KneeJerk Recap (TM) Jonthefon v1.11
The Mavs (beat/
lost to) [the Utah Jazz]¹ tonight (thanks to/despite) Dirk’s awesomeness. The (cloud in the silver lining/major culprit) once more was the lack of support from his team-mates, with the exception of Tyson Chandler/Jason Kidd². Especially useless was Jason Terry/Caron Butler/J.J. Barea/Shawn Marion/Brendan Haywood³ and it is (GUESS WHAT) THEY’RE ALMOSTNOTALL USELESS.
¹ Inserted Opponent
² Only one of them, mind you
³ Two at the minimum, up to all five of them. I see what you did there, Bench...
Quotes
Coach Carlisle
"Shite, who told them that i believe in little guys?"
(On letting a 25-point lead go) "I’m happy that we won. I love that we were able to get off to that kind of a hot start. Those things never hold up. I was with a team in Indiana that got off to a 35-8 start in Utah one time and Utah came back to take the lead and we ended up barely winning. That’s a team that fights, and they fight back, and they had a bunch of guys out there in crunch time that are just hard playing guys and some of their stars were on the bench. Sometimes, particularly during this stretch, we’re studying everything very closely and you don’t blow those leads, but sometimes it happens. I like the way we hung in down the stretch, because they were hot, they were making shots, and we had to win the game. And we did. It’s a win that we needed. Is it perfect? No. But I just think sometimes there are those types of games where you just lose leads."
(Terry struggled through 3 quarters and stepped up in the 4th) "Well, in the last 5 minutes of the game he made some decisive shots – him and Dirk. It got started back when in the 1st quarter he took that one foul after the turnover, and then his second foul is really his third foul, and then he’s just out of the game. What it came down to tonight was him staying into the game mentally defensively, and then when opportunities came he had to be ready to shoot the ball. And I don’t know if we could’ve won the game without him. It was good. He just showed some real wherewithal hanging in there."
(On the fast Start) "We moved the ball great and we got stops. It was kind of a magical 6 or 8 minutes."
(On the fourth) "What it came down to tonight was Terry staying into the game mentally and defensively. And then when opportunities came, he had to be ready to shoot the ball. And I don’t know if we could’ve won the game without him. It was good. He just showed some real wherewithal hanging in there."
(On why Cropduster played in the fourth) "The stuff that we do down the stretch in games, Jet is just so important to it. And I believe in him. I just believe in the guy."
(On the last minutes) "In the last five minutes of the game, Terry made some decisive shots - him and Dirk."
(On Dirk's slightly above average shooting) "He's on a great run. You're not going to shoot 10 for 12 every night, but a guy of his skill level is capable of it."
(On when to screw the winstreak) "I don’t think the team really cares about the win streak. Our core guys that have been here a long time, they’ve been on streaks a lot longer than this. These guys won 17 in a row one year. That part of it isn’t a novelty to our team. We’re a veteran team and we’re trying to become a great team."
Deshawn Threevenson
(On the Troops) "Whenever the soldiers do what they do for us and we can see them in the stands rooting for us, it’s always a special game."
(On hitting 5 Threes) "I was just catch and shooting. I work a lot with Rick. But I just work hard and keep shooting."
(On playing Terry instead of him in the 4th) "I think that’s the right move by far. Even if I had it going - no disrespect to myself or anybody - that’s the right move."
Jason 'No conscious feelings, pls' Terry
(On the win) "It’s a huge feat for us. Playing a team like Utah, you’ve got to be tough. You would think you get up 20 or 30 points in a game and they’d kind of let us walk away with it. But not the Utah Jazz."
(On the Reason for the win) "We persevered, fought through it, got to the fourth quarter, got stops when we needed to and put them away."
(On playing in the 4th) "I give Coach Carlisle a lot of credit. He easily could have went with somebody else. He stayed confident in me and the guys kept me going."
(On the dagger) "I told Dirk two possessions prior, ‘I’m gonna be in the corner and I’m gonna be ready. I know my spots of the floor. I know where I shot high percentages from. And he did a great job of drawing the defense and he had the pass. The passer makes the shooter, and he did an outstanding job of getting it to me."
Dirk ' 3 FTS missed, as usual' Nowitzki
"Why, yes, praying might help. Or not."
(On the 29-4 run) "It was an unbelievable start. One of the best runs that I’ve been a part of in this league. Everything was clicking on both ends of the floor. Threes were going down that didn’t even touch the net."
(On the Jazz coming back) "They slowly chipped away and chipped away and finally tied the game there in the fourth, and we had to really dig deep, grind it out and get some stops. Terry got hot at the right moment which really helped, and made shots for us down the stretch. We definitely made it harder on ourselves than we should have."
