Game Recap: Dirk-less Mavs Blow Past Cavaliers 102-95

by zdgmans on Dec 20, 2009 9:33 PM CST in News Comment 5 comments

Can the Dallas Mavericks actually be called "the Mavericks" without Dirk Nowitzki manning the four? The 19-7 Mavericks are coming off of a heartbreaking overtime loss to the Houston Rockets hoping to start another winning streak. The 20-7 Cleveland Cavaliers come in looking to extend their five-game winning streak by taking advantage of a Mavericks squad missing its star player.

Does the underdog have his day?

Game as a Whole:

Tim Thomas led the Mavericks to a resounding win against Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers tonight. The Mavericks tonight have proven, somewhat, that they are officially one of the deepest teams in the NBA, as it is never easy to replace your franchise player and pull out a win at the same time (against the East elite no less).

There were points where the game could have easily gone Cleveland’s way, however the

Mavericks seemed to have a response to everything the Cavaliers tried to execute. Defense was the Mavericks bread and butter tonight. Not only did they hold Lebron James to just 23 points (on 19 shots) they allowed only one other Cavalier to hit double figures (Anthony Parker with 12).

When the defense is as active as it was tonight and the Mavericks are attacking the paint, they look like one of the deadliest teams in the NBA.

Let’s look at the quarters…

1st Quarter:

The Lebron powder ritual delays the game for at least three minutes while they clean up the floor.
Tim Thomas misses a short jump shot and Dampier gets an offensive rebound. Not a good sign when Dampier misses the put back.
Jose Juan Barea, seems to like to start off with a three pointer almost every night. He makes it.
10:07, Barea hits Marion for a fast break layup. Unsure whether the Mavericks should try to run tonight when Shaq is on the floor.
9:03, Erick Dampier is playing Shaq well in the first few minutes (forces a travel). Lets see which big man gets in foul trouble first.
8:24, Another fast break basket (this time Tim Thomas) after a defensive stop.
7:24, How do you fall for a pump fake from J.J. Hickson? Don’t jump to block the shot, stay on the ground.
7:11, Marion misses a mid-range jump shot. Has Marion made anything more than 15 feet away from the basket this year?
6:27, Tim Thomas hits a three pointer. He needs to have a big game tonight.
6:05, Gooden makes a great decision by putting the ball on the floor and attacking Shaq (2^nd foul).
5:30, Cleveland defensive breakdown leaves Gooden with an open baseline jumper. Gooden is moving well without the ball.
4:50, Howard nice defensive play to keep the ball out of Lebron’s hands. Turnover leads to a Jason Kidd three (no toe on the line).
4:05, Howard rolls perfectly to the basket and hits a layup off of a Kidd assist.
3:29, Gooden hits a put back. The offensive tempo of the game is really fast right now.
Josh Howard and Shawn Marion are a great tag team against Lebron.
2:08, back-to-back traveling violations by the Cavaliers. Mavericks haven’t capitalized.
1:38, Terry hits a mid range jumper. Most of his shots haven’t been falling these past few weeks. Need scoring from Terry tonight.
:50.7, Thomas puts the Mavericks up by two with free throws. Grabs a rebound on the defensive end.
Shoot out in the first quarter is over. Cavaliers up one.

2nd Quarter:

11:40, Josh Howard hits a running banker (and 1). He converts the three-point play to give the Mavericks the 2-point lead.
11:02, Terry is on the line for two shots. The Dallas bench already has 15 points.
10:38, nice save by Barea to put the ball back into play. Josh Howard makes an ugly play toward the basket (running one hander) but it turns into a score on a broken play (Drew Gooden with the tip in).
9:51 Six-point lead for the Mavericks. The Mavericks are attacking Cleveland off the dribble and drawing fouls. Drew Gooden is on fire, hits a hook shot to give him 10 points.
8:37, Barea throws a lead pass that leads to a turnover. Dirk says "nice pass" from the bench. Dirk needs to do color commentary more.
8:00, Jason Terry is doing a pretty good job staying in front of Delonte West. He isn’t necessarily stopping him but at least he is slowing him down.
7:05, Cleveland goes on a run as the Mavericks get complacent shooting jump shots and not attacking the rim.
6:24, Shawn Marion draws a shooting foul. Lebron picks up a foul almost immediately after coming off the bench.
6:01, Jason Kidd with an 18 footer.
5:46, Jason Terry takes it to the basket for a scoop. Mavericks are now attacking the basket again, thank you very much.
4:37, Josh Howard baseline teardrop gives the Mavericks a two-point lead.
4:08, Kidd takes it to the basket and gets fouled. It’s weird/nice to see Kidd taking it to the basket tonight as well.
3:20, Shawn Marion hits Eric Dampier with a nasty assist. Dampier shot fake to dunk. That was a beautiful play.
2:49, I don’t know what Jason Terry was thinking when he decided to try and dunk on Andersen Varejao in the paint but it pays off with a trip to the line.
2:09, Varejao is confused and thinks he is shooting free throws (no such luck).
1:40, Tim Thomas with the up and under. Mavericks are still attacking the basket.
Mavericks lead by two going into the half (Lebron misses a three off the front of the rim to end the quarter).

