Mavs vs Raptors Gameday Thread

[LordOfTheMavs]

Interesting speculation = knee-jerk reaction to a loss. Interesting speculation = unfounded guessing of possiblities. Why discuss your "interesting speculation"? It is just speculation. I would rather discuss what we saw on the court. Discussion based on guessing and speculation of what might be probably going on in the lockker room, as appossed to talking about what happened during the game, is pretty fruitless if you ask me. It makes for some long threads with lots of banter, but no real interesting truths can be devulged from speculating on probabliities and maybees and perhapses.

[Mavs Rule]

Lakers and Spurs in OT, great game on TNT right now.

When speculation is based on a solid foundation for hypothesis, then it should be interesting for those who have any deductive qualities. For those who need to see everything before any truths can be deduced, it must be a very boring world, whose "obvious" truths are often deceptive and sometimes false as well.

[MavsFanFinley]

TORONTO (AP) -- Even with all of their offensive options, the Dallas Mavericks struggled to score against the Toronto Raptors.

Vince Carter had 19 points and the Toronto Raptors beat the Mavericks 77-71 Thursday night, Dallas' lowest-scoring game in nearly six years.

Dirk Nowitzki led Dallas with 27 points, but had just four in the second half. It was the fewest points the Mavericks have scored in a game since they were held to 67 in a loss to the New York Knicks on Dec. 22, 1997. The Mavericks came into Thursday averaging 101.6 points per game.

``If you had of told me we'd hold them to 77 points and we'd lose I would have said you're crazy,'' Nowitzki said. ``Seventy-one points with our high-powered offense is bad. It shows there is no rhythm to our offense, there is no flow. We're not shooting the ball well. We're just struggling.''

Antoine Walker had 14 points and 17 rebounds for the Mavericks, but also committed nine turnovers. Michael Finley went 4-for-13 from the field for 11 points, and Antawn Jamison went 1-for-6 for just two points.

Dallas was without point guard Steve Nash, who sat out with a strained left shoulder. He injured the shoulder in Wednesday's 100-90 loss to Washington.

``We have a lot of unbelievable talent on this team. We should be able to win a game without him,'' Nowitzki said.

Carter guarded Nowitzki in the fourth quarter, and the Raptors doubled-teamed him close to the basket.

``We didn't give him any easy shots. In the fourth quarter I said 'Let me try him,''' Carter said.

Antonio Davis had 13 points and 12 rebounds, and Morris Peterson added 12 points for the Raptors, who rebounded from the lowest-scoring game in franchise history. Minnesota beat Toronto 73-56 last Saturday.

``Let's be fair to them, they're playing without Steve Nash, they're playing the second night of a back-to-back,'' Toronto coach Kevin O'Neill said. ``We just hung around long enough to give ourselves a chance to win and we did that by playing great defense.''

Carter's put-back dunk gave Toronto a 70-67 lead with 4:25 left, but Nowitzki followed with two free throws.

Toronto's Milt Palacio then had a fast-break layup, but Finley made two free throws to cut the lead to one with 1:02 left.

Carter fed Peterson for a layup to give Toronto a 74-71 lead.

After Walker missed a 3-pointer, Carter missed two free throws with 21 seconds left.

Tony Delk's inbounds pass deflected off Nowitzki's hands, and Carter picked it up. He was fouled before making one of two free throw attempts for a 75-71 lead.

``It slipped through my hands, but it should have never got to that point,'' Nowitzki said.

After Walker missed a long jumper, Peterson made two free throws with 12 seconds left to seal the win.

Nowitzki scored eight points in the last two minutes of the first half when the Mavericks cut an early Toronto lead to two. Rookie Chris Bosh guarded Nowitzki during his scoring spurt.

Nowitzki went 1-for-9 from the field for just nine points Wednesday.

Notes

Nash ended a streak of 195 consecutive games played. He left Wednesday's loss against Washington in the first quarter after partially dislocating his shoulder. ... Carter is engaged to the sister of Jamison's wife. Carter and Jamison attended North Carolina together and were traded for each other on draft day. ... Walker had five turnovers in the first quarter. ... Nash said he'd like to play for the Raptors if he doesn't re-sign withDallas this summer. He said he'll opt out of his current contract.

