The Perpetual NBA Thread

**tsupermario** · May 5th, 2007 01:02 PM

Mavs takedown

Mavs might not recover from collapse
Michael Rosenberg / Special to FOXSports.com

We hate to pour salt in the Dallas Mavericks' wounds, but since the Mavs are pretty much swimming in the Dead Sea right now, we might as well.

This little meltdown against Golden State was the worst playoff loss ever in American sports.

Worse than when the Yankees blew a 3-0 lead over the hated Red Sox. Worse than the Colts losing Super Bowl III to the Jets. Worse than the other two No. 8-over-No.1 upsets in NBA history.

Why? First of all, as a pure upset, this was as stunning as anything we've ever seen. Dallas won 25 more regular-season games than the Warriors. For some context: Cleveland, the No. 2 seed in the East, won 26 more games than the Celtics — and the Celtics finished last in the Eastern Conference by four games. In other words, that is a huge gap.

The Mavs had an even bigger advantage in experience. Dallas made the Finals last year. Golden State's last playoff appearance was so long ago, Mark Cuban actually had to check his bank balance before he paid the mortgage.

And because there are so many scoring plays, basketball is the least volatile of our team sports — over a seven-game series; the best team usually prevails. The only other 8-over-1 NBA upsets came in five-game series: the '99 Knicks over Miami and the '94 Nuggets over Seattle. (And neither Miami nor Seattle had Finals experience.)

These Mavs won 67 regular-season games. Only one team in NBA history, the '96 Bulls, won more than 69.

So simply on results, this is as big an upset as we've ever seen. Factor in the emotional misery for Mavs' fans and it is much worse.

Consider:

a) Dallas lost to its old coach, Don Nelson, who is still at odds with Cuban, the owner. Nelson has a lot in common with Larry Brown — he is an absolute magician with undermanned teams but doesn't seem that comfortable as the favorite. Well, he took these undermanned (and undersized) Warriors and dismantled the favorite. Now Nelson moves on, which leads us to ...

b) The rest of the West. If I were a Mavs fan, I wouldn't even walk near a sports bar for the next six weeks. They are looking at a Western Conference semifinal featuring their biggest rival, San Antonio; their former point guard, Steve Nash, who has won two MVPs since they declined to re-sign him; Nelson; and, if Houston beats Utah, their second-biggest rival.

It's a lose-lose-lose-lose scenario.

c) Excuses. Unless the Mavs have two or three torn ligaments we're not aware of, what can they say about this? They probably should have lost in five — Golden State handed Game 5 away with foolish shot selection in the final minutes. If anybody has an injury excuse, it is the Warriors; Baron Davis was hobbling in Game 6.

d) Their coach choked. This is hard to believe. But Avery Johnson tinkered with his lineup before Game 1. He put Devean George on the floor to start in place of Erick Dampier. That sent a message to the Mavs that Nelson and his small-ball team were in Johnson's head. And since Johnson is responsible for so much of Dallas' mental toughness, that had to trigger the unraveling.

Johnson later complained about Dirk Nowitzki's confidence, but what about his own?

e) Sometime in the next few weeks, Nowitzki will win the NBA MVP trophy for one reason and one reason only: he deserves it. The award goes to the most valuable player of the regular season, and that was Nowitzki.

But no MVP in history has damaged his reputation more in a postseason than Nowitzki just did. This guy had a phenomenal playoff run last year. He looked scared to shoot in this series.

Again: Nowitzki deserves the MVP. But in a worldwide draft of every basketball player on the planet, would anybody take him first?

This leads us to ...

f) The Mavs might never get another chance like this again. I'm not saying they won't; I'm saying we don't know. The NBA is deeper than people realize. San Antonio, Phoenix, Houston, Detroit and Chicago all have legitimate championship hopes this year, and there are a dozen teams with a chance to make the leap into contention in the next two years.

Now Dallas has to regroup, restore Nowitzki's confidence and give it another shot next year in a crowded field.

Winning 67 games in the NBA is not easy.

Coming back from this might be even harder.

**kimpOy** · May 5th, 2007 03:42 PM

hahaha daming nagkalat na photoshopped pics about dirk, dallas, cuban etc...

but this is far more funnier...thanks theveed for the insidehoop link

**wren** · May 5th, 2007 11:27 PM

^^^:bwahaha:^^^

nangyari na sa akin yan, but it was my shorts.

**empy** · May 6th, 2007 12:29 AM

:bwahaha:

i agree with some of the points in articles posted...

1. dirk choked for the 2nd time in a row. mark cuban was so mad when dwyane wade said dirk had a lack of leadership...what's he saying now?

2. avery did the poorest job of coaching that i remember seeing. the ONLY chance GSW had was to play a helter-skelter, small-ball game. he should have put his big guys in to abuse the GS guys in the post. instead, he tries to beat them at their own game.

3. dallas has really poor PG play. i know terry is more of an SG than a PG, but they had no playmaking whatsoever.

**ssaloon** · May 6th, 2007 12:32 PM

mukhang may balat talaga sa pwet si tmac!

**mazdamazda** · May 6th, 2007 12:53 PM

My prediction is spot-on... Utah takes the series...

**rccr** · May 6th, 2007 08:29 PM

SObrang corny panoorin yun ibang playoff match upsa NBA playoffs. maganda lang tlga DET-CHI ska SAS-PHX..Sana DET vs PHX sa NBA finalS!!!

**thebat** · May 6th, 2007 11:56 PM

Originally Posted by rccr

SObrang corny panoorin yun ibang playoff match upsa NBA playoffs. maganda lang tlga DET-CHI ska SAS-PHX..Sana DET vs PHX sa NBA finalS!!!

Yup, sana detroit vs pheonix.

Pheonix ako

**mazdamazda** · May 7th, 2007 09:10 AM

Originally Posted by mazdamazda

Quinito Henson predicted a Detroit vs Mavs finals...

Detroit vs Mavs ha... :rofl:

Though he didn't mention it in his article yesterday.

Dirk chokes under fire
SPORTING CHANCE By Joaquin M. Henson
The Philippine Star 05/06/2007

Last year’s NBA finalists won’t return to the Last Dance this season. Defending champion Miami and runner-up Dallas are out to pasture, unceremoniously dispatched in the first round of the playoffs.

The Heat’s demise was no surprise although losing four straight to Chicago wasn’t expected. The Bulls made Miami look old, squeaky and disorganized. It’s obvious coach Pat Riley won’t be able to rely on just Dwyane Wade to advance beyond the first round and a major roster shakeup is clearly overdue with four players in the 35-and-over departure lounge.

The Mavericks’ collapse was a shocker. And Dallas can only blame itself for the mind-boggling exit. It was the first time a No. 8 seed toppled a No. 1 seed in a best-of-7 playoff series and Golden State turned out to be Dallas’ worst nightmare.

What will haunt Dallas coach Avery Johnson in his early vacation is the folly of resting the Mavs stars in the Warriors’ second-to-the-last game in the regular season. Dirk Nowitzki, Josh Howard and Jerry Stackhouse sat on the bench as Golden State blasted the Mavs, 111-82, last April 17 to keep its playoff hopes alive. A Dallas win would’ve imperiled the Warriors’ chances of survival.

In fact, Golden State clinched its first playoff berth in 13 years on the last day of the regular season, edging the Los Angeles Clippers for the No. 8 slot in the Western Conference.

Johnson should’ve known better than to give Golden State coach Don Nelson a window of opportunity. In the regular season, the Warriors swept the Mavs three in a row – no easy feat considering Dallas topped the league with a 67-15 record and earned the homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs in the process.

Nowitzki typified the Mavs’ choke in the homestretch. In the Finals last year, he missed crucial free throws that spelled the difference between winning or losing the championship. His lack of confidence under pressure was magnified in the Golden State series as his scoring clip dropped from 24.6 points in the regular season to 19.7 in the playoffs. Worse, his field goal percentage fell from .502 to .383 and his three-point marksmanship plummeted from .416 to .211.

When Golden State closed out the Dallas series with a 111-86 win in Game 6 the other night, Nowitzki walked off the court with only eight points on 2-of-13 from the floor. It was a humbling defeat for the once proud German.

Dallas owner Mark Cuban assembled a championship-caliber team this season and reinforced last year’s lineup with Devean George, Greg Buckner, Kevin Willis and Austin Croshere. But alas, he never expected Nelson – who coached Dallas for eight years – to swoop down on the Mavs like an avenging crusader.

Nelson knew exactly how to deflate the Mavs’ bloated ego. With nothing to lose and everything to gain, the Warriors went out to play Dallas more for fun than for a chance to make history. Nelson played "small" ball, forcing Johnson to adjust with Nowitzki at center, and leaned on the athleticism of Baron Davis, Jason Richardson, Al Harrington and Stephen Howard to constantly leave the Mavs a step or two behind.

Johnson never thought he would be gone after the first round. Nelson and the "We Believe" Warriors made it happen.

There was reason to bat for Nowitzki as MVP last season. But there isn’t now.
* * *
Two No. 8 seeds had previously upset No. 1 seeds but both were best-of-5 series. In 1994, Seattle posted the league’s best record at 63-19 but was ousted by No. 8 Denver in the first round. In 1999, the East’s top-seed Miami was bowled over by No. 8 New York and it took Allan Houston’s last second running jumper for the Knicks to trim the Heat, 78-77, in the Game 5 clincher. New York went on to play in the Finals and lost to San Antonio in five.

* * *

Now that Miami and Dallas are out of the playoff picture, the battle for the title is wide open. Detroit and Chicago didn’t lose a game in the first round and they square off in a series with a dramatic twist. Bulls center Ben Wallace is playing against the team he anchored to the title in 2004. In the other East tie, Cleveland – also unbeaten in the first round – faces dangerous New Jersey with Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson and Vince Carter combining forces to take the flight out of LeBron James.

The San Antonio-Phoenix series is a potential classic. In 2005, they met in the Western Conference Finals with the Spurs winning in five. Amare Stoudemire, Steve Nash, Shawn Marion and Leandro Barbosa were already in the Suns mix but they’ve since polished their blitz attack to near perfection with Raja Bell and Boris Diaw as valuable reinforcements. Tim Duncan isn’t as dominant as before and will be a handicap as Phoenix tries to outrun the Spurs at every turn but you can be sure Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Mike Finley won’t give an inch to the surging Suns.

Golden State is up against either Houston or Utah and the Warriors are raring to duplicate the Knicks’ feat in 1999. The Bay Area franchise has a history of scoring upsets – in 1973, the Warriors bundled out Milwaukee, starring Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, in the first round of the playoffs and in 1975, they blanked Washington in the Finals. So Nelson isn’t ruling out a cinderella march to the top although it’s highly unlikely the Warriors will score too many more upsets along the way.

May bagong player na pala ang GSW, Stephen Howard! :rofl: