Mavs add to misery: Spurs blow 11-point lead, drop third straight

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Mavs add to misery: Spurs blow 11-point lead, drop third straight

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA010607.01C.BKNspurs.mavs.gamer.3021066.html

Web Posted: 01/06/2007 12:26 AM CST

Johnny Ludden
Express-News

The Spurs have more than three months to right themselves. More than three months to improve their rebounding and fill the cracks in their defense.

More than three months for Bruce Bowen and Brent Barry to get used to the feel of leather. For Beno Udrih to get a shot. For Francisco Elson’s right shoulder to heal.

At least, that’s what the Spurs are telling themselves. Perhaps the best thing they have going right now, is they also have more than three months until they face the Dallas Mavericks again.

If there was any lingering doubt about which Texas team was chasing the other, the Mavericks extinguished it Friday night, beating the Spurs 90-85 in front of a sellout crowd of 18,797 that left the AT&T Center disappointed once again.

With Dirk Nowitzki scoring a season-best 36 points, 10 in the fourth quarter, the Mavericks extended their winning streak to 13 games and beat the Spurs on their own floor for the second time in six weeks. It’s the first time Dallas has completed a sweep of the team’s two meetings in San Antonio in 11 years.

The Spurs, meanwhile, have lost three consecutive games for the first time since March 20-23, 2005, and fell four games behind the Mavericks in the Southwest Division.

“It’s a game we needed so bad, so it’s hard to swallow,” said Manu Ginobili, who led the Spurs with 25 points. “But we just have to face it. They are playing better than us.”

The Mavericks rallied from an 11-point halftime deficit, winning the way the Spurs used to win: with defense, rebounding and late-game execution.

In the second half, Dallas held the Spurs to 32.3 percent shooting, outrebounded them 26-14 and scored 16 second-chance points. None were bigger than the two Jason Terry picked up when he plucked Nowitzki’s too-short 3-pointer out of the air and tossed the ball through the rim to give Dallas an 84-82 lead with 1:44 remaining.

The Spurs naturally seemed surprised that Nowitzki finally threw up a shot that not only missed, but also fell a foot short of the rim. Dallas never trailed after Terry’s basket.

“They just got the right bounce,” Robert Horry said. “I mean, come on, that air ball was like Tim (Duncan) was the Dream (Hakeem Olajuwon) and Jason Terry was Lorenzo Charles.”

Horry was referring to North Carolina State’s last-gasp basket to beat the University of Houston and win the 1983 NCAA basketball title. The Spurs tried to produce their own heroics on their final possession, but Bowen missed an open 3-pointer with 4.9 seconds left that would have tied the game.

That Bowen was even taking the shot was a bit of a surprise. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich usually leaves him on the bench during such moments for one of the team’s other shooters. Barry was 0 for 5 in the game and Michael Finley 3 for 9.

“Who would think that Pop would do that for me at that point?” said Bowen, who has missed all seven of his 3-point attempts since the NBA switched to the leather ball. “But it totally caught them off-guard. That’s the thing that’s so disappointing: You got a wide-open look and then it just didn’t go in.”

There was a lot of that for the Spurs. After shooting 54.1 percent in the first half, they went 10 of 31 in the second. Duncan scored only five of his 18 points after halftime and took the blame for a five-minute stretch in the fourth quarter when the Spurs went scoreless.

“It was just bad reads on my part,” said Duncan, who also missed 7 of 13 free throws. “They weren’t double-teaming. They weren’t doing anything and I wasn’t drawing anybody to me and wasn’t taking the shots when they were there.”

The Spurs did show some progress. In each of the Dallas’ previous two visits, they were unable to match the Mavericks’ initial surge and quickly found themselves in a huge hole.

Ginobili did his best to make sure that didn’t happen again. The Spurs fed off his energy and that of his Argentine teammate,Fabricio Oberto, who made all seven of his shots and scored 14 points — all in the first half.

