On the second night of a back to back in Los Angeles, the Mavericks defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 107-95. The victory gave the Mavericks their first ever season sweep of the Lakers.
Dirk Nowitzki laid waste to Los Angeles with 25 points, 9 rebounds, and 5 assists. He also passed Dominique Wilkins on the NBA All Time Scoring list; the Berlin Tall is now 11th all time. Brandan Wright finished a perfect 10 for 10 from the field and grabbed five rebounds. Jodie Meeks was the high point man for LA with 25 points.
Look y'all, after two late games in a row I am over tired. I usually try pretty hard to give you all a play by play style recap of the game. Not tonight. Here are my thoughts and I may lose it at some point.
Good things:
- Dirk got the ball early and often and cooked. It's amazing that Dallas does well when he gets shots. There SEEMS to be a correlation. Lakers defended him stupidly early and he made them pay. Really impressed with his rebounding and passing too. I can't say I love the beating he takes on the boards (not good for his legs or back over time) but we need him right now.
- Brandan Wright! He's shooting 84% over his last five games now. Seems good. So much of his game is based on momentum. If he starts well he plays well the whole game. If he fraks something up early, he plays like a kid in middle school who has pissed off his coach and is afraid he's going to get yelled at. His helpside defense was superb.
- Sam Dalembert had a GREAT game - 14 points and 14 rebounds. I wish they'd play him more later when the rebounding isn't there for the team, but LA is worse on the boards than Dallas, so tonight we didn't need him.
- Shawn Marion with a throw back 15 point, 8 rebound game. Good for him.
- Just excellent team rebounding.
Bad things:
- Monta Ellis was a bit of a tire fire tonight. He was essential in sealing the win, but he has got to stop pouting if his shot isn't falling. He was really effective as a playmaker (team high 9 assists) but Lordy he approached that game with a really lazy attitude. His defensive assignment was Jodie Meeks and Meeks lit him on fire. If Monta is tired, he needs to say so. Monta had some great spots tonight, but he's too important to this team to mentally check out.
- Vince Carter was really bad. It didn't matter. That's kind of refreshing.
- Too many sloppy turnovers.
- Devin Harris is not looking great lately. His aggressiveness is obviously key off the bench, but he's been terrible shooting and bad defensively, so if you take away his lob passes to Wright... he's not looking great.
Other thoughts:
- Kendall Marshall looks like a great back up guard. His hairline cannot be helpful on the dating scene. Then again he's a professional basketball player so I take that back I'm sure he's just fine out there. Go get em.
- Grizzlies beat the Nuggets and the Suns beat the Blazers. Dallas still has a hold on the 7th seed but they cannot afford to let down at all. The Kings got destroyed tonight and they've caused Dallas problems in every game this season. The guys in blue had best come ready to play Sunday night.
Alright, that's all for me. Sound off in the comments where I messed up. I'll do better next time, I'm just tired.