3rd Quarter:

11:48, Illegal defense (technical foul on Shaq). Didn’t know Tim Thomas would be shooting the free throw (he misses).
11:38, Tim Thomas makes up for the missed free throw with a 13-footer jumper.
11:18, Jump ball as the ball gets wedged between the rim and backboard. I think possession should go to the other team.
10:54, Barea gets a fast break layup after a nice block from Marion.
9:57, Dampier gets another lob at the rim (his second tonight) but misses the shot. Takes his third foul at the other end.
9:29, Three-pointer from Tim Thomas. He has really stepped up tonight in the absence of Dirk.
8:47, Barea goes around the "Big Slowness" and hits Dampier rolling to the basket. Run that play again out of the time out, Carlisle.
8:09, Tim Thomas is streaky and currently on fire. Look for the ball to continue to go to him.
6:42, 18 points for Tim Thomas. That knee injury is a thing of the past.
5:23, Bad choice from Jason Kidd on the three. Mavericks are currently only up by three.
3:22, Jason Terry jumper to give the Mavericks a four point lead.
2:49, Marion hits a runner in the lane with the assist from Kidd.
2:00, Marion goes with the exact same runner in the same spot except Jason Terry assists.
Josh Howard has been relatively quiet tonight. Defense has not been too bad.
:12.1, Terry hits a contested jump shot at the elbow. Lebron James picks up an offensive foul on the other end.
They review the play and put time back on the clock, the Mavericks just let it run out.

4th Quarter:

11:25, Jason Terry seems to have found his shot again (makes a runner).
10:54, Terry hits Gooden with an assist for a nice layup.
10:17, Skip pass to Josh Howard who hits a three. The Mavericks are still keeping the scoring up but the defense has fallen off a bit.
9:27, Splendid block by Gooden on Lebron, leads to a basket on the other end by Howard.
8:27, Lebron picks up his third foul catching Tim Thomas in the act of shooting with the shot clock running out. Thanks for bailing the Mavericks out, Lebron.
8:10, Mavericks only up by three. Need to get back in the paint.
7:20, Tim Thomas has cooled off. He has missed three consecutive three pointers.
6:30, Josh Howard takes himself out of the game after missing a short shot and almost getting his own rebound.
5:52, Dampier with the up and under. Glad to see him exploit that mismatch.
5:12, Tim Thomas gets fouled going to the rim. That is much better than him taking another three.
4:46, Great defensive stop by the Mavericks leads to a Marion post score on the other end. The Mavericks are closing the quarter out strong.
3:56, Jason Kidd might have just hit a dagger three. However, the game is never truly over if you have Lebron.
2:35, Jason Terry hits a big three as well.
1:49, It always shows you how hard your team wants to win the game when one of your top players goes to the floor for a ball. Jason Terry tries to get the jump ball call on Moe Williams.
1:14, What a pass from Tim Thomas to Marion in the lane! Marion extends the lead to three possessions with a layup.
:10.8, Terry isn’t making his jumpshots but he gets a contested scoop shot in the lane.
Mavericks win 102-95.

Some Choice Statistics:

The first time Eric Dampier has ever been ejected in his NBA career came in the Mavericks loss to the Houston Rockets on Friday.
Jason Kidd this year is the only player in the NBA with a rebound/assist double-double. Pretty amazing that he rebounds so well for a guard.
Tim Thomas has only missed one free throw this year. He is 17 of 18 from the line.

Closing Thoughts:

Six players in double figures and 38 points in the paint is usually going to put your team in a good position to win a ball game. The Mavericks should look to consistently attack the paint and not fall in love with the jump shot on consecutive possessions to keep their offensive efficiency up.

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Dear Mavericks,

Thank you for the lovely gift! Just what I wanted. :-D

Love,
-BJ

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some say that he sleeps on a bed made of maple planks . . . and that his ankles are custom built by Porsche . . .

by BJ, Michigan Ex-pat on Dec 20, 2009 11:27 PM CST reply actions

i got a quick question for you guys.

i’m thinking about picking up tim thomas for my fantasy league and i wanted to know whther or not his minutes would increase because of tonight’s performance. i know dirk is playing next game, but you guys think thomas will produce off of bench? say 10 ppg or so?

