I don't know about everyone else, but I thought Dallas had lost that game at least ten different times last night.
Chuck Carlton was impressed that the Mavs did not just fold up shop.
At any given point, the Mavericks could have let reality and human nature take over, especially when Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith continued to drain shot after shot. After all, the Mavericks watched a five-point deficit turn into 10 at halftime, thanks to one Denver possession.
The pessimist in me kept expecting that game to get out of hand like game two did. After each flagrant or technical, after a JR Smith bank shots... but it didn't. So that was a nice change.
And Rick Carlisle had the quote of the game.
"We were nastily determined to somehow win," coach Rick Carlisle said. "We came into the huddle at one point and talked about keeping our poise and not getting any more [technicals]. I just thought that the way we fought was great, and I didn’t want to take that away from any of those guys during the game.
"It’s one thing if you’re unnecessarily getting them, [but] I thought the reason we were getting them is because we wanted to win the game so bad."
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Tim Cowlishaw was glad that Dallas avoided being swept.
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Steve Javie is terrible.
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Marc Stein writes in the Daily Dime about the show Carmelo and Dirk put on.
Nowitzki and Anthony became just the third twosome ever in a playoff game to each total at least 40 points and 10 rebounds. Jerry West (41 and 10) and Elgin Baylor (45 and 17) did it as Los Angeles Lakers teammates against Detroit in 1962. Michael Jordan (42 and 12) and Charles Barkley (42 and 13) did so for Chicago and Phoenix, respectively, in the 1993 NBA Finals. Then the list ends with Dirk and Melo.
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Kelly Dwyer has a bunch on the game insluding some praise/advice for Dirk.
Not unlike Carmelo, just about any shot he decides to toss up will have a solid chance of going in. And like a lot of players who can go over either shoulder, on either block, in either direction, in a number of ways, the sheer amount of possibilities and ways for Dirk to score sometimes boggles the mind. His mind, most importantly. It leads him thinking way too much, trying to set up the perfect shot, when sometimes a one-footed fadeaway off of no contact from 17-feet is a 70 percent proposition.