PGQ Game 76 "Their French > Our French ....tonight"

Yeah, that kind of night.

Mavs vs Magic | April 1, 2010

Mavericks Head Coach Rick Carlisle

10 more Threes? Game.

(concerned about effort on second half of b-to-b?) "Without looking at the film, no, I’m not concerned about that. The thing that killed us was the threes. The last two times we played these guys, this year and last year, we made a real effort to run them off the line. There were a lot of times they had shots they would normally knock down but they didn’t make. And tonight, they were making them. There were times tonight when we didn’t do a good job of finding shooters in transition. Maybe there is an effort thing that comes into play. But really to me, it’s more communication and the fact that we were struggling to get the ball in the basket."  

(good defense by them or bad offense by Mavs?) "It’s probably both. They are a very good defensive team, top two or three in the league. They are going to make it hard. Early on, Dirk is the only thing we were really able to get going and that made it tougher because then they were locking in on him. The second half, we were able to get some more guys involved. Barea came in and made some things happen. JET got going and we had some better activity. But it was an uphill battle all night."  

(on winning on road but struggling at home/on fighting for No. 2 seed) "We’ve got to continue to work to get better. Look, we want the best seed possible. We are trying to get to number two, or number one, if something happened and the Lakers completely fell off the face of the earth. But playing your best at the right time is the real critical thing. As far as the home/road thing, do I have a great answer for it? I don’t. We’re a much better road team than we were last year. That’s a real positive. We’re not as good at home as we were last year and that’s been a challenge."  

(on starters lacking production) "We want to get everybody playing well. The fact is, there are going to be nights when guys have some struggles. That’s why you have a team so you can try to find other guys who can help. Our first unit, a lot of it, we’ve got to be efficient and move, screen well. That’s a group that plays a lot of basketball off the flow, a lot of play calling. The recognition of one another has to be really good. That group’s played some really fine basketball in some instances. We can do it, we just have to work to do it."

Just not tonight.

Mavs guard Jason Terry

Deja vu.

"That’s a team (Orlando) you can’t let get hot from the three. You have to take the three out of the game and wants you do that then they pretty much turn into a half court team. I think they had eight three’s in the first half and that just can’t happen so we’ve got to be ready for Oklahoma City on Saturday. It’s a big game for us."

Which mammal squeezes?

(How much of a factor was the back-to-back?) – "It really wasn’t that much of a factor. All throughout the season teams have back-to-backs, but we didn’t stick to our game plan and anytime you deviate from the plan it makes us struggle and that’s what happened tonight."

"Anytime you have a shot blocker like Dwight Howard he alters the game and that played a little bit of a factor tonight."

"Blame it on whatever you want, but it’s a loss and we have to get back at it and get a win."

Mavs forward Shawn Marion

Not much better than yesterday.

(Was it the natural leg wariness that comes with a back-to-back a factor tonight?) – "You actually can’t, there’s no answers you can put on that but at the same time I thought we were playing pretty good defense for the most part and if you take the three’s that they hit out of the equation we’re right there and they were shooting just as bad as we were from two. It was a frustrating night, we kept on fighting and we got it down to nine but we could never get over the hump. Every time we got within striking distance they hit a three and take your hat off to them, they hit big shots when they needed too."

"It felt like there was a lid on our basket tonight; we couldn’t get anything to go down. Some nights are like that and we just have to shake it off. We have six more to go and we need to get the win on Saturday."

Orlando Coach Stan Van Gundy

(On what is says about the Magic to win this game after Dallas had a back-to-back) "Both teams struggled to score in the first half. The score, both shooting in the 30s, then we shot 60% in the second half, and yet the back-to-back helps you. It certainly helps you. They missed some shots they would normally make, didn’t have legs, things like that. With that said, they were 11-7 on the second night of back-to-backs and had won five in a row. They had been playing well on those nights, so it was still great to get a win. We definitely had a little bit of an advantage with that, but you want to take advantage of it. I think our defense was pretty solid all night other than some dumb fouls, then we hit a stretch of a couple of turnovers. We gave them a little bit of a – I wouldn’t say back in it because it never got below double figures, but they had Dirk’s shot that could have cut it to seven, a good open look from three. We made some mistakes but other than that I thought we played well. Dwight is tremendous. Five blocks, 20 rebounds, it just makes it tough inside on people. I thought he was great as usual. Vince got on a nice roll, and obviously Pietrus had a huge night. And then I thought Jameer, in the third quarter, really got us going. We had some guys step up on both ends of the floor."

(On the contested shots) "I thought in the first half we took some very difficult shots, and then I thought on times on drives in the second half. I don’t mind when we’re going to the rim strong on big guy. I don’t like it when we are shooting runners over seven footers, I think that’s a bad shot. I thought in the first half we took too many shots with no passes. I thought our ball movement was better in the second half. We played more drive and kick and I think that’s why our percentage went up as much as it did."

Good job....missing the low five.

Orlando Point Guard Jameer Nelson

Eazy.

(About the team shooting better in the second half) – "That’s part of the game. You’re going to miss shots. You’re going to make shots. And that’s everybody. And if you’re missing shots, that doesn’t mean you’ve got to stop shooting and stop being aggressive. I know I’m a good shooter and I know the shots are going to go down."

(The coach talked about the responsibility of the team getting good shots) - "The thing is, he puts us in situations to be successful and to make plays for ourselves, and for each other. I think we’ve just got to control the game and be aggressive, like I said."

(Talk about Pietrus’ performance) – "He was great. He just totally would shoot shots that he got. He’s a great three-point shooter when he takes them. Everybody on the team can shoot, so it’s not – like I said – you miss a couple shots there’s no reason to stop shooting. You’ve got to shoot the ball if you’re going to make it."

(Talk about coming here and beating Dallas on their home court and what it means) – "Well, we know how good we are. We’re not cocky or overconfident or anything, but we know we can beat anybody when we play our game. We played great defensively, and pushed the ball, and got good shots when we needed to."

Orlando Forward Mickael Pietrus

In.

(Talk about how you shot – were you looking for the three ball tonight?) – "No, I try to mix my game. I try to go to the basket first and shoot free throws, and the rest of my game is going to come. And I was able to get open shots and I made them and that’s all it was."

(Talk about shutting Dallas down for a few minutes at a time tonight) – "That’s how we’ve been winning games all season, with our defense. I think when we can trust our defense the offense is going to come. So I think that every game we start it has to be defensively. And the rest of the game – we have a lot of shooters, we have [Dwight], so anything can happen [if we play defense]."

Game Recap

Also:

Defensive Fail, Brendan!