Rockets>>>>>>Jazz
Texans>>>>>>>Titans
Super Mario>>>>>>>Vince Young

by Rockets 4 Life on Dec 21, 2009 2:06 AM CST reply actions

maybe 10 ppg

but not worth starting, just stash him on your bench

"Hang-Dai, Wu...Hang-Fu$&ing-Dai"

by Walter Sobchak on Dec 21, 2009 1:24 PM CST up reply actions

Mavs Head Coach Rick Carlisle

On the game… "We had everybody really playing a significant part in the game. Tim (Thomas) made critical plays through the entire game. One of the biggest plays might have been the assist to (Shawn) Marion at the last minute in a half for the bucket that I think pushed it back up to seven or whatever it was and that was extremely important. They kept running it at us and hitting some shots and so forth. It was big. I thought Jet (Jason Terry) played one of his better defensive games in terms of his effort on the ball. He was guarding some guys that were tough. We were a little better in the second half than we were in the first half defensively. They were shooting 53% in the first half and you know, we took them down significantly, so that was big. But, it is a huge win. Anytime you can win without a guy like Dirk (Nowitzki) it just says a lot about the group of guys and the team. We are obviously happy with it."

On stopping LeBron James in the fourth quarter… "Well look, he is obviously a priority of ours. Shawn Marion and Josh Howard did a great job on him and you know, part of it is you have to be fortunate and have him miss some shots he normally makes, that did happen. But, I thought we did a good job of keeping a body in front of him and not letting him get those wild, runs to the basket where he just, you know, is dunking the ball and getting to the free throw line. The effort was good, the team effort was good on him, and it’s, you know, it is a real important win for us coming off the Houston game. With the one-three, pick and roll we were getting screwed up on it and we had smaller guys in the game and we were trying to show and get shaped back up. When we got Jason (Kidd) back in along with (Shawn) Marion we were able to switch it because of his size, and that helps, it helps. The thing was I was trying to buy him a couple of extra minutes rest. Anytime you can do that it is important. The minutes were reasonable tonight and we didn’t have anybody play real crazy minutes."

On Tim Thomas… "The best compliment I can give a guy like that is to say he’s a pro. He got off to a disappointing start with the knee problem, but he worked with at the rehab and his training camp started in late October. He had to get a lot of it done himself. You know, running by himself, sprinting by himself, trying to simulate NBA game action, which is very difficult to do. But, when called upon, even early on he was able to do positive things even when he first came back and we had some guys missing at that point. You know, Josh (Howard) was still out. Shawn Marion was out one of those games, one or two of those games, as well. He has just given us positive production any time he has been on the floor and people have to guard him because he is a great shooter. Him being here is because of one guy and that is Mark (Cuban). It was Mark’s idea to sign him and recruit him and you know, Timmy had been two or three places in a pretty short period of time, but you know, Mark has watched a lot of film on Synergy about him, which is a company that I guess he owns. He found out he owns it and spends a lot of time on that. So, he watched very closely that not only is Tim a very good offensive player, but defensively he is underrated, based on a lot of the numbers. In a situation like this when you lose a guy like Dirk that is such a great shooter, it is a real blessing to have a guy like Tim ready to go. The way he stepped in and not only played but played really well."

Mavs forward Tim Thomas

(What was your offensive M.O. tonight?) – "Pretty much like every night, be aggressive and of course with Dirk being out coach gave me the nod as far as being in the starting lineup and I just wanted to be aggressive with the minutes I was given tonight."

(You’re know as a 3-point specialist but you were in the paint a lot tonight) – "For the last couple of years I’ve been stuck in situations where I’ve been pretty much stuck behind the 3-point line and coming into this season I told coach I wanted to get back to playing an all-around game which is my strength. Backing guys down, going to the post and driving in and pulling up for jumpers so he’s allowed me to do that and that’s what I am capable of doing."

(What did you guys do defensively in the 2nd half?) – "We just locked in and locked in on him (LeBron) defensively. We made some mistakes in the first half and we corrected them at halftime and LeBron was doing most of the scoring in the first half so we just wanted to make the other guys beat us. The main thing was our rotations on defense and we all did what we had to do to win."

Mavs guard Jason Terry

"The thing that was important for me offensively was to be aggressive and getting to the free-throw line helped me early and I just need to stay on the attack, but for the most part we knew Dirk was going to be out so we knew someone was going to step up and Tim (Thomas) stepped up for us offensively tonight. He’s an integral part of this team."

"We’ve got a tough, savvy group of veterans in this locker room and if anyone goes down, regardless of who it is, I know we’re all going to step up. But since it was Dirk you could see it on all of our faces that we need to come out and make a statement tonight, but we do miss him and hope he’ll be back soon."

