Not a fun way to lose. After Antoine Wright hit a three midway through the third quarter to give Dallas a 15 point lead, it felt like the Mavs were taking control. Four minutes later it was a six point game and George had replaced Howard after picking up his 4th foul. Things can change quickly in this game, but looking at the box score afterward it's hard to see how this game was close at all.
Dallas shot 38.9% to Boston's 48.6%. Dallas was outrebounded 50 - 31 (third worst rebound percentage of the season). No Jason Terry. The four bench players combined for Terry's season average in points. Jason Kidd scored 3 points on 1-8 from the field. Josh Howard was 6 of 19. Rajon Rondo grabbed as many rebounds as Dirk and Dampier together...
Josh Howard had this to say coming into the game:
I can promise it won't happen again. We're going to go out there and play our hardest to try and get the win.
And I think Dallas did play hard. It certainly didn't resemble the first meeting in anyway. If it hadn't been for an aggressive Dallas defense that forced 19 turnovers and a fantastic first half this could have been ugly. Boston is just really good. Better than Dallas. And if we had just listened to Zack in the open thread before the game we wouldn't have even had to watch.
this is to easy
we will control the game for 3.5 quarters... we will then lose the lead in the middle of the 4th... then start launching bad jump shots... yet somehow we will still be in striking distance with about 2 min to go... then the refs will F us over... and we will lose by about 6