; M. Wunderlich

[Dnowit41]

Because the Dallas Mavericks and Denver Nuggets tipped off their series before any of the other matchups in the conference semifinals, the teams earned three days off between Game 2 and Game 3. And that's a good thing for Rick Carlisle and the Dallas coaching staff, because they needed plenty of time to regroup after two double-digit defeats on the road.

The Nuggets have been as impressive as anyone in the playoffs. So how can the Mavericks get back into the series, starting Saturday at home? Here are five ways.

1. Limit turnovers

That phrase should be written at the top of the Mavericks' whiteboard in capital letters, underlined multiple times. It is almost impossible to overstate how much Denver has relied on creating turnovers to thrive in the postseason. Nuggets opponents are turning the ball over 17.4 percent of the time, or a little more than once every six plays. No other NBA team is forcing turnovers more than 14.7 percent of the time, and the difference between Denver and the second-place Los Angeles Lakers is larger than the gap between the Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs, who rank 12th out of 16 teams.

This is nothing new for George Karl, whose 1990s Sonics teams also relied on forcing turnovers both to get stops and to create easy baskets at the other end. Not only does a turnover against the Nuggets mean a scoreless possession, it also often turns into two points the wrong way because Denver is so good at going from defense to offense and comes up with so many steals (a little over 10 per game).

Dallas did a decent job of controlling the ball in Game 2, turning it over 13 times. In Game 1, however, turnovers -- nine in a span of 13 possessions -- fueled the Nuggets' run to take control of the game. Jason Kidd was a culprit in that stretch and he has 10 turnovers in the first two games of the series. In the first round against San Antonio, he coughed the ball up just three times -- total -- in five games. The Mavs need that kind of stewardship to return, pronto.

2. Get to the last five minutes

Denver has established a clear pattern in the postseason, opening up big leads late in the third or early fourth quarter. Both games at Pepsi Center fit that mold. In Game 1, two minutes into the final period, the Nuggets went on an 11-0 run to put the game away. In Game 2, the Mavericks went from tied with three minutes left in the third to down 17 less than nine minutes later.

If Dallas can make it through that troublesome stretch of time, it should throw the Nuggets out of their comfort zone. The closest playoff game the Nuggets have played was Game 3 at New Orleans, which saw the Hornets walk their way to a lead in the period usually owned by Denver. The Nuggets mounted a late run but fell short in their only loss so far.

3. Don't let the Nuggets have fun

Led by reserves Chris Andersen and J.R. Smith, Denver plays a passionate brand of basketball. That's especially true at home, but in Game 4 in New Orleans, the Nuggets got their kicks from seeing Hornets fans stream for the exits in the third quarter. In their lone win in that first-round series, the Hornets matched Denver's energy thanks to a lift from little-used reserve Sean Marks. Someone like excitable Ryan Hollins could provide a similar lift for Dallas.

Another way to take the Nuggets out of their game might be to step up the physical nature of the series. That doesn't mean making like Rafer Alston or Derek Fisher and earning a suspension in the process, but there are safer ways to get the message across. Denver's Kenyon Martin helped set the tone for the series with his hard foul -- later ruled a flagrant -- on Dirk Nowitzki. It's time to return the favor.
4. Double-team Nene

The player who has created the most matchup problems for the Mavs hasn't been Carmelo Anthony or Chauncey Billups. It's been Nene in the post. Erick Dampier doesn't have Nene's quickness, Hollins lacks the girth and Brandon Bass doesn't have his length. As a result, Nene has 49 points (including 20 free throw attempts) through two games and is shooting 68 percent from the field. Dallas has actually outplayed Denver with the respective starting lineups on the floor, but can enhance that advantage by turning Nene into a passer and forcing Dahntay Jones -- who missed all three of his shots in Game 2 -- to make open jumpers. The strategy might also force some miscues, seeing as Nene averaged more turnovers (1.9) than assists (1.4) per game this season.

5. Bench the three-guard lineup

In part, this one comes down to the health of Josh Howard, who has vowed to play in Game 3. Naturally, the Mavericks' chances are much better with Howard on the floor. Not only is he one of Dallas' leading scorers, he's also the best matchup for Anthony when healthy. Carlisle must spot Howard and Antoine Wright, who will likely start alongside him at shooting guard, to make sure one of those two players is on the floor at all times. The Mavericks need their size.

The plus-minus numbers from Game 2 reveal how poorly the three-guard lineup of Kidd, Jose Juan Barea and Jason Terry played. That group was outscored by 13 points in fewer than eight minutes of action. Dallas was +6 with Howard at small forward, and at least competitive with Wright at the position (-7 in 25 minutes). While Carlisle might be able to get away with his three guards on the floor when Smith is in the game, Kidd was forced to defend Anthony in the fourth quarter. Seeing as Kidd was giving up four inches and 20 pounds, it's no surprise Denver was able to exploit that matchup.

The Mavericks were beaten twice soundly on the road, but the losses really came down to two big Nuggets runs that proved the difference. If the Mavs make a few strategic changes and hold on to the basketball, they still have a strong opportunity to make this a competitive series.

[mmmfast]

F'EM!
Mavs Win!