“We were getting outhustled,” Mavericks coach Avery Johnson said. “If we lose, we lose. But it’s pretty embarrassing to get outhustled.”

Some of that could be attributed to the fact Dallas was coming off a tough victory over Indiana Thursday night. Popovich, meanwhile, said he was pleased with his team’s effort.

“They basically scored 88 points tonight and if we can hold Dallas to 88 points I’m a happy man,” Popovich said, discounting the final two points the Mavericks tacked on because of an intentional foul. “It’s a hell of a job on the part of our team. Team defense did a wonderful job against the best team in the league.”

But with Josh Howard pogo-sticking his way to 16 points and 11 rebounds, the loss again raised questions whether the Spurs have the athleticism to match up with the Mavericks.

They have more than three months to come up with an answer.

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Nowitzki leads Mavs over the Spurs

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Web Posted: 01/05/2007 10:05 PM CST
Johnny Ludden
Express-News

The Spurs have three months to figure out a way to beat Dallas. It would help if they could first come up with a way to slow Dirk Nowitzki.

Nowitzki scored 10 of his 36 points in the fourth quarter as the Mavericks rallied to beat the Spurs 90-85 Friday night at the AT&T Center.

Dallas now has a four-game lead over the Spurs and is assured of no worse than a split of the teams’ season series. The Spurs have lost three consecutive games for the first time since March 20-23, 2005.

The Spurs led by 11 at halftime, but made only 10 of 31 shots in the final two quarters. Dallas also outrebounded the Spurs 26-14 in the second half while scoring 16 second-chance points.

Bruce Bowen missed a 3-pointer that would have tied the game a few seconds before the final buzzer.

Manu Ginobili scored 25 points. Tim Duncan had 18, but only five in the second half. He also missed seven of his 13 free throws – including a costly one in the final minute – and collected just seven rebounds in 38 minutes.

Josh Howard had 18 points and 12 rebounds.

Dallas picked up its defense in the third quarter and beat up the Spurs on the boards. Howard hit a 3-pointer off an offensive rebound to pull the Mavericks within two.

Dallas outrebounded the Spurs 15-5 in the third quarter. Duncan didn’t get a rebound in the quarter.

Michael Finley buried a 23-footer over Devean George at the buzzer to give the Spurs a little momentum going into the final quarter, but their lead stood only at 69-66.

Jason Terry’s acrobatic layup gave Dallas a 70-69 lead with 10:38 left, its first advantage since the opening quarter. Parker answered with a layup. After Nowitzki hit a tough 3-pointer, Parker drove for another layup and sent Erick Dampier to the bench with his fifth foul.

Ginobili banked in a difficult shot on the next possession by drawing DeSagana Diop’s fifth foul.

Nowitzki’s 3-pointer from the left corner put Dallas ahead 78-77 with less than six minutes left. Devean George followed with a shot in the lane. Duncan missed two free throws, but Bowen tracked down the rebound and Ginobili made a 3-pointer to tie the game.

Ginobili drove into the lane, had the ball knocked from his hands by Nowitzki, drove to the floor to corral it and was fouled by Terry. He made both free throws to put the Spurs up 82-80 with 2:45 left.

Nowitzki followed by driving for a layup. Ginobili missed a 3-pointer then blocked Nowitzki’s shot out of bounds with 10 seconds left on the shot clock.

Nowitzki missed a 3-pointer that fell short of the rim. Terry plucked the ball out of the air and tossed in a shot.

After a turnover by Duncan, George made a reverse layup as he was fouled by Duncan. He missed the free throw, leaving Dallas with an 86-82 lead with 1:15 left.

After a timeout, Duncan banked in a shot over Nowitzki. Nowitzki followed by hitting a tough fadeaway over Brent Barry.

Sent to the foul line by Nowitzki, Duncan made only his first free throw. Nowitzki fired a pass into the stands, leaving the Spurs down three with 12.7 seconds left.

