Suns at Mavs

[fordronken]

That was a foul on Marion, without a doubt. He hit Dirk across the arms, and this is one case where, without a doubt, one can say that the officiating cost us the game.

There are no "what if"s about this game. No "what if he would have missed the shot anyway." None of that. It was a dunk, and the Mavs should have won. This is extremely distressing. It pains me to see a game so well officiated for the most part end in this manner.

Courtney Kirkland made a number of questionable calls in this game, and I hope that the NBA takes along look at this game, and does inform Mark Cuban that it was a foul.

The Mavs are 38-16 now in my book. The Spurs lost tonight, so it's fitting that the refs heard that they were losing and purposely made sure that the Mavs would lose.

This is not something I will forget for awhile.

So let me get this straight. It was a well called game except for the bad call. But also, Courtney Kirkland did a bad job officiating all night. Good to know.

And I'd love to hear the official's meeting at halftime.

Official #1: "All right guys, let's call it really close. Then, since the Spurs lost(which by the way, isn't going to happen until about five or ten minutes after the Suns game ends), have the Suns go on a 7-0 run down the stretch. But get this. Let's have a really close play down the stretch where the Suns make a possible block...and we'll give it a NO CALL!!!! That way the Spurs can preserve their already false lead in their division. Huh? Huh?"

Official #2: "Why don't we just call the other guys and have the Spurs win their close game?"

Official #1: "No. Are you mad? My way is the only truly plausible way. It's the only thing that makes sense.

 

[Chaz]

So let me get this straight. It was a well called game except for the bad call. But also, Courtney Kirkland did a bad job officiating all night. Good to know.

And I'd love to hear the official's meeting at halftime.

Official #1: "All right guys, let's call it really close. Then, since the Spurs lost(which by the way, isn't going to happen until about five or ten minutes after the Suns game ends), have the Suns go on a 7-0 run down the stretch. But get this. Let's have a really close play down the stretch where the Suns make a possible block...and we'll give it a NO CALL!!!! That way the Spurs can preserve their already false lead in their division. Huh? Huh?"

Official #2: "Why don't we just call the other guys and have the Spurs win their close game?"

Official #1: "No. Are you mad? My way is the only truly plausible way. It's the only thing that makes sense.

Just don't attribute that quote to me.

 

[Joe Mama]

Fordronken, that was classic. Thanks for the laugh.

And there's the other team that complains nonstop to the referees. Brad Miller had much, much more room to complain about the final play than Mavericks had last night. Dirk Nowitzki said he got hit in the head. Give me a break. Shawn Marion hit the ball call a few of dirk's fingers. That's a no call at any time in the game, especially at very end of a close one.

Overall the game was officiated pretty well from what I could see. Of course I did fast-forward through all of the foul shots, so I missed most of the replays. If either team benefited from at the official the the officiating over the entire course of the game it was definitely Dallas. Chris Webber is the only guy in the NBA I've seen who pushes people in the back during rebounds as much as Dirk Nowitzki.

I've been singing the praises of Hunter and his positive contributions all season long. However he has got to learn how to run the floor on a fast break. Almost every time I see him running right down the middle practically into the ball handler. Someone has got to teach him spacing.

Joe Mama

 

[cly2tw]

I missed 2/3 of the first half. But here is what I saw:

1. We really utilized the overall talent on the roster by a lot of one-on-one plays following good and quick entry passes for Q, JJ and Marion. Marion scored a couple of times with his left hooks over Finley, while JJ was confident hitting his short-mid-range jumpers after shaking off his defenders. Without Nash's penetration and precise passes for open 3s, we need to move our players around more to find other matchup advantages we always have on the court and exploit them as we did in this game.

2. Amare's offensive rebounding complemented others' postups and drives very well. As a rookie, his offensive rebounding was great as he was not the center of offense yet and Marbury was not good at involving him into the play. But this year, he became absolute lethargic when he was not in a play, without actively anticipating the shots by teammates and motioning in for the rebounds. He did it in this game, though later he went away from it a little bit losing attention to the FIELD again when he wasn't directly involved. Tell him to pay attention to the evolution of our offense all the time! He'll get a lot of off. rebounds and will make his teammates feel at ease making their one-on-one moves.

3. Maintaining the high speed is good, but sometimes we need to learn to vary it a bit more and slow it down when it's to our advantage. In this game, the Mavs got more fastbreak points off many turnovers due to us trying to press the ball. I know it makes it an open game and we normally excell at this. But in this game, we were losing it as the opponents were better at it, similar as in the 4th quarter of the home loss to the Spurs (in which Nash's fatigue was the main reason for this selden occurred reverse of advantage). Most of our points in the 4th were from half court, while Mavs capitalized on our turnovers a lot. We should have recognized that and adapted accordingly to avoid those turnovers.

4. Why JoeJ only seems to have confidence shooting the jumpers away from home is beyond my comprehension. I still hope that he discovers more courage to drive in for layups or dunks from time to time. But in general, if our core players can unfold their talent as they did in this game, we should be fine in the playoff against ANY team.

 

[F-Dog]

What really ticked me off about the game is D'Antoni proving once again he's a dunce when it comes to Hunter. In four minutes, Steven got one block, forced two shots to be altered - and missed - and he forced Terry into giving up on a shot after he was in the air & throwing a hurried pass out of bounds. That's about half of the good defensive plays in the paint for the entire team. This followed one his best extended outings, too - and he doesn't get off the bench in the second half. I don't know, maybe F-Dog can explain again how Hunter's short minutes are all due to his poor play.

I'll have you explaining it yourself, eventually.

Hunter didn't play in the second half because of matchups--it was hard enough trying to find somebody for Amare to guard. I wouldn't have minded seeing Hunter try to guard Dirk or KVH for a stretch, but I can see why D'Antoni preferred to use McCarty instead.

Don't forget that Don Nelson used his hack-a-Hunter strategy in the last game and it paid off.

Anyway, I think Hunter is back on the upswing, and he should get more than a few minutes tonight against the Celtics.
__________________

Anyway, another outstanding game for the Suns. I was most pleased that they decided to sit Nash, but I was nearly as pleased that the Suns looked good without him, just like they did against the Clippers--they kept running and attacking, and got the same easy looks they're used to getting.

The Suns managed to work through early foul trouble, put themselves in a position to steal the game, then each of the four big guns made a play or two down the stretch.

Oh yeah, that block was awesome! It would have been nice to see one of the other Suns step up to contest that wide-open dunk Dirk was about to get, but I'll take it.

 

[JS22]

Also from the Mav's board:

BS call by the officials at the end of the game. If that was in the second quarter, it's a foul without a doubt. Marion was beat. Nowitzki had the easy dunk which would have won the game so Marion took a swipe from behind probably trying to foul if not block. Looks clear on the replay he probably caught Dirk on the wrist.

"Looks clear that he probably...?"