[Rod1975]

The defense was better than the offense tonight.

Thats something I never thought I'd say about this team.

That said, we need to take better care of the ball! We played great defense (by our standards) and then we'd just give it right back!
Granted, there were some offensive rebounds by the Raptors that hurt us, but overall I thought the defense did great.
But let's not forget that Toronto does'nt exactly have a great point guard to take care of the ball, so the results are a little skewed.

Dirk really needed help on the offensive end, Jamison was the invisible man tonight, and Walker had more turnovers than a pastry shop, negating his 17 boards. Finley is still in a funk, but he at least showed some life out there.

Najera was awesome tonight, hopefully Nellie will continue to give him big minutes. He's earned them with a game like that.

Best was a liability out there tonight, evidenced by the big pine splinter in his butt.

If someone were to tell me that Dirk would have 27 yet the Mavs would only score 71 in the entire game I would have told them to put down the crack pipe.

The last 2 games have been an aberration. All you knee jerkers be patient. As for all you other non-knee jerkers, well you be patient too.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img]

[ReDIRKulous]

So to anyone that watched the game... did Vince Carter shutdown Dirk? It sounds like Vince thinks he is pretty hot stuff now.

`We didn't give him any easy shots. In the fourth quarter I said 'Let me try him,''' Carter said.

[Murphy3]

Not really. The Mavs took alot of early shots in the second half. For the most part, Dirk didn't get alot of looks in the second half

[Simon2]

Originally posted by: Max Power

I like to give the team 10 games to settle in before I start to try to find trends. THIS year with the wholesale changes - 20 games.

I can't imagine being able to extrapolate anything about this team in less than 20 games.

Ok. I'll give it 20 games.

[Simon2]

Originally posted by: Mavs Rule

I have been wondering about Dirk's attitude this year. I think the big three are secretly pissed that Cuban blew up the team after getting to within six wins of a championship. I think they are not happy having to bring in new players and renew chemistry after being that close. I heard Fin say in an interview before the game that he was surprised Cuban did this, so it is definately in his thoughts. Nash is too nice to criticize anyone directly, but Dirk has hinted at his dissatisfaction with the attitude that he has had this year. I have never seen him like this if the above quote by Nellie is true. In his interviews he criticizes the team without mercy and at times has not given effort out on the court. This could be very disturbing for Mavs fans.

Could Dirk be pissed that he has to play the center position?

[Maringa]

__________________________________________________
"Could Dirk be pissed that he has to play the center position?"
__________________________________________________


Could it be that the team knows that Steve isn't coming back? Steve seems to be the kind of guy that doesn't care about having a larger contract, and would sign in Toronto for fewer dollars just because he wants to play in Canada. Dirk knows this and may be discouraged.... This is obvious speculation. However, three to five more bad games like this, you will begin to see the players becoming more vocal and disgruntled.

I wouldn't be surprised if after 20 games and have a losing record, Cuban pulls the plug on Nelson...it seemed like he almost did at the end of last season. Problem is, there doesn't seam to be a coach that looks good out there to replace Nellie.

[Simon2]

Originally posted by: Maringa
__________________________________________________
"Could Dirk be pissed that he has to play the center position?"
__________________________________________________


Could it be that the team knows that Steve isn't coming back? Steve seems to be the kind of guy that doesn't care about having a larger contract, and would sign in Toronto for fewer dollars just because he wants to play in Canada. Dirk knows this and may be discouraged.... This is obvious speculation. However, three to five more bad games like this, you will begin to see the players becoming more vocal and disgruntled.

I wouldn't be surprised if after 20 games and have a losing record, Cuban pulls the plug on Nelson...it seemed like he almost did at the end of last season. Problem is, there doesn't seam to be a coach that looks good out there to replace Nellie.

Maringa, you could be right about the team worried about Steve. I don't buy the idea that Steve wants to play in Toronto. In Vancouver maybe but Toronto is so much farther away. So, I don't buy the idea that he wants to play in Toronto just because its in Canada. It like saying you want to play in Atlanta because its in the US. Nash stays.

