Friday Morning Links

Another game and another day full of quotes about effort, urgency and fight.

"It's hard to say we're fighting," Jason Kidd said. "It seems like déjà vu every time in the third quarter or fourth quarter. When we can't score we just throw our hands up. We don't stop anyone and we start fragmenting."

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Sefko recaps the game and points to the defense as the root of the problems.

The Mavericks didn't throw up their hands enough on defense.

"That's the big problem, we don't play any defense," Kidd said. "We don't stop anybody, and we kind of maybe start fragmenting and taking a bad shot here or there."

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Quote of the Day:

"When you give up 100 points and not scoring 100, you’re going to lose a lot games".
- Jason Kidd

Like.... all of them.

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Diop says he's going to be more physical when he has the ball beneath the basket.

"I just have to go stronger," Diop said. "I’ve been trying to put it in like very easy, but they block it or I miss it. I’ve just got to make sure I get in stronger. That’s what I’m going to try to do from now on, just go strong."

Diop compounds the problem by missing 71.4 percent of his free throws. 

Diop is shooting 35% this year which is crazy low for a center.  To put in perspective, Dampier shot 64.3% last season.

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Kelly Dwyer says the game wasn't fun to watch as an impartial observer.

That was a tough thing to watch. The sidelines seemed to have no clue, and no leader seemed to want to emerge from within the mess. Chicago can't always rely on Jason Terry having to guard Ben Gordon when it wants to pull out a win.

It really was ridiculous how bad Jason Terry was on Gordon last night.

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This Day in Mavs History

1981 Mark Aguirre had 42 points, the first time a Mavs player had 40+ points and the 1st of 22 times Aguirre had 40+ points with Dallas. 42 points is the most points scored by a Dallas rookie.