Spurs 105, Mavs 84: Your All-Access Pass

  Conventional wisdom insisted that Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is a “master’’ who would “make adjustments’’ in Monday’s Game 2 that would even the Round 1 series with the Mavs. But what magic act was Pop really going perform? Make the ball a square? Chemically suck the electrolytes out of the Mavs’ Gatorade? Use his Old World connections to arrange for Dirk to be re-drafted by the German Army?

   Sorry, but the mastery and the adjustments were made via an unconventional wisdom.  And they were made almost solely by Tony Parker, as illustrated by this loss-in-a-nutshell moment: 4:16 left in the first half. The Spurs’ point guard on a controlled break. He realizes that he’s going 1-on-3. … and he goes for it, anyway.

    And like everything else on this night, the 1-on-3 represented a San Antonio advantage.

    Your All-Access Pass to Spurs 105, Mavs 84:

      Them’s some fancy adjustments you got there: So let’s get to the Pop adjustments we saw:

     *Switching defensively to combat Dallas’ pick-and-roll attempts.

     *Bruce Bowen taking lengthy turns guarding JJ Barea

     *Giving more help on JJB’s dribble-penetration while using the double-team on Jason Terry only as a change-up

     *Even more fronting of Dirk in attempt to prevent him from receiving the ball, even as far out as beyond the FT line

      It was all fine enough and it was all smart enough and by God, it all worked.

     But none of that junk is the reason San Antonio dominated this game.

     The Real Adjustment – The Unguardable Tony Parker: Again, there was some strategy here: SA seemed to spread the floor for Parker, sometimes arranging for him a pick-and-roll setup, but more often just providing him a wide berth with which to attack off the dribble.

      This wasn’t X’s-and-O’s. This was somebody yelling, “Get the hell out of my way!’’ – in French.

     It appeared that the Mavericks “played soft’’ in anticipation of Parker's penetration, hoping he’d try jumpers. He tried some. And he made some. But most of all, he tried layups. And he made all of those.

     Frenchie made nine of his first 10 shots, scored 19 in the first quarter, had 25 for the first half, ended with 38 (on 16-of-22 shooting) and really, had SA decided to clear-out for him every time down the floor, he could’ve reached 60.

    Or infinity, for all we know.

    “That unacceptable,’’ said Jason Terry. “We’ve got to hone in on him. He’s the head of the snake. We’ve got to make somebody else beat us. We’ve got to meet the challenge. We’ve got to come up with a scheme. We’ve got to corral him.’’

    Obviously, there is no shortage of clichés. But do any of them add up to even one strategy?

    Oh, and about that snake analogy: We would argue that Parker is not the head of this snake. He’s the whole damn snake.

     And how The Snake does it: The laymen (like us) would have to really go back and watch the game again to notice this (as we did): Parker’s uncoverability is not the result of fast-breaks or one-on-one creativity or outside-the-playbook instincts. Rather, it appears as though most of his baskets came as the result of designed plays. In other words, brilliance within structure. Picasso completing a paint-by-numbers kit.

    We don’t say that to take away from Parker’s excellence. We mean it as a compliment. He’s playing the team game – at an individually high level.

    Dirk can’t fight City Hall?: On one thing we should all be able to agree: There should be no Mavs-originating bitching at the refs. Their treatment of Dirk Nowitzki as the superstar he is ought to eliminate all that.

    Before the game, Carlisle said that the reason other Mavs had to step up is because SA’s defense on Dirk might make it foolish to force the ball into The UberMan.

    “You can’t fight City Hall,’’ Carlisle said.

     We would argue that he is wrong in at least one sense: When you “force the ball’’ to Dirk … and then when he “forces the ball’’ to the rim. … it “forces the refs’’ to blow the whistle.

    And blow it they did, rewarding Nowitzki for his plunges to the rim with nine trips to the line.

    On a night when the Mavs never quite found an offensive rhythm – imagine going 48 minutes without ever once dancing to the music – Dirk getting the star treatment was about the only weapon available.

    He was beat up; Dirk’s hand was in a tapewrap and we think he got Charley-horsed in the thigh. And in total, he made just 3-of-14 shots. But what other choice did Dallas have?

    Said Bass: “They were all over Dirk all night. We base out offense on getting to him, and they practice stopping that.’’

 

    Exactly. Team A practices one thing. Team B practices another. Why does Team B’s idea have to be bowed to?

     We’ve said this often over the course of the last decade, and it fits here: If we’re going down, we’re going down while riding the horse that is Dirk Nowitzki.

    (Or, as we once said on the radio, much to our sexually-shy chagrin, “If I’m going down, I’m going down on Dirk.’’)

