PGQ Game 67 'Screw the streak"

Happy Birthday!

Mavs vs Knicks | March 13, 2010

Mavericks Head Coach Rick Carlisle [needs PMS Defense tonight]

(on defense) "We were defensively. And, look, we were poor offensively, too. It was a poor performance all around. We really didn’t come close to winning a quarter. When you get thoroughly thrashed like that, it’s something that’s difficult. We’ve got work to do. We’ve got a long three days before the next game and we have a couple of practice days Monday and Tuesday where we’re going to have to get some things done."  

(on not being able to come back from slow start) "They hit 16 3s. We knew they are a team that has been streaky from the 3-point line. They are capable of both making 10 or 15, or they are capable of having a lot of misses. We obviously weren’t close enough to them early in the game to knock them off their rhythm. They got going. They are a very potent offensive team. They did a good job defensively tonight. The end result was really a lopsided game to say the least."   

(on if his team got a little full of itself) "I think this kind of night defines, to a certain degree, the adage about on a given night, anything can happen. I didn’t sense overconfidence or being full of ourselves but over a 24-day period when you don’t lose a game, you’re going to have teams gunning for you and you’re going to have teams showing up that are going to get hot. If you don’t have answers, it’s going to be ugly. Tonight was ugly."   

(on leading league in wins when trailing at halftime) "You’re look at the entire season as a sample. I think we are a lot different team in the last 25 days than we were the whole season. I’d like to know what the numbers were since the trade. If the symptoms are the same, that’s something we’re obviously looking to remedy. I talked it before the game. I’ve talked about it a lot this year. We’ve got to be a running team to be successful. We didn’t start running until halfway through the first quarter. Jason Kidd was, at times, getting rebounds and then outrunning the other four guys down the court with the ball. Running the floor and using the space on the floor takes a commitment. It took too long for us to get into that tonight. That was another problem. By that time, they’ve got things going and it’s more difficult to stop them."  

Dallas Forward Shawn Marion

*smooch*

(On the Mavs winning streak coming to an end) "You especially don’t want it to come to an end like this, but at the same time it was a great run. Now it’s time to start another one. I think we’ve just got to learn from it. It seemed like everything we did out there wouldn’t go right tonight. They hit everything, they had everything going, and they were attacking the basket earlier and once we cut them off from that they started hitting shots from outside. It just opened up the floor for them. We’ve got to just chunk this one up and throw it out the window."  

(Coach talked about the slow starts before the game – is that something that concerns you?) "Not really. I think we definitely could start a little bit better, but the first couple minutes are like everybody is still trying to get loose a little bit I guess. That’s what happened. So, it’s hard to sit here and pinpoint that, he’s probably got a valid point with that as well. But, it just depends. Sometimes you can start out really well, but if you’re missing your shots early, what difference does it make? It’s like a catch-22 with that. But, at the same time I think the intensity at the defensive end probably needs to be a bit better as well. That’s what I think is what he means. But, for the most part, learn from this and go back out there and start another one [winning streak]."  

Dallas Guard Jose Barea

Gobsmacked.

(On the winning steak coming to an end) "We had a good thing going. We just didn’t come out with energy tonight, we had a bad one. I’ve got to give credit to the Knicks; they came out to play, they made shots, and the made the game a lot harder on us tonight."  

(Do the slow starts concern you?) "No, we’ll be alright. We’ll come to practice on Monday and Tuesday, we’ll figure it out. And we’ll get back to playing good defense and playing with energy. We didn’t have energy tonight."  

(Was this a wake-up call?) "Oh, yeah, we kind of relaxed today. Yeah, we’ve got to get back grinding and working hard, and getting wins."

Knicks Head Coach Mike D’Antoni

(What is your reaction to the team’s performance tonight?) "Well, great. I thought we competed, that’s what we talked about today. And it’s a lot more fun to play this way. Now, you can’t play good all night, you can’t make shots all the time, you can throw the ball away, but if you go out and compete and enjoy yourself and have some chemistry among yourselves, then why not? And they did it, and then obviously Toney Douglas stepped up and had a huge game, and gave us some things that we don’t normally have. The athleticism, making shots, Bill Walker, and you can’t just go down the whole list. They all brought something and turned into a great outing."   

(On the defensive end what did you see that you liked?) "That they were hustling, and playing together, and doing the things that we talked about and executing it every time, not just one every two times. We had very little ‘I fell asleep on that play’, where before it was a lot of times. And they just did exactly what we talked about and executed perfectly."   

(You think a team like Dallas could overlook a team like you guys?) "You’d have to ask Dallas that. Obviously, they didn’t play great tonight. But, I’ve been in the West before and every game is crucial for them, and the difference between the second spot and the third spot, or what whatever, I don’t know how much they overlooked us, or they just thought maybe it would be a little bit easier, but we played at a level pretty high. And I’m sure they’ll get back. Sooner or later they’ve got to lose, they’ve won about 13 in a row."  

Knicks Forward Al Harrington

Smallball? - Yeeehaaa!

"It feels good. Revenge is sweet sometimes. That’s a really good team over there but we just caught them at the right time. They were ripe for the picking. When you’ve had that much success, and you know the Knicks are coming in and you feel you can score a 150 points on them in your sleep, that team didn’t show up today. I guess we caught them by surprise, but it was a big win for us."  

(Where did this win come from?) "That’s just been us all year. When we can get a game where we can make shots and string them together, three or four stops at a time, we can beat anybody. We’re just happy that we were able to bounce back from last night’s debacle to win this one tonight."  

(What was the difference between the two games against the Mavs) "I think the main difference was that was a more focused Dallas team that we played in New York. Tonight we have to give ourselves a lot of credit too because we came out and played hard from start to finish. We never had any letdowns or when we got a lead we never let it go. We normally don’t do that, so there was a lot of focus on our behalf."  

What Toney Douglas do.

Knicks Forward David Lee

Anything goes tonite!

"Bill played great. Tracie gave us a good lift in the third quarter, a couple of minutes where he hits a couple of tough shots. I thought we were just clicking on all cylinders offensively. But the game was won on the defensive end."  

(On the revenge factor from last game) "I wouldn’t talk about revenge. Dallas is having a great season, and we are really struggling right now. The fact of the matter is we had to be on our toes here because we didn’t want to get beat by 50 points again. The way Dallas has been playing, if we didn’t bring our best effort that was going to happen again. So that was motivation for us to come in and play our best. And maybe they took us lightly, maybe they didn’t. But they’re a great basketball team and they just didn’t have their best night tonight."

Game Recap

Summary

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