Spurs Game Cleanup

Moore recaps the game with the expected quotes.

"About 42 minutes of a [butt]-kicking," the Mavericks coach said.

"From the start to the end, we weren't us today," guard J.J. Barea said. "They played harder. They did everything better. They outplayed us in every aspect of the game."

No Duncan. No Ginobili.

No problem.

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Mike Fisher has his game observations and noticed one of the same things I did.

Matt Carroll, who for a moment is apparently Slick Rick's "New Stack,'' is guarding Roger Mason. And Mason has his way, driving and creating in the final two possessions of the first quarter to a) set up a layup for I Can't Believe It's Not Obuttero and then b) patiently holding while the clock runs down and then candy-from-babying his drive to the hole for an uncontested layup.

To start the second, Carroll was still on the floor. But Carlisle wouldn't allow him anywhere near Mason. Instead, the Mavs assigned their "stopper,'' Antoine Wright, to the guy.

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Moore has some quotes from Cuban saying they aren't interested in Marbury partly because they're happy with Barea.

"We looked at it early in the season," owner Mark Cuban said of pursuing Marbury if he were released. "But J.J. is playing a whole lot better.

"He's had some great games."

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For those who missed it last night, Dallas used one of the weirdest timeouts of the season last night, but you can't blame Carlisle for this one. 16 seconds into the second quarter, Dallas has the ball with nine second on the shot clock.  Antoine Wright has the ball with not a lot of options and tries to call a  20 second timeout.  Of course, Dallas didn't have one so they were forced to use a 10.  As soon as Wright called it you could see Carlisle stick his hands out as if to say, "wtf was that."

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Kelly Dwyer identifies one of the Mavs many problems right now.

But too often this season, Kidd and Wright routinely handicap the Mavericks to a point where the rest of the Dallas rotation needs to contribute near-perfect games just to win.

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As if the loss wasn't enough, blog favorite (and former Mav) Pops Mensah Bonus will apparently be joining the Spurs.  Pops leads the D-League in scoring and rebounding.