Bavarian Stew: Mavs Road-Killed, 110-88, In Toronto

Mike Fisher -- DB.com

    In what amounts to his preview of this five-game roadie that opened Sunday in Toronto, Dirk Nowitzki cooked up some verbal Bavarian Stew:

    "I never really thought I'd like to be on the road that much, but the way we're playing at home all season long, maybe it's good for us to head on the road and hopefully win some big games," The UberMan said. "For some reason, maybe we're too comfortable at home. I don't really know what it is. Hopefully we'll get some road kill …’’

    Ah, road kill! You pull up a chair for lunch in Toronto, you slurp up the chopped-up carrots and potatoes and sauerkraut and pepper and garlic. …

   And then the game starts and you upchuck Bavarian Stew all over your pretty blue uniforms.

    That's a fairly all-encompassing problem. Specific to this loss, what were the four main ingredients mixed in?

    Quarters, 1, 2, 3 and 4.

    Quarter 1: The Raptors started period missing 12 of 15 shot, and Mavs ended the period with a 23-20 lead, but don’t be fooled.

    "The first quarter was a good quarter for us, based on the score," coach Rick Carlisle said.

     But don't be fooled.

    Anything accomplished here was torpedoed by mortifyingly awful work of Josh Howard. J-Ho followed up his 2-of-14 shooting effort in the previous game (Friday’s 99-98 win at OKC) by. …

    Shooting even more blanks.

    Howard opened this game by making one of his seven early shots. As the loss wore on, Josh’s stats never even grew deceptively respectable; he was 3-of-12 shooting and on too many occasions, Howard was semi-open for a shot while teammate Nowitzki was more open. … and Josh slingshotted the ball toward the rim anyway.

    The UberMan finished with 19 points on 9-of-15 shooting.

    Dirk had 15 shots and could barely miss. Josh in two games is 5-of-26 and at some point, “I’m gonna shoot my way out of this’’ is a narcissistic philosophy.

    Quarter 2: A team-wide embarrassment. A candidate for Worst Quarter of the Year. A reason to switch the TV to Cowboys-Vikings or, what the hell, to “Housewives of Orange County’’ over on Bravo.

     Carlisle played his infamous "Our Undoing'' Card.

    "The second quarter was our undoing,'' Carlisle said. ``When they scored 34, we scored 18. Turnovers led to uncontested shots. We went through a drought. When you go through a drought you have to stop them. We didn't do it.''

   I still think all four quarters were their undoing. ...

    When (if?) the Mavs’ sun comes up tomorrow, I’ll manage a more rosy perspective based on the overall record, but …

    The Mavs are just 6-5 in their last 11 and as I mentioned above, are in the midst of a three-losses-in-four-outings lull.

     And quarters like these encapsulate the reasons why. The Undoing.

    The Mavericks were outscored 34-18 in the second quarter. The 34? Dallas allowed the Raptors hit 15-of-23 shots. The 18? Dallas called to its bench and there was nobody home. Again, a game-long theme: Sure, Jason Terry had 18 points and sure, Drew Gooden had 10 rebounds. But the Mavs bench was not impactful … unless you count the fact that Matt Carroll and James Singleton and other scrubs mopped up the upchuck at the end.

    "Our second unit comes in the game and we think it's just going to be easy," Terry said.

    Really? Why?

     Quarter 3: Nowitzki – maybe accustomed to having his way with the Raptors, against whom he’d averaged 27-plus over the last half-decade – earned a technical foul for no good reason at all, I don’t think. … except that he was stewing. Bavarian stewing.

     Quarter 4: Mercifully, it was about to end. On the telecast, my man Bob Ortegel hopefully dug in his fingernails, insisting that with 8:23 left and trailing by 14, it wasn’t over…. But that the Mavs needed to get busy NOW.

     Bob O issued that statement when the score was 89-75. In the blink of an eye, Jason Terry missed two good looks in the paint, then got a technical foul when he took and angry swat at Hedo and flipped the ball at the ref …

     In two zany bizarro-world follow-up occurrences:

     *The Mav player who tried to calm Jet was that Bastion of Logical Thought, Josh Howard;

     *The Raptor player who rubbed it in Jet’s face was Antoine Wright, the ex-Mav who hit a 3 to make it 93-75 – and who earned himself a +28.

    Oh, and then Jose Calderon made it 95-75 to fuel what was at the time an 8-0 run. … and then Bargnani uncorked a shot-clock-beating desperation 3 to make it 98-78 … and then just before the 4:42 mark, after Josh committed another mindless turnover, it was a 24-point deficit and it was time for these Mavs to excuse themselves from the lunch table.

    The Raptors, led by Chris Bosh’s 23 points and 13 rebounds, moved to 21-20. The Mavs – who got their starters out of there for the final few minutes and began shipping them to Boston for a Monday night meeting with the East power Celtics. Nowitzki and Company, with those 13 away wins, will attempt to microwave that road kill.