Prior to the game, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said that Dallas “without a doubt” was the best team in the league. Few in the league would argue. The Mavericks’ victory over Indiana Thursday night had given them their second 12-game winning streak of the season.

In each of the Dallas’ previous two visits, the Spurs had been unable to match the Mavericks’ initial surge and quickly found themselves trailing by 20 and 17 points. The Spurs also had to dig themselves of out a 17-point hole in Wednesday’s loss in Minnesota.

Ginobili did his best to make sure that didn’t happen again. With Parker forced to the bench with two quick fouls, Ginobili assumed control of the offense and made consecutive 3-pointers. He started the second quarter by snuffing out a pass by DeSagana Diop under the Spurs’ basket then dove hard into the courtside photographers to save the ball.

Ginobili’s hustle play led to a layup by Oberto. Oberto followed a Michael Finley steal on the next possession with another layup to hike the Spurs’ lead to 33-21.

Oberto ended the second quarter by tipping in Beno Udrih’s missed shot at the buzzer to give the Spurs a 51-40 lead. He ended the first quarter in similar fashion.

Thanks largely to Oberto’s contributions, the Spurs outscored Dallas 30-10 in the lane in the first half.

The Spurs again had no answer for Nowitzki, who scored 18 points in the first half while making 7 of 9 shots.

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NBA Insider: Parker, Ginobili long shots to make All-Star squad

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA01052007.WEBnbainsider.en.106046cd.html

Web Posted: 01/05/2007 08:59 PM CST
Mike Monroe
Express-News Staff Writer

If Spurs fans want to see either Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili in the All-Star Game on Feb. 18, they need to start stuffing the ballot box – for Allen Iverson.

Two things happened when Iverson was traded from the 76ers to the Nuggets: He was electronically switched from the Eastern Conference to the Western Conference and all the votes he already had received as an Eastern Conference candidate went with him.

The league could not change the millions of ballots it already had printed and distributed, but in the online age, the change in online voting could be made with a few computer key strokes.

As a result, as of Friday afternoon Iverson stands third in the West in results of fan voting released by the NBA on Thursday. Lakers great Kobe Bryant is the top vote-getter among Western guards, with 1,386,477. Houston’s Tracy McGrady is second, with 1,205,510 votes. Iverson has 1,157,031 votes.

Ginobili was named to the All-Star team by the coaches in 2005; Parker made his first All-Star team in 2006. But unless Iverson overtakes McGrady, neither has a very good shot at being voted among the reserves by the league’s head coaches unless Iverson surpasses McGrady in the fan voting.

That is because Iverson and two-time MVP Steve Nash then would have to be added by the coaches, and would be. A fifth guard could be added, but with a glut of talented forwards also available in the West, it seems more likely the coaches would opt for forwards for the “wild card” spots on the 12-man roster.

McGrady is not having an All-Star season. His numbers were down before his most recent back injury forced him to miss seven games and it is clear that when Yao Ming is healthy he is the focus of Houston’s offense, not McGrady.

Parker clearly is having a better season. You can make a pretty good case for Ginobili, too.

Parker’s maturation as a thinking point guard is what now puts him in select company as one of the league’s four best point guards, clearly one of the best guards in the West.

“He definitely is better this season,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said, "and it’s got everything to do with what point guards do. He’s more of a leader, and by that I don’t mean he’s waving a towel and yelling and screaming and all that crap and being a cheerleader. Some people think that’s being a leader, but it isn’t.

"It’s about him having a pace on the court and understanding game and time and score; what players are on the court; where mismatches are; and when we need to play faster and when we need to play slower.

“His pace and understanding of what’s going on is the best it’s ever been.”

Ginobili doesn’t think he is having an All-Star season, but he is that NBA rarity: a humble self-evaluator.

“I didn’t think I was having an All-Star season two years ago when it happened, so I am not concerned with that,” he said. “I never thought of myself as an All-Star. If it happens, great. If not, I’m going to enjoy my rest.”

Parker laughed at the notion the he needs to root for Spurs fans to help Iverson pass McGrady.

