Fave Five: Josh Howard Helps Mavs Over Raptors

   The Mavs’ long-anticipated moment came with 5:33 remaining in the first quarter of Saturday’s home game against Toronto. First-team center Erick Dampier trotted to the bench, replaced by the buoyant Sixth Man of the Year Jason Terry. And there it was, the debut of Dallas’ Fave Five: Jet joining Dirk Nowitzki, Shawn Marion, Jason Kidd and – finally – Josh Howard.

    It was worth the wait.

    “You get to look at the lineup that everyone wants to see: myself, J-Kidd, J-Ho, Shawn Marion at the 4 and Dirk as the 5. That is a dangerous lineup for us."

    A breakdown of what Josh and the Fave Five accomplished in the Mavs’ 129-101 victory over the Raptors. … and the rest of the notes, quotes, news and views (oh, and a sweet Fave Five logo worth the click-in) … Your All-Access Pass:

    “It felt pretty good, getting back in the swing of things," Howard said in review of a game in which he finished with 16 points, four rebounds, three steals and two assists in 24 minutes."Trying to be out there for my team today, that was it. I had a good time out there."

     A quick breakdown of the Fave Five’s work:

     First Quarter:
     The group was brought together with 5:20 left; Dallas was down 17-13.
      It ended its play together with 2:02 left, and with Dallas down 25-22.
      Add up that segment and Dallas was plus-1. The Mavs shot well, as the Fave Five was a combined 4-of-6 from the field during that stint. (Josh stayed on the floor to finish the quarter with a different group and helped Dallas gain a 26-25 lead.)
     Seconnd Quarter:
     The group was teamed together with 2:47 left; Dallas was up 47-44.
      The Fave Five was on the floor to end the first half; the Mavs were up 55-48 and had the game’s biggest lead up to that point at nine.
     The Fave Five was plus-4 as a group and shot 4-of-7 from the field.
     Totals? The Fave Five was plus-5 and 8-of-13 from the floor in 5:18 of action.

     Oh, what about the third quarter and the fourth quarter?

     No Fave Five there. The game had become such a blowout that it wasn’t necessary.

     J-HO EARLY: The Mavs wasted no time in trying to get him involved; on the first play of the game, Kidd overthrew a backdoor alley-oop that was meant for Howard. After that, Howard settled into one of his most intriguing personas: The First-Quarter Superstar.

    He came out of the gate quickly, as usual, with seven points , two rebounds, one assist and two steals in the first period. He did try to create for himself, but the result wasn’t just jumpers; Howard scored five of the Mavs’ first seven points on his free throws. By halftime, he’d scored 13 points on 5-of-9 shooting in 20 minutes.

     “I thought the guys playing with him did a good job of understanding the situation, of looking to get him opportunities to attack and do some things and get to the free throw line,’’ said coach Rick Carlisle."

    Now, here’s Carlisle trying to ease Howard into the thing, right?

    Josh, you interested in “easing’’?

    "I don't want to lose that job (as first-quarter go-to guy)," Howard said. "I know one person beside myself that does as great job in the first quarter and that's LeBron James. To be considered in that category as one of the best, I have to keep working."

    Carlisle is trying to downplay that.

     Josh is tossing himself into the same paragraph with LeBron.

    That’s our Josh!

     THE LOW DOWN DOWN LOW: Shawn Marion in the paint was unstoppable.

    “We called some plays and got me going down there," said Marion. "(We) saw something that we really liked and took advantage of it. It opened everything else up as well."

    What they “took advantage of’’ was that the Raptors couldn’t prevent Marion from setting up shop where he wished. That’s how The Matrix made 9-of-11. It looked to us like Dallas used the same approach when James Singleton was in the game, and he made 4-of-5 shots.

    Now, don’t misunderstand; Singleton was 2-of-3 from the arc. He worked this summer on his 3-point shooting and it paid off here. He also added muscle and it gave the Mavs confidence in him to allow him a stint guarding Chris Bosh. But Singleton was able to clear space for himself to receive entry passes in the same way Marion was, is what we’re saying.

     And mostly with Singleton, Dallas needs him to get low-down down-low. And he and The Matrix did so.

     RUNNIN’ WITH THE RAPTORS: The Mavericks shot 74.4 percent from the field in a 74-point second half to put up 129 points. This is a danger zone for the Raptors, who are now 3-3 and in all three losses have given up a pile of points. Maybe it helps Dallas that it can use the Fave Five against a team like Toronto but not against everybody (though it is the game-finishing group and it oughta work Tuesday against the Rockets, right?). Certainly it helps that Toronto had played the night before, though as colleague Chuck Cooperstein pointed out to me on Saturday morning’s “Mavs Magazine’’ on 103.3 ESPN Radio, the Raps’ blowout of the Hornets meant Toronto’s stars hadn’t logged heavy minutes.

     But maybe it was the running game.

    Rather surprisingly, Dallas and Toronto are at the very bottom of the NBA when it comes to fast-break points. But the Mavs were obviously intent on fixing that here. The Mavs ran early and in the end, Dallas had 26 fast-break points. That won’t vault the Mavs to the top of the NBA’s statistical charts. But it did cause them to speed past this sluggish opponent.

    "It was our first back-to-back, and they got off to a track meet," Bosh said. "We kind of played into their game. We settled for too many jump shots. They got long rebounds and were off to the races."
     QUOTE OF THE NIGHT: From Josh Howard, on the subject of how, when he’s starting at the 2, he needs to adjust to the smaller guys’ playing styles:

    “Those (2-guard-sized players) have to learn how to guard a 3-man. It's not me changing up my game," Howard said.   

     JOSH AT THE END: Was he exhausted? Did he have a little limp?

     Yes and yes. But we know the first isn't a concern (he'll run his way back into shape) and we think the second is more of an affectation.

     Oh, Josh noted that he's less than "100 percent.'' As was the case after the Saturday morning shootaround, the Mavs will monitor swelling and the like. But great caution was taken in getting Howard to this point, