There are so many things I want to write, in this recap. The number one is what the #$*# is Jason Terry’s problem. But in all honesty, that’s Jason Terry for you. His brilliance is his swagger and his shot. It’s always been a Mavs paradox.
Do you give the ball to Dirk, who’s made three theres in the last three minutes to tie the game, give the Mavs the lead and then give them a two possession advantage with 2:46 to go?
Of course you do. You’d have to be insane not to. Rick Carlisle did not draw up Jason Terry taking a million years to shoot a terrible shot on the Mavs second to last possession , with Dirk open at the arc, then try to throw the ball away on the last possession, then take a shot he really should have hit after all just because the defense was so confused by how insane it all was, and miss it.
But that’s Jason Terry for you. It’s the reason the Mavs are champions.
aaaaaaa....aaaaaaaaaaAAAAaaaa.....AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAA
This is the kind of game that makes you wonder who the Mavs really are. It’s because, for all their struggles, they should really have won it. They should have won it despite OKC getting 33 free throws to their 10, getting into the penalty with 7 minutes left to go in the fourth on a series of fouls that would probably make Manu Ginobili grin with appreciation. They should have won it, despite getting outrebounded 45-36.
They should have won it despite losing Brendan Haywood, moments into the game, with a twisted ankle.
Why should they have won it? No idea. But it took all that, and two incredibly dumb possessions by Jason Terry for ostensibly the best team in the West to win it.
Is that, on some level, good news? Maybe?
God, who knows.
Dirk has done what no player has ever done, completely lost the touch on his two-point shots and gone insane from the arc. He’s shooting 60% out there over the last five, which, considering he’s shot under 50% from the field four out of five games and under 40% twice, is kind of an amazing stat.
As mentioned above, I’m about to strangle Terry, which is actually how I feel every year at this time, so maybe that’s fine.
Lamar Odom needed 9 shots to score 6 points, but in fairness to him, several were good shots that got blocked and a couple were fouls that weren’t called. More disappointing is his two rebounds in 24 minutes, and his invisibility, more or less.
Yi Jianlian looked okay? I guess?
Sean Williams played 3 minutes! I liked it. He had 1 o-board, got an unfair foul called on him, and only needed the starting center to go out with an injury, the backup center to have a concussion, the third center to die in a bizarre gardening accident, the fourth to burn down and sink into the swamp…and so on…to get those three minutes.
Roddy hit a nice three. I didn’t really notice him, besides. Since he had 1 board and 1 assist—with, I should say, 3 steals and 2 blocks—that’s not entirely an innacurate picture.
Overall this is a team that’s used to being close at the end of games, so they sort of let your Utah’s score 40 points in the fourth to let that happen, and is used to doing the things they need to close it out, but, as if their bodies had been replaced by strange, alien bodies, they no longer do those things. So Terry drives in and something amazingly dumb happens and all anyone can do is kinda look at each other.
They should probs fix that.