By Mike Fisher -- DallasBasketball.com
      Let’s call it ‘The Second Banana Formula.’
      Wanna make numbers dance? Ask for a spin with Dirk’s digits and, if you hold them with firm-but-gentle hands as you gracefully guide them across the floor, they can end up doing the frickin’ Macarena.
DB.COM BOARDS
FISH ON RADIO
GAME 3 BOX
SACRAMENTO BEE
      Evidence comes from a pre-Game 3 column in a DFW paper that insisted that while Finley and Nash and Nellie need to step things up in order to survive the Kings, also guilty of making too few contributions: none other than The UberMan, Dirk Nowitzki.
      Forget that he had scored 28 and 32 points in the first two games and pulled down 23 rebounds in the first two games for a combined two-game line of 60 points, 23 rebounds, seven blocked shots, four steals and five assists.
      Dirk, said the paper, was negligent because the Mavs were minus-18 when he was on the floor.
      Now, we ain’t that good at math. But the suggestion seems to be that while Dirk is scoring 60, he’s giving up 78?
      Baloney.
      Nowitzki needs help, that’s all. Help like Kevin Garnett gets in Minnesota, where KG threatens to go 20/20/10 every night but is joined by a second banana who is going for 30-plus (as Sprewell did) or 40-plus (as Cassell did) in the T’wolves first two playoff meetings with Denver.
      Dirk’s second banana? Until Saturday’s 104-79 home victory in Game 3, the only thing his Mavs supporting cast was doing with the second-banana analogy was slipping on its peel.
      In Games 1 and 2, Michael Finley and Steve Nash -- the two most likely Barney Fifes to Dirk’s Sheriff Taylor – were awful. They combined for 32-percent shooting by making just 19 of their 59 shots. They combined for 4-of-18 from the arc. Nash got to the line just four times, Fin not at all.
      Dirk was minus-18 while scoring 60? How can that possibly be mentioned in the same breath with two All-Star-caliber teammates who were minus-for-the-entire-series?
      Pleasingly, Dallas subscribed to “The Second Banana Formula’’ in Game 3. Did the Mavs have one supporting cast member step up to supplement Dirk’s 21-point effort?
      Nope – by the end of the third quarter, Dallas featured four players in double figures. By the end of the game, the Mavs featured Antawn Jamison with 20 points (and nine rebounds), Michael Finley with 18 points (on 6-of-15 shooting, not what we need but a start) and most notably, Second Banana Marquis Daniels, good for a game-high 22 points.
      Meanwhile, the Kings managed to place just two players in double figures: Mike Bibby, who scored 15 in the first quarter but just seven more after that; and Chris Webber, who totaled 22. Nice, but not the triple-double trouble he’d caused Dallas in the first two games.
      And it’s really that simply. If Webber gets help, Sacto wins. If Dirk gets help, Dallas wins.
      If it’s Finley, with almost as many points in one game as he had in the previous two combined, fine. If it’s Nash, still struggling with his shot in Game 3 with just seven points, fine. If it’s Daniels, fine – especially if he’s going to accomplish things offensively that have teammates comparing him to that Top Banana.
      Marquis, says Steve Nash, “is one of those guys who is similar to Dirk. When he plays with the same mental attitude, it's a mismatch whoever is guarding him."
      And that’s all Dallas needs. One of those guys who is similar to Dirk. Just one. Once a game.