Friday Morning Links

Rick Carlisle stepped up after the game and blamed himself for the loss.

"I told the players they fought their hearts out and really deserved to win," coach Rick Carlisle said. "I'm going to take the blame for this. When you sit in this chair, there are times you have to be man enough to say you blew it."

"We played Pierce a few different ways and had some of our best guys guarding him, but we should have double-teamed him. My heart is with our guys and their effort. This one's on me. We could have made more shots, but I'm going to take all the blame for this one."

Pierce outscored the Mavs 18-17 in the fourth quarter.  He was fantastic, but Dallas should have definitely tried something else when it became clear Boston was going to try and ride Pierce to the win.

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Sefko says another big trade is a bad idea.

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Injury update: Sefko noted in his game recap linked above that Josh Howard got a cortisone shot in his left wrist before the game, and that Jason Terry is eying an early return.  His Hand will be totally wrapped up for another week.

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Mike Fisher was not too impressed with the offense last night.  It was literally all on Dirk.

There is only one hope when that's the playcall from the bench. And that is that Nowitzki be counted on to make EVERY SINGLE OFF-BALANCE CONTESTED SHOT HE TAKES. And. ... HE MUST TAKE EVERY SHOT.

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Kelly Dwyer has his thoughts on the game.

And Dallas didn't have enough to put Boston away. Not when Dallas (who is a slightly above-average rebounding team per possession, even with Dirk's caroms falling off this season) gets out-rebounded 50-31, or when the Mavericks numbah deux et trey shoot 6-19 (osh Howard) and 1-8 (ason Kidd).

It's a joke from 1995, and it never gets old.