All Out - Of Gas
 Mavs Booted In Thrilling Game 5
Mike Fisher -- DallasBasketball.com - Posted: 2004-04-30 00:00:00.000


By Mike Fisher -- DallasBasketball.com
The Mavs’ playoff slogan was “All Out’ – and now they are.
All out. … of chances.
All out. … of games.
All out. … of gas.
All out. … of jobs?
Assorted impressions from Thursday’s Game 5 in Sacramento, a heartbreaking, season-ending 119-118 Mavs loss:

  • At least they put their two bucks on the nose of the right horse. Dallas lost Games 2 and 4 on last-second failures from Michael Finley and Steve Nash, never finding a way to get the ball to the rightest guy, Dirk Nowitzki. On Thursday, trailing by one and with the season on the line with 6.2 seconds remaining, the Mavs ran the most elementary play in basketball, a clearout for The UberMan. Nowitzki’s 15-foot jumper against Peja Stojakovic (not coincidentally the defender on all three buzzer-beating misses in this series) fell short. But if we’re going to lose, we’d rather lose riding Secretariat.
  • The “Fire Nellie’’ campaign is already loud. Mark Cuban is telling anyone who will listen that sending Nellie back to Maui with his tail ‘tween his legs is not the plan – but apparently nobody is listening.
  • Quote from Antoine Walker: “I think we're very talented, but we have eight new guys on this team. Even scrambling, we won 52 games. We were a great home team that just didn't get it done on the road. With a year with everybody learning each other, we can be very good." With his one-year-‘til-expiring-contract worth $14 mil, ‘Toine might not be a part of that future. But his big-picture perspective is much-needed around here.
  • Everything Dallas did well, Sacto did better. Example: Steve Nash finally played well, with 24 points and 14 assists. And wouldn’t you know it, opposite number Mike Bibby explodes for 36. Bibby scored 16 of Sacramento's 39 points in the second quarter to help the Kings rally. "I was just trying to be aggressive," said Bibby, who made 14 of 23 field-goal attempts, including six of eight from three-point range. "I wasn't aggressive in the first quarter.’’
  • Kings coach Rick Adelman termed it “a great series,’’ a weird thing to say about a 4-1 result. But he’s right. So is Nellie, who said, "I thought it was a great basketball game. I thought it was a game we should have won, but we didn't. We had our opportunities. I knew all the games were going to be (tight) like this."
    Nellie is right. The losing team could’ve won this thing 4-1. This thing could’ve gone seven. Each moment was competitive. … and we’re not firing people for being competitive.
  • Maybe this is a crummy consolation prize, but plenty of times, teams in Dallas’ Game 5 situation have one foot on the court and the other on the golf course. The Mavs again played with urgency, a good sign about this club’s leadership and heart.
  • If Walker is leaving, he does so with a game that serves as his season in a nutshell. ‘Toine was two different guys: A bundle of energy early, helping to fuel Dallas’ 16-point lead to open the game. But in the fourth quarter, the Mavs put the ball in his hands three straigtht times, hoping he’d create – and all he created was three consecutive turnovers.
  • Wanna second-guess Nellie? Do so by wondering where Marquis Daniels disappeared to in the late going in this game, and where the coach’s legendary mastery of one-possession situations disappeared to quarter’s end after quarter’s end after half’s end after game’s end in this series. Wanna second-guess a player? Put that one on Michael Finley, the only Mav still waiting to offer up a truly great moment.
  • Dirk Nowitzki goes into the game averaging over 25 ppg, the best in the postseason, and then throws in 31 while playing every minute of the game. What a waste.
  • If this team can defend occasionally, can it defend consistently? If it can defend at times in the playoffs, can it defend consistently throughout the regular season? The answer is yes, and Nellie ought to review film of his club’s work and then quit badmouthing the Mavs’ inability to get stops.
  • Bigger problem, really, is on the offensive end. Sacto made defending the pick-and-roll look so easy, simply by throwing an extra defender, Doug Christie, into the picture. Count on Dirk to develop an even better “out-pitch’’ when the Mavs need a sure bucket. More worrisome than that: Can anybody else on the roster be counted on to do the same?