    “Fighting City Hall’’ … meaning “giving Dirk the ball no matter the circumstances and regardless of the defensive alignment’’ … might’ve been an example of “fighting the good fight.’’    

    “Let’s see him do THAT again:’’ Well, the targets of this San Antonio challenge – Brandon Bass and JJ Barea – didn’t do it again.

    JJB was 2-of-8.

   And “The Animal’’? He scored eight pretty inconsequential points.

    It’s still on Dallas’ top three scorers, Dirk/Jet/Josh, to carry the load. But they combined to make 12-of-37 shots.

    So nobody did ANYTHING again.

    The Xerox of Game 1 – for a moment: First-quarter score: SA 30, Dallas 19 – an 11-point deficit, just like in Game 1. A late-first-half push to get back in it? Yes, the Mavs outscored the Spurs 16-6 just before intermission to pull to within respectability. And 105 points? Yes – but for the wrong team.

    The biggest number is the consolation prize here: The Mavs accomplished the overall goal of “stealing one’’ on the road and then come home for Thursday’s Game 3 without the burden of the opponent holding any sort of home-court edge for the series.

   “We came in here and won one,’’ Kidd said. “So now we got to go home and protect home court. … figure out a way to go win two games and then come back here again.’’

    And an encouraging note here: Before tipoff, Carlisle dismissed the notion that this was a “gravy game,’’ that a loss was easily endurable because the Mavericks had already won Game 1. Despite the one-sided final score, there was no evidence of the Mavs not putting out here.

    Ex-Mav-turned-TV-studio-analyst Derek Harper said he looked at “pregame body language’’ and sensed something negative about the Mavs. He also said they didn’t take it to the basket early.

    I love Harp but … we were watching the same TV monitor as he was, and we sensed none of that. And regarding “taking it to the basket early,’’ two of the Mavs’ first three shots were J-Ho driving to the hole.

    He just happened to miss, is all.

    Dallas was ready. But San Antonio was 21 points more ready.

    On the other hand: Twice the Mavs committed shot-clock violations. AW and then J-Ho seemed to be completely clueless as to the installation of that crazy new 24-second clock’’ thingamajig.

    Dirk made ONE jumpshot?: Yup. Of course, if you wanna be a Pollyanna, you can argue that 67 percent of his makes were layups.

    On a Jet and a prayer: That 16-6 run to close the first half? That sequence was about the only time in this entire game – nay, in this entire series – when Jason Terry made any sort of impact.

    Jet missed his first six shots, punctuated by the late-first-half moment when he nearly airballed an uncontested layup.

     Jason rebounded his own shot and got the putback. (Was Jet part of the running game? By our count, that basket was the only fast-break score of the first half for the Mavs.) And then, with one second left on the first-half clock, he was fouled attempting a desperation 3. Did the fine FT shooter make all three?

    Of course not. Not on this night. Making two of three would have to do.

    That Bonner Character: The truth about Matt Bonner? He’s getting a lot of help when he’s assigned to cover Dirk. Nevertheless, this simply HAS to be a win for Dallas. And instead, This Bonner Character – who, truth be told, is actually a thick body and a fine 3-point marksman – actually took more advantage of his opportunities than anybody in a Dallas uniform did.

    Bonner made a trio of 3’s and had 11 points and he had seven rebounds and his nice night sounds a lot like Dirk’s crappy one.

    A sneaky 7-footer: Very few forests will be destroyed in reporting that Tim Duncan participated in this game. But he had just what was needed and nothing more: 13 points, 11 rebounds and five assists. He also fixed SA’s Game 1 blocked-shot problem by notching three of those.

    Run, Jason, run!: We predicted that for G2, with the Spurs almost certain to focus on the first wave of Dallas scorers (Dirk, Jet and Josh) and also intent on doing something about the second wave (led by JJB), Jason Kidd would need to serve as the offensive wildcard.

     It speaks to the lopsided nature of this game that Kidd – despite battling those stomach-flu issues – was indeed an offensive wildcard, with 14 points.

    We’d hoped that Dallas would benefit from Kidd pushing the pace, getting the Mavs some easy baskets and maybe sucking the gas from the tanks of Duncan and Parker. But through the first two-and-a-half quarters, the Spurs didn’t miss enough shots and the Mavs didn’t get enough rebounds to get the transition attack out of the ditch.

    And there’s something else that Kidd didn’t do: The inside-out approach with Kidd in the post was, by my count, utilized exactly once. At the 9:30 mark of the third, J-Kidd tried a lefty layup and missed it badly and that was the end of that.