“Whatever happens, happens.” he said. “You can’t control it. All you can do is try to have an All-Star season, but it’s not going to happen every year. Circumstances and popularity. The only thing I can do is play my best and get the Spurs to win games. That’s it.”

Iverson has closed the gap on McGrady since the last results were announced a few weeks ago. McGrady enjoys some dovetail effect from all the Asians who vote online for his teammate, Yao, but it no longer seems impossible that Iverson might catch him.

What We Hear

• That the Nets, who just saved more than $5 million by dumping Jeff McInnis on the Bobcats, aren’t done dealing. With Nenad Krstic out, they still need a big man, and tried to get Melvin Ely as part of the McInnis deal. They didn’t, so the search continues.

• That Bulls rookie Martynis Andriuskevicius, the 7-foot-2 Lithuanian who suffered brain damange when his D League teammate Awvee Storey punched him in the head during an argument that erupted in practice, has ruled out legal action against his teammate. And that his agent, Herb Rudoy, hasn’t ruled out anything, including legal action.

• That all the recent talk about Jalen Rose winding up this season in his home town of Detroit was started by none other than Jalen Rose. Rose, no doubt, is aware Suns coaches now think he is just too slow to keep up with their pace.

• That the “birthday bash” at the Denver night club slain Broncos defensive back Derrant Williams had attended may have been for injured Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin, but that Martin had nothing to do with fliers printed up promoting the event. The fliers were the work of 3Deep Productions, a Denver outfit that promotes events catering to, according to pal Marc J. Spears of The Denver Post, “a young urban crowd interested in rap.”

• That a bone scan on Yao Ming’s fractured right tibia was regarded as positive, so there has been no change in the projection for his return, six weeks from the Dec. 23 date of the injury.

• That all is sweetness and light again in Sacramento, with Ron Artest and Mike Bibby back to being best of friends and blaming the media for making up nasty rumors about their having problems with the play of the other.

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Spurs notebook: Popovich thinks Nowitzki is bound for Hall of Fame

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA010607.07C.BKNspurs.notebook.36230d1.html

Web Posted: 01/06/2007 12:33 AM CST
Johnny Ludden
Express-News

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich didn’t need to see Friday’s performance by Dirk Nowitzki to offer an opinion on where the Dallas’ forward will end his career.

“He’s definitely a Hall of Famer,” Popovich said before the game. "He’s definitely going to be one of the greatest forwards ever to play the position because he has not only established himself as one of the best players in the league, but he’s improved.

"He couldn’t get a rebound when he first came in the league. In some ways, he couldn’t even get a shot off. Then you think about where he is now, where nobody can guard the guy.

“And not only does he rebound, but he knows where the most important rebounds are. In Games 3 and 4 (of last season’s Western Conference semifinals series) at their place, we’ve got the game in hand, and he goes and gets offensive rebounds in both games. That turned the fortunes of both of those games around.”

Nowitzki did nothing to diminish his credentials Friday, scoring 36 points while making 14 of 23 shots. He scored 31 when the Mavericks beat the Spurs on Nov. 24.

“He’s a big-time, big-play player on top of being who he is in the first place,” Popovich said. “He makes Manu Ginobili-type plays at the end of games. For a seven-footer to do that, that’s pretty special.”

My bad: The Spurs weren’t the only ones who missed Jason Terry’s critical rebound late in the fourth quarter.

So did their stat crew.

Terry’s rebound and basket of Nowitzki’s 3-pointer with 1:44 left were both mistakenly credited to Josh Howard in the official box score. The error also was reflected in the final stats.

After the oversight was noted, Terry had 10 points (5-of-11 shooting) and seven rebounds, including four offensive. Howard had 16 points (6-of-16 shooting) and 11 rebounds, two offensive.

Sigh: Dallas owner Mark Cuban wore a blue T-shirt he had printed for Friday’s game: “I went to the San Antonio River Walk and all I got was a rash.”

