Sunday Links

Jeff Caplan writes about the bench play last night, which was far better than in game one.

"It’s really big for our confidence, for our second group’s confidence and big for our starters to get rest," Barea said.

As a reward, Carlisle, who notched his first win as the Mavs coach, subbed in Barea, who made 2 of 3 shots including a 3-pointer in 16 minutes, and Green, who made 4 of 5 shots also in 16 minutes, with 7.2 seconds left to allow them to finish off the game.

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Sefko points to Gerald Green as the 4th quarter spark that helped Dallas win the game.  He also mentions a shot by Dirk that helped seal the win.

[Minnesota] got within 88-83, but Dirk Nowitzki canned a tough 18-footer with 2:27 left. Moments later, Kidd had another steal to help seal the win.

Kidd's defense was very good last night.

"He had four steals," coach Rick Carlisle said. "But it seemed like seven or eight."

..."To me, he's still got the quickest hands in the league," Dirk Nowitzki said. "Anytime you're not careful with the ball around him, it's gone."

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Quote of the day:

"It’s like Stephon Marbury said, 'When it rains, you ain’t got no choice, you just got to pull out the umbrella,’ " said Green,

I think that was on my Stephon Marbury 365 day calendar last week.

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Jan Hubbard is not happy with Jeff Van Gundy for criticizing Dirk about some of the things he's said regarding Avery.

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Mike Fisher praises the center tandem.

They're not All-Stars and they're not without flaw and nobody's worth all that money blahblahblah. But they are damn solid as a two-headed beast. If you give them their minutes? Well, Damp played 19:42 and Diop played 28:18. ...hey, that's all 48! ...they might just give you a combined 10 points, 14 rebounds, four assists, three blocks and a steal.

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Canis Hoopus says Mavs fans shouldn't let Gerald Green fool them.

...I hope that Mavs fans don't get too wrapped up in a player whose vertical will always eclipse his performance

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Mike Fisher has it on high authority that the Mavs are not interested in Al Harrington.