Mike Fisher breaks down all the possible seed scenarios. The important thing -- If Dallas wins and New Orleans loses then the Mavs are 6th. If Dallas loses and Utah wins then the Mavs are 8th.
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JJT wrote something about the Mavs, and Sefko is surprisingly negative and bashes the Mavs effort.
Yes, the Mavericks came to life. They made a buzzer-beater. But that doesn't let them off the hook for the sort of effort they put out for about 42 minutes. They acted as though they had nothing to gain, nothing to lose.
OK seriously, look around. Dallas has won four of the last five, were playing on the second night of a back-to-back, and were sitting J5. Sometimes games in the NBA against bad teams are close -- especially when you are only a seventh seed yourself. And what was New Orleans doing? Scoring 66 against Houston. Now that's something that deserves some criticism.
Maybe I'm just in a bad mood today, but I'm a little dumbfounded by two pretty negative articles over at the DMN while the Mavs have been playing pretty good basketball in their last five.
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Dirk was impressive last night.
Dirk Nowitzki scored 17 of Dallas' first 19 points in the third quarter. Proof that he was a beast in the paint? He was 8-of-8 from the line in that period alone on the way to his 34-point effort (8-of-19 from the floor and a muscular 16-of-17 from the line).
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Jason Terry acknowledges that Dallas has struggled against bad teams.
"It's been a struggle against the T-Wolves, Memphis, Oklahoma City, any CBA team or NBDL team," Terry said of the Mavericks' problems with the league's bottom-feeders. "It's going to prepare us for the playoffs. I strongly believe it. The best is yet to come for the Mavericks."
Fortunately there are no bad teams in the playoffs.