Well I hope you enjoyed that little trip down memory lane last night. We thought it would be kind of fun to put that up as a little gift for visiting Mavs fans. Especially ones who couldn't seem to locate their caps lock key.
Hey Mavs fans... "HIGH FIVE!"
The truth of last night wasn't pretty to say the least...
Last night the Dubs got a serious wake-up call as the Mavs pulled out all stops to show them that they are truly a force to be reckoned with. Now keep in mind, I refer to it as a "wake-up call", rather than a "reality check", because in reality, we can match up to Dallas way better than we displayed tonight. Hell we can own them, can't we?!
Not if our star player goes 2 for 14 from the field.
Not if we get outscored by thirteen points in the first quarter.
Not if we get outscored by eighteen points in the final quarter.
Not if Dampier is allowed to drop 13 on us. (Ouch!)
Not if we get out-boarded 50 to 35.
But our heads should still be held high. We came off a solid road trip and regardless of our history against this team, it's not like we were playing the Timberwolves out there.
Let's hop to the jump and figure a few things out together, shall we?
Okay, first things first. We here at GSoM may have allegedly poked, prodded and talked a little, well some may call it, "trash", to some of the Mavs bloggers out there. So in the wake of our defeat tonight, the GSoM crew proudly stands together to tip our caps to our boy Wes at Mavs Moneyball and Tim MacMahon at The Dallas Morning News. In addition, we shall now grab our forks to get down on some home cooked Humble Pie. (In case you can't tell, this ain't nothing new to us boys. We've been eating Humble Pie for years.)
Got Humble Milk?
Just don't make the mistake of thinking we're going to talk any less trash next time around. It's going to take a lot more than a couple of regular season wins to erase (all together now) THE GREATEST UPSET IN NBA HISTORY!! In all seriousness though, stay up guys and thanks for being great sports.
Now let's talk a little bit about the game. I think it's pretty safe to say that any game we play (be it against the Dallas Mavericks or the L.A. Sparks) where Baron and Jack are having off nights is going to result in a loss. Granted, Jack was able to turn on the heat as the game progressed, and for that we are truly thankful. But we did not see the Boom/Jack combo that we saw in our magical playoff run last year. And for that... well, I'm pretty sure that Dallas is thankful.
From a defensive standpoint... well, what can I say... we got trounced. Dallas truly came with their A-game with 6 of their players scoring in double digits. In the first half, Howard and Harris were swerving around us in the paint like we were traffic cones and they were some kind of professional traffic cone swervers.
"DE-FENSE!!" (bang bang)
Let's just stop for a second and reflect on how horrendous that last analogy was. Seriously, I should be ashamed of myself. I don't even think "swervers" is a word. Let's move on.
Perhaps the most glaring flaw in our defense last night was displayed in the numbers that Dirk put up. Our greatest pride of last year's games against the Mavs was our ability to contain the Geico Caveman. Last night, however, we had our hands full enough attempting to slow down Harris, Howard, Stackhouse, Bass, and Dampier. (Seriously dudes... Bass and Dampier?!) And when all of those guys are draining buckets and all of our guys are forced to contain so many potential scorers, where does that leave Dirk? Let's just say he has more good news than saving a ton of money on his car insurance.
I think we angered it.
But the Warriors do as the Warriors do, and despite holes in our defense and our sub par offense, we found ourselves within 4 at the end of the third quarter. At that point, with the momentum behind us, we found ourselves in the position of being able to get a couple of quick scores and be right back into this ballgame. Instead, we got a couple of useless fouls and turned over the ball 3 times in the first two minutes. Ouch.
Okay, let's move on to some of the positives. In the wake of a lackluster game by Baron (it's really tough to come down on him after he's carried us so many times), it was refreshing to see such confident shooting from Harrington. TMNT had the serious hot hand out there plunking 20 down in the first half and going 4 for 6 from deep all night! And he took them all from the exact same spot! Nellie should consider nailing Al's feet to the floor on that 45 degree angle by the arc because that is seriously his bread and butter shot. And should Nellie decide to go with my suggestion, he might want to make sure he gets Al a tetanus shot soon after. Y'know, cuz of infection and all... From the nails...
On second thought, maybe he just tells TMNT to shoot from that area more often. Judging from last night's performance, this tactic should prove to be more offensively potent as well as infection free. And that's a combination that I think we can all get down with.
Harrington clearing a lane for his jumper.
Other positives of the game included:
- Monta's Academy Award Winning flop in the 2nd against Eddie Jones. I know he actually did get hit in the chin and it actually was a foul but seriously, that replay was classic. I've seen Olympic divers with less arch in their back.
- Did anyone else see Beans drive the ball from the arc and take Damp to the hole? I didn't know that man could dribble!
- Belinelli, Wright, and POB got some minutes. Actually there was nothing positive about the time they spend on the court. If anything it showed us why they have been spending so little time on the court in previous games.
Okay, now I'm just being harsh for no reason. Truth be told, the Warriors had a successful road trip and lost to a very good NBA team tonight. That's all there is to it. Sure they played a messy game but these things happen, even to the best of teams. Even to one that pulled off THE GREATEST UPSET IN THE HISTORY OF THE NBA!!!!!
Any excuse to bring that up.
Gotta give it to TMNT Harrington. When the rest of the Dubs were down, his sniper-like shooting kept us within reach of the game. He had the heart of a Warrior out there.
This slice is for you, Al.