Cuban called the River Walk an “ugly-ass, muddy-watered thing” during last season’s playoffs. The city announced plans to clean up the San Antonio River shortly afterward.

Offensive performance: Ripped by their coach in recent days for their inconsistent play at the defensive end, the Spurs corrected that problem Friday.

But as good as they were defensively, the Spurs were worse on offense in the critical fourth quarter. A scoring drought that lasted nearly five minutes cost them an opportunity to expand on a lead at a time their defense was producing stops at the other end of the court.

“Sometimes it’s going to happen,” said Ginobili, who had three-point plays — one the old-fashioned way and one with a shot from beyond the 3-point arc — on both ends of the lapse that lasted from 8:37 of the fourth period to 3:38. “Thing is, we have to keep them away from scoring during that five minutes, and they didn’t score that much then, either.”

Briefly: Bruce Bowen ended his 0-for-leather streak. After going 0 for 12 in two games since the NBA switched from the microfiber ball to leather, Bowen missed two more shots Friday before making a runner late in the second quarter. … One fan held up this sign: “Matt Bonner stole my girlfriend and I’m totally cool with it.”

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Spurs’ Duncan falls for Johnson’s verbal deke

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Web Posted: 01/06/2007 12:31 AM CST
Mike Monroe
Express-News

Tim Duncan heard the voice, screaming demands during his first four seasons with the Spurs.

There is no mistaking Avery Johnson’s high-pitched, nasal intonation and his New Orleans accent, and Duncan grew accustomed to following Johnson’s commands when the two were teammates on the Spurs.

Now the coach of the Dallas Mavericks, Johnson used that familiar voice on Friday to confuse the Spurs’ All-Star power forward in the fourth quarter of the Mavericks’ 90-85 victory.

As the Spurs ran their offense in front of the Mavericks’ bench in the second half, Duncan was well within earshot of Johnson’s unique inflection. So the Mavericks coach instructed his defenders to double-team Duncan every time he caught the ball in the low post.

Turns out it was a ploy, a wrinkle that perhaps only Johnson could have executed against his old teammate. Johnson had privately ordered his defenders not to follow his directive.

Johnson had set up the tactic by aggressively double-teaming Duncan nearly every time he caught the ball in the post in the first three quarters. Duncan grew wary of the double teams and did a good job of finding open teammates.

“They came (at me) just about every time in the beginning,” Duncan said. “In the fourth quarter, Avery just stood over there on the bench and yelled like they were coming, but they didn’t.”

It was a masterful mind game won by his old teammate, and it rankled Duncan to admit it.

“A very bad (mind game),” Duncan said, “but yeah.”

The Mavericks held the Spurs scoreless for 4:59 in the fourth period, squandering an opportunity to extend the 76-73 lead Manu Ginobili gave them with an end-to-end drive that resulted in a three-point play 8:37 remaining.

Their next score came on Ginobili’s 3-pointer with 3:38 to play, and Duncan owned up to his role in the critical stretch.

“Honestly, I’ll take full and total blame for that situation right there,” Duncan said. "It was just bad reason my part.

“(The Mavericks) were half-and-half (on defense). They weren’t double-teaming. They weren’t doing anything, and I wasn’t drawing anybody to me and wasn’t taking the shots when they were there. Just bad reads on my part.”

Duncan always is candid when he makes mistakes, often more critical of himself than need be. He seemed angrier with himself for falling for Johnson’s mind game than for allowing the Mavericks seven offensive rebounds in the second half, most of them critical to Dallas’ comeback.

Those offensive rebounds, Duncan said, were by happenstance, rather than lack of effort or execution by the Spurs. The most critical was Jason Terry’s grab of Dirk Nowitzki’s air ball on a 3-point attempt. Terry flipped it in the basket just before the 24-second shot clock expired.

“Yeah,” Duncan said on his way out the door of the Spurs’ locker room. "That’s great offensive rebounding.