    Wright or JJB?: No offense to Antoine Wright, but there is increasingly no real full-time role for him in this series. He started the game at the 2-guard and was asked to guard Parker. … got his jock (and two fouls) handed to him and grabbed a seat. He was called upon again in the fourth quarter – the Mavs were down 20 but had first-line personnel on the floor in what was maybe an attempt by Carlisle to re-assert the notion that Dallas and San Antonio are actually evenly-matched clubs – and AW did lots of nothing again.

     He’s long and he works hard and he’s a focused defender, but none of those attributes help him against Parker. Meanwhile, there isn’t really another Spur offensive weapon that demands he be guarded by a player like Wright. (Finley, maybe, but only in a specialist role.)

    It made sense for Carlisle to insert Barea as the second-half starter here, which he did. It didn’t have the same positive result as when the coach did it in Game 1, but there was no other logical option.

    JJB can hassle Parker defensively and JJB requires San Antonio’s focus offensively.

    That makes him twice the factor in this series as Antoine Wright can be.

    The Mavs’ golf game: Some of the fellas apparently have a LeBronesque pregame pantomime act: Wright and Singleton or somebody or other squats down, puts an imaginary golf  ball on an imaginary tee and then they pantomime swing and imagine how far the ball travels.

    Failed bit.

   Where was Dallas’ rebounding?: Now this counts as a legitimate “point of emphasis’’ from the Spurs. In G1, Erick Dampier had offensive rebounds by the bushel, with Dampier getting six points in the fourth quarter on putbacks alone.

    This time around, the Mavs had only a couple of offensive rebounds in the entire first half, and in the end were out-boarded 44-28 never got any board or any steals.

     “We never got any boards and we never got any steals,’’ Kidd said. “We gotta learn from those mistakes.’’

    Without even looking it up, we can virtually guarantee that 28 rebounds is a season-low.

    Quote of the Night: “We gotta look at what we did right in Game 1 and what we did wrong in Game 2.’’  -- Jason Kidd

    Josh’s scare: Just 43 seconds into the game, Josh Howard sliced between two defenders, glided to the basket. … and stepped on Tony Parker’s foot with his own right foot and then landed awkwardly on his own left foot.

    There is no evidence that Howard, with his nagging ankle injury, was affected by the double-trouble. Indeed, on the next possession, he sliced to the hole again.

    Naturally, he also missed again.

    But at least no living creatures were harmed in the making of this blowout.

    Unfortunately, while J-Ho sustained no damage, he also caused none. After scoring his flood of 25 points in Dallas’ Game 1 win, Josh contributed just seven here.

   Carlisle’s pet analysis: ‘Our undoing’: “The first and third quarters,’’ Carlisle said, “were our undoing.’’

   And you know, the second and the fourth quarters weren’t all that hot, either.

   NoJetSki: Two games. Two guys. One ugly shooting total: 20-of-52.

   The supposedly one-dimensional Spurs: We theorized before Game 2:

   “If Pop changes match ups to get more ‘defensive’ (i.e., Udoka, Oberto, Bowen, Hill), he’s relying on  guys who cannot score. Before our eyes, the Spurs – once you get beyond the two star anchors -- have become a bunch of one-way specialists. They really don’t have any other two-way players at this point.’’

    What if we are right about that. … and Dallas STILL gets out-one-dimensioned?

    Funny thing: The scrubs subs we mentioned did not collective have a great impact. Udoka played, Bowen played an actually role, and the other two guys just mopped up late. Finley was what we thought he was. He scored five points. Gooden got 13, so he stepped it up a bit.

    But it’s Parker. It’s all Parker.

     Shouldn’t somebody hammer somebody?: We don’t condone violence. But with Frenchie prancing along the primrose path to the rim, shouldn’t somebody at some point knock him on his ass? Make him slightly less desirous of venturing inside the trees? Turn the game from “pretty’’ to “gritty’’?

    Not until 4:16 was left in the first half did Tony Parker take a pop from anybody – and that was on the aforementioned unconventional 1-on-3 fast-break. Three Mavs were back on defense. It did not matter. Parker outquicked the lot of ‘em, eventually making contact with Jet, who shoved a shoulder into Frenchie’s chest. The refs called a Flagrant 1 (no arguing, please) and Parker got two free throws and a possession out of the deal. He made one of the FTs and likethat, the Spurs were up 51-30.

    After the game came this:

    “Every time he drives the lane, we have to put him on his back,’’ Dampier said. “The first foul has to tell him he’s in for a long night. My first foul Thursday night is going to put him on his back. I guarantee it."

    Great. (Except for the possibility that Damp might get fined for saying/doing such a thing, great.) Somebody might get physical with Parker? Somebody might knock him around in the paint? Somebody might punish him?

    That would be masterful, that would be an adjustment and that would be conventional.

     Even if it would be one game too late.

 

      

 

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745am april 21 2009

 

                                                       

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