I would like to see players more vocal. I would like to see how Nellie handles the adversity.

I wouldn't mind having Pat Riley in here. He could be the Bill Parcells version of basketball. Both are like drill seargents. Can Cuban pull the plug on Nelson? In any case, we'll have to wait 20 games for something really drastic like that. I think that even bigger than trading one of the Big 3.

[madape]

Najera was awesome tonight, hopefully Nellie will continue to give him big minutes. He's earned them with a game like that.

Najera was as good as Najera could be last night. Unfortunately, he's just not good enough. He was repeatedly beat out for offensive boards, he provided absolutely no interior defensive presense ( unless you consider drawing a charge as a defensive presense) and he couldn't score his way out of a paper bag. If you want more production on offense, he needs to sit in favor of Jamison. If you want better rebounding, he needs to sit in favor of Jamison. If you want better defense, he sits in favor of Jamison.

Najera plays with heart, he's fun to watch. But he is not what this team needs out of it's forward position. With the talent we have loaded to bare at PF, there is no way in HELL Najera should ever get more than 10 minutes a game as a change of pace energy guy.

[FineCubanCigar]

last nights game was sickning[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-disgusted.gif[/img]

[ShaggyDirk]

n

[Dirkenstien]

Originally posted by: FineCubanCigar
last nights game was sickning[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-disgusted.gif[/img]

to be put simply, agreed

[Rod1975]

Originally posted by: madape

Najera was as good as Najera could be last night. Unfortunately, he's just not good enough. He was repeatedly beat out for offensive boards, he provided absolutely no interior defensive presense ( unless you consider drawing a charge as a defensive presense) and he couldn't score his way out of a paper bag. If you want more production on offense, he needs to sit in favor of Jamison. If you want better rebounding, he needs to sit in favor of Jamison. If you want better defense, he sits in favor of Jamison.

Najera plays with heart, he's fun to watch. But he is not what this team needs out of it's forward position. With the talent we have loaded to bare at PF, there is no way in HELL Najera should ever get more than 10 minutes a game as a change of pace energy guy.

If we could infuse Najera's heart into Jamison's body we'd have a helluva player. Unfortunately, Najera's effort is what sets him apart from Jamison right now IMO. Jamison had plenty of opportunities to produce last night, and other than a nice up and under move, Antawn was the invisible man. Sure Eddie got beat for some ORs, but he gave as good as he got.

I'm not saying Eddie should get 30 mins, no no no, I'm saying 15-20 range. <u>Unless</u> Jamison earns those minutes away from Eddie. In that case 10-12 would be in order for exactly what you said, a change of pace/energy guy.

Of course, Nellie has his own designs on minutes distribution, and it's so unpredictable who will get the nod from night to night anyway.

I get the feeling that Eddie could average a double double in 12 mins a game and Nellie would still bury him at the end of the bench some nights. It's the offensive mentality of Nellie.

If you want better defense, he sits in favor of Jamison.

I'm gonna have to disagree with that one, Eddie drew at least 2 charges maybe 3 last night, something I have yet to see AJ do this season. As far as the rest of the defensive aspects, it's a push.

[Rod1975]

Edit double post

[kingrex]

Right on Rod!

Najera is all about heart and hustle. You have to agree with Madape that as well as he did he just lacks physical ability. He way too short and way too slow. Has he played better than Jamison? I would say yes. Does he have more upside than Jamison? Not even close. And that's why you have to invest more minutes on Jamison as the season goes on. Jamison must learn from Najera's examples, like you said, but it may be worth it for the Mavs to give Jamison more minutes to do exactly that.

Last night's game was sickening, but at least we saw an improvement in their defense. They balance between the zone and the man-to-man much better. They played with more want-to as well.

Now if they can only get the defense AND offense going full-throttle at the same time, then maybe we've got something. Let's say we give them the entire season to do it.

[ReDIRKulous]

Mavs Head Coach Don Nelson Don Nelson


I thought our effort was good from our standpoint but our play was terrible. All the turnovers that we made and the missed shots right around the basket, you hope that you can make those. In the NBA, players you would hope could make those shots but we didn’t make them tonight and again we had our hard knocks on the road as we’re trying to come together as a team.