(On the Jazz) "You’ve got to give them credit. They kept playing. We all know a team that’s coached by Jerry Sloan is going to keep competing even if they’re down 50. We had to really grind it out there in the fourth and JET got hot at the right time."
(On Cropdusting for 3 and JETting for 1) "It would have been nice a little earlier, but sometimes you’ve got to wait on him a little bit."
Utah Jazz
Coach Sloan
"Ok, i flipped the coin. Head is Freethrows for us, Tail is Fouls on them, right Steve? C'mon, at least pretend to be interested!"
(On the Loss) "It looked like we weren't interested. I hate to say that, but I have to be honest about it. I think you have to be interested in wanting to win and not looking for excuses to be tired or whatever the case may be. They just tried to bury us, fortunately we fought back, but that’s no consolation."
(What was the problem in the 1st quarter?) – "What [did] I say? I said we came out and we were trying to play like we were tired. We never competed at all. They shot in our face to start the ballgame like we never guarded them. We just tried to guard them with our head and that’s not good enough."
(It’s been a problem all season, you’ve had comebacks before, but 25 is a lot to get down) – "There’s not question about that. I tried to substitute different guys and move guys in and out a little bit to see if we could get something going, but we couldn’t. We got back to 14 for a long period of time and then of course coming down the stretch you’ve got Nowitzki and Terry – they had big games to finish us of."
(Anything psychologically that these guys need to do?) – "I don’t know psychological. I’m not a psychologist. All I know is when you come out here on the floor play hard. Get after people, guard them, show them respect and guard them, and I don’t think we did that to start with. When we started doing that we got back into the ballgame a little bit."
(How much did Brewer and Elson help you?) – "If everybody makes shots everybody helps you. Ronnie Brewer made a couple shots. Fran Elson was trying to guard Nowitzki; we don’t have anybody to really go out and stop the guy, nobody does, he’s such a terrific player. At least he was battling and trying to make him work for everything and we kind of got back into the ballgame, they had a little bit of a let down, and we just couldn’t finish it this time."
Deron 'Hi Charles' Williams
"Got hit by a Cropduster?"
(On the Jazz falling in an 4-29 Hole) "Our defense wasn't as good as it should have been. A lot of their shots were tough shots, but they came out with a lot more energy than us. It felt like they just wanted to blow us out of the game early."
(On the Mavs) "This is the best Mavs team I've seen since I've been in the NBA. Across the board, they have so much talent and depth. But they're just playing a lot better defensively. This is by far the best defensive team we've seen from them. Coach Carlisle is doing a great job offensively. You know you're going to score points, but they're getting stops and making plays when they need to."
Paul 'Should i take some Threes' Millsap
Original Caption: DALLAS - DECEMBER 11: XX XX against XX during a game on December 11, 2010 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2010 NBAE (Photo by Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images)
(Is there something serious going on or was it that Utah just faced a hot Dallas team) "It was. The main thing was confidence. They came out with a lot of confidence. And it showed in the first few minutes. They was just shooting shots just to shoot them. Just get 'em up to the basket and they went in. So, confidence had a lot to play with that."
(Are the Jazz being as aggressive during first quarter as they are during second through fourth) "First off, we've got to match that intensity in the first quarter. We've got to come out with the same swagger, the same confidence as they did, to not put ourselves in that predicament. We've just got a little down cause they was hitting shots. But in the second half we bogged down, played some good defense and forced them to take some tough shots."
(Being confident when they take the court) "I guess we've got to force ourselves to have it in the first quarter. We know what type of talent we have, what we can do. We've just got to do it from jump - from jump to finish."
Darius CJ Miles
(Why the slow start against Mavericks?) "They came out blazing, and we didn't do enough to try to slow it down either, though. We let them - they shot in our faces, they got around us. Mostly they made 3s, though, and they really killed us. And we didn't do enough to try to take them out of that rhythm. We could've at least made them put it on the floor; do something. They made some tough shots, also. We've got to be able to come back at 'em or something. Foul somebody, do something - knock somebody down and just try to slow that crowd down, slow that momentum down. We didn't do it."
(And how can you do it?) "Come out with that intensity. Not let somebody knock us down, then get back up and figure, thinking now they're not going to play us. That team's on a 11-game winning streak for a reason - well, 12, now. That's because they come out and they go after people. They do. They did it in our building. They did it here. They did it the past 11 teams before us. We've just got to knock them in the mouth first."
Vids
Game Recap
Links
Hoopdata Boxscore (you guessed it, the threes made it)
D-WILL is Charles Barkley's Grandmother (once again).
And another imperative, David Locke for Jazz.com
FT-Watch
Dirk Nowitzki missed 3 Fts. WTF is wrong with you?
20-20-4 Watch
...is broken because Dirk stole all the boards.
Disclaimer: If you couldn't tell by now, all italic sentences are made up thoughts, not actual quotes. Also, timelines, huh?