“It just happened,” Duncan said of the Mavericks’ 41-33 edge in rebounding. “I can’t say one thing or the other. I can’t say they were just legitimately pounding the offensive glass. I think they got a couple bounces and were in the right place at the right time. That’s not taking anything away from what they did. It’s just how it went.”

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Mike Finger: What could come next in rivalry?

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA010607.01C.COL.BKNfinger.spurs.3622d69.html

Web Posted: 01/06/2007 12:28 AM CST
San Antonio Express-News

Josh Howard says the Spurs and Mavericks have a “good blood” relationship, and he might have a point. If a breathless string of wild finishes, a punch to the groin, a shoe to the back and a volley of insults about beloved landmarks can’t spark any hate, it says something about how much the two teams genuinely respect each other.

Familiarity, it seems, doesn’t always breed contempt. Sometimes, it fosters the NBA’s most compelling rivalry, one that on Friday night at the AT&T Center proved it wasn’t running out of steam — or surprises — yet.

How well do the Spurs and Mavs know each other? Before his team’s 90-85 loss, Gregg Popovich joked that the only way he could fool Avery Johnson would be to have Tony Parker pull a Boise State-style Statue of Liberty play.

And when Friday’s game came down to crunch time? It looked a lot like it did last spring. Including the Western Conference semifinals, these teams have played 10 times in eight months, and almost every meeting has been decided in the closing seconds.

That’s why Johnson said he never takes his knowledge of the Spurs for granted.

“You’re always concerned, you’re always on the edge of your seat,” Johnson said. “You always think somebody has something up their sleeve.”

And as usual, Johnson’s not-so-hidden ace was Dirk Nowitzki, who once again lived up to Popovich’s description of him as “a big-time, big-play player.” In a dozen games against the Mavs in the past year, the Spurs have tried about a dozen ways to stop him, and none have worked.

On Friday, Popovich tried to guard Nowitzki with Robert Horry. ThenFabricio Oberto. Then Tim Duncan. The Spurs fronted him and played behind him, double-teamed him and sent single coverage. And when it was over, Nowitzki still had his 36 points, including two huge shots in the closing moments.

In the grand scheme of things, Friday’s game won’t mean a whole lot, and Johnson acknowledged that afterwards, saying “nobody will remember this game at the end of the season.”

“We don’t want to get too overly excited,” Johnson said. “We’ve won a few regular-season games before.”

And while that is true, there’s something different about Spurs-Mavs games, even the ones in January. It always seems like someone is setting something up for later, like the mind games Johnson played with Duncan in the second half.

When Duncan got the ball in the post, Johnson screamed at his team to double, even though he’d instructed his players not to. The yells were just a decoy, and Duncan is sure to remember that if these teams meet again in May.

And in the big picture, that’s what makes this rivalry so fascinating. Last year’s crotch- and back-related scrums were a nice touch, as are Mark Cuban’s continued disparagements of the River Walk. But there’s no real malice there, which is one reason why the “I went to the San Antonio River Walk and all I got was a rash” T-shirt Cuban wore Friday will be given to charity.

Still, the fervor of the Spurs-Mavs series can be striking even for NBA veterans.

“I didn’t know San Antonio fans were this nasty,” Mavs guard Devean George said after Friday’s game. “Usually when I came (with the Lakers) they were nice. Maybe because they came to see Kobe.”

That comment in itself proves the point Cuban keeps trying to make about how the NBA needs more Yankees-Red Sox-style rivalries, instead of matchups that revolve around singular players.

The most hyped NBA games this decade have been showdowns between the Lakers and Heat, but those have been more about Kobe and Shaq than Los Angeles and Miami.

In the Spurs and Mavs, the league has not only its best two teams, but also its most intriguing chess match. If they’re not making roster moves to counter each other, they’re calling out dummy signals. By May, that Statue of Liberty play Popovich joked about might actually happen.

“We’ve been playing each other for a while,” Howard said. “You kind of know what’s going on and what to expect.”

And that’s a good thing, even if it’s nothing more than good blood.