On the Raptors defense:
Obviously you have to give some credit there, for sure. I think they really work hard at it and they didn’t make those shots easy and then they really tightened up down the stretch. We really had a hard time scoring anything down the stretch but we still had a lot of opportunities around the basket. We killed ourselves with the turnovers. I thought the decisions that we made with the ball were terrible.


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[imghttp://www.nba.com/media/playerfile/antoine_walker.jpg[/img]
Mavs forward Antoine Walker Antoine Walker


We played very hard and with very good defence. Something we have been searching for this season. We got it done defensively, but we were sloppy with the number of turnovers – that cost us. You can’t turn the basketball over like that in crucial points in the game and expect to win. The effort was definitely there. It’s thought without all-star point guard Steve Nash because he gets everyone included. We have to continue to battle.


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Mavs forward Dirk Nowitzki Dirk Nowitzki


On the steal by Vince:
We didn’t lose the game on the that play. We were down three and it should’ve never have come to that point. It’s just our offence, there wasn’t any rhythm to the offence. And actually, on the defence, we clamped down. If you would’ve told me, we would’ve held them to 77 points, and we lose, I would say you’re crazy. I just wasn’t ready for the ball and didn’t catch it.

On Nash:
He’s our MVP. He gets us fired up to play every night. He gets our running game going and of course you miss your star point guard. But you have to find a way to win without him.


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Raptors Head Coach Kevin O'Neill Kevin O'Neill


Let’s be fair to them, they’re playing without Steve Nash, they’re playing the second night of a back-to-back but they lost last night. I’m not taking anything away from our guys because Dallas played very hard, I’m sure they felt like that was a must win for them, we just hung around long enough to give ourselves a chance to win and we did it by playing great defense. I thought Chris Bosh played exceptionally well for a rookie on those two guys, he did a heck of a job. He got beat a couple of times, he got tricked a couple of times but I thought he did a heck of job. I thought our guys, at the end, did a good job of taking away shots and forcing them to take some shots they probably didn’t want to take. What you hope is that you can develop your bench to be in that situation so your guys can get rest. It allowed Vince to get ample amount of rest and he was able to come in and guard Nowitzki and do a reasonably good job. We wanted to give Nowitzki a little bit of a different look at the end because he was settling in against some of our big guys. We were trying to wear on them a little bit and wear them down and our reserves gave us an opportunity to be able to do that.


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Raptors guard Vince Carter Vince Carter


Regardless if our offence is not up to par, the defense has to keep doing what it has been doing. That means holding teams to below their average, and that is our goal, to just defend. From there, our offence will follow. Our first three games have been slow starts and we fought just to catch back up. With this team, you can’t do that because they have so many weapons that can score. Once they are on top of you, they really stomp on you and blow you out of your arena. It was important to do the job at both ends. (Missing Nash) He knows the offence in and out. He runs it for 48 minutes, for 82 games just about.


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Raptors guard Morris Peterson Morris Peterson


The one thing I try to do is let the game come to me. I thought we played hard defensively and we fought a tough team. Down the stretch, I thought we made some big plays, had some big steals, and that was the outcome of the game. They were coming off a loss to Washington and I think at the end, they got a little tired. With a team like Dallas, they like to run, push the ball up the court and they like to shoot a boat-load of threes. I think that gives us an opportunity to score at the other end with fast breaks. With their team, their primary goal is to put up points and tonight, I think we matched their intensity on offence.

[dude1394]

Interesting comments as usual after a loss.

a. Nellie stating that dirk wasn't in the right place.
Whats the problem with the truth. How is that "calling" out dirk. And by the way dirk DID look tired. Why? Is he not in the shape he has been? He used to play 48 all of the time and now he's asking out??

b. This team really needs a training camp but guess what THEY WON'T GET IT!! They will have to do it during the season. Currently they only have fin,nash,najera,bradley that were on last years team. There is no duncan to throw it down to and shoot jumpers off it. Their offense requires much more coordination.

c. Not having nash right now is HUGE for this team. He's probably the only guy who knows where everyone should be. The number of turnovers they have had is a direct impact of that. If NVE were here for example the team would be much better off. But Best doesn't really seem to have it down either. He seems to be a dissappointment.

d. I don't really understand finley's issues. He IS the "leader" of the team after all and he's playing really tentative. If this is nellies fault then I do blame him for that. He really should be forcing finley to be more aggressive until the team gets it's act together.