"Everyone in this locker room knew what this game meant to us. We went up there (Cleveland) off of a back-to-back and they beat us pretty bad and it was embarrassing the way we lost so tonight we knew we needed to get this game and we were determined and strong willed defensively in the second half. Josh and Shawn did a pretty good job on LeBron in the second half."

Cleveland Head Coach Mike Brown

“You’ve got to give Dallas credit. I thought Tim Thomas did a solid job filling in for Dirk tonight. I thought in the first half we were sending them to the free throw line a ton. We did a better job in the second half of not sending them to the free throw line, but our defense was not that good. They [Dallas] went from shooting 40% at half time to up over almost 48% in the second half and they were getting a lot of looks off of just random pick-and-roll action. Our pick-and-roll defense was not good second half tonight to say the least and I thought that was a big advantage for Dallas in the ballgame. We have to do a better job in that area, not only at the point of the pick-and-roll, but also if we get beat during that pick-and-roll. They did a nice job of just collapsing our defense and getting into the teeth of our defense and making the right pass during that action.”

(In the second half your offense wasn’t able to find much of a flow at all…) – “Yeah, we didn’t. I’ve still got to figure this out – there was a couple of times I know LeBron drove the ball and he got hit and there was no call. And I’ve got to do a better job o understanding the rule, because I don’t know what’s a foul and what’s not a foul. You get told different things at different times and I’ve got to figure that out, he’s [LeBron] got to figure that out, and we as a team have to figure that out because it’s disrupting the flow of how we’re trying to play offensively and we let it get to us tonight.”

(You didn’t have Shaq’s production tonight…) – “It was tough having the big fellow on the bench. Again, it was similar calls that were just a little odd in terms of when Shaq backs down he gets banged, he gets banged, and then he goes into a move. And you don’t know when it’s going to be called and when it’s not going to be called. And those two guys [Shaq and LeBron] I know for me those two guys are the hardest to figure out of when they’ll get a call and when they won’t get a call because they’re so big and strong that every time there’s a no call or a bump or something like that you hear that they initiated the call. And maybe they are, I don’t know, I’ve got to go back and watch the tape from tonight’s game, but it definitely affected the rhythm that we had offensively. Having said that, that had nothing to do with our pick-and-roll defense I don’t think.”

Cavs Forward LeBron James

On the game… "I thought both teams played particularly well. I think the one that got a good spurt, got a good comfort level, a good feel on the offensive end was going to win the game. The drove the ball, they kicked out for threes, they really hurt us with some tough long jumpers."

(On Mavs playing well without Dirk) "That’s why they’re one of the best teams in the West, one of the best teams in the league. They’ve got guys even without Dirk that are All Stars on their team. Josh Howard and J-Kidd and Jason Terry, and the rest of those guys, Tim Thomas played great tonight. Guys stepped up."

(On their offensive flow in the second half) "We had a good spurt early in the third quarter and we started making our run after they went up 10. We came back really well then but after that we didn’t do very well."

"Defensively I thought we were okay. I thought we flowed around and they made some tough shots even with us getting up in a lot of guys faces. When you get a good spurt you want to try and carry that momentum, but they continued to make shots and took it away."

Cavs Guard Mo Williams

On the game without Dirk… "Obviously when you’re best player is out it gives other guys confidence and gives other guys more opportunities. They took advantage of it tonight."

(On the game tomorrow night) "Tomorrow we’re going to see a lot more pick and rolls than we did tonight. We’ve got to be prepared."

The Charles Barkley 2009/10 Ancestors Count: 3 Grandmothers , 0 Mother Alltime: Reg. 26-0 Playoffs 7-0

"There were arms coming from everywhere, and I knew they weren’t going for the ball," Miller said. "I was just trying to get [the shot] up before they called some crap like ‘on the ground.’ "
"What do you want me to do?" Wright asked. "Do you want me to Derek Fisher him?"
"Give them some fucking credit, i mean for real." Jackson said.
"I just fell on my face for no reason," Bryant deadpanned. "I'm a klutz."
"Fucking right i'm preachin' it!" Carlisle replied. He later added "We need to not always make hard work out of sex."
"Rough life, isn't it. It's tough all over, isn't it." Smith chuckled.
Sheed for $30k: "They've got to know that he's a [darn] flopper. That's all Turkododo do."
Mutombo, Ewing and Yao at the restaurant...
MUTOMBO: "The chicken is the bomb."
EWING: [Rubbing belly] "I gotta go work out tonight. I'm full. You got a treadmill for me?"
YAO: " Leave your car keys here and run home. I'll give you the keys tomorrow."

by DOH on Dec 21, 2009 2:20 AM CST reply actions