Folks yelling for nellie's head are not being reasonable. Giving up on this team now isn't reasonable either. It certainly looks like last night that Jamison, Best, Delk, Finley, Walker stunk it up. Shooting probably what 25%!! What's up with that other than they just aren't comfortable.

What good does it do to put jamison in more, yada,yada if they are going to go 1-6.. Ouch.

On the positive side. Toronto shoots 39.7% OK, Mavs are even rebounding. OK. So two of the defensive metrics were ok!! So defense doesn't win when you shoot 25%. This AIN'T football.

Looked up the rebounding numbers. They are even so far and toronto has been outrebounding teams by about 6. If this is what good defense looks like I'm not interested.
[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

[dude1394]

I have been wondering about Dirk's attitude this year. I think the big three are secretly pissed that Cuban blew up the team after getting to within six wins of a championship. I think they are not happy having to bring in new players and renew chemistry after being that close. I heard Fin say in an interview before the game that he was surprised Cuban did this, so it is definately in his thoughts. Nash is too nice to criticize anyone directly, but Dirk has hinted at his dissatisfaction with the attitude that he has had this year. I have never seen him like this if the above quote by Nellie is true. In his interviews he criticizes the team without mercy and at times has not given effort out on the court. This could be very disturbing for Mavs fans.

I've been thinking about the psyche of the team as well. When you have busted your rear and got within 1 quarter and 1 game of the NBA championship and then to be basically blown up. There really may be more to this than is known. It also does go against cubes "informed opinion" last year that it takes teams "years" to gell together.
In general I'm supporting of cubes/nellie and I do think that on paper this is a more talented team and probably has a better chance at the end of the day competing with the spurs/kings/lakers. But it may take the boys a while to get over the bust-up. Hmmm...

[ReDIRKulous]

DMN article except (at bottom of page)

Breaking out the new weapon

It went almost unnoticed because the Mavericks lost the game and only scored 71 points, but Dirk Nowitzki broke out his left-handed jump-hook against the Raptors.

He made the shot but still said he's not totally comfortable breaking out the jump-hook on a regular basis.

Was Nellie trying to get Dirk to go use his hook more in this game? Is this what Nellie was tlaking about when he said Dirk wouldn't go to the area he wanted him to go to?

[MAVFANRICH]

HEY GUYS,....I LIVE IN BUFFALO AND IM A HUGE MAVS FAN. I WENT TO THIS GAME AND I CAN HONESLY SAY IT WAS SOME OF THE WORST BALL THE MAVS HAVE PLAYED IN A LONG TIME. POOR SHOT SELECTION, OUT REBOUNDED IN CRITICAL SPOTS, TERRIBLE PASSING AND MISSED LAYUPS EQUALS 71 POINTS. IT WAS QUITE UPSETTING TO ME TO SEE THEM PERFORM LIKE THAT. I HOPE THATS THE LOW POINT OF THE SEASON.

[veruca salt]

Originally posted by: MAVFANRICH
HEY GUYS,....I LIVE IN BUFFALO AND IM A HUGE MAVS FAN. I WENT TO THIS GAME AND I CAN HONESLY SAY IT WAS SOME OF THE WORST BALL THE MAVS HAVE PLAYED IN A LONG TIME. POOR SHOT SELECTION, OUT REBOUNDED IN CRITICAL SPOTS, TERRIBLE PASSING AND MISSED LAYUPS EQUALS 71 POINTS. IT WAS QUITE UPSETTING TO ME TO SEE THEM PERFORM LIKE THAT. I HOPE THATS THE LOW POINT OF THE SEASON.

See this? Learn it, live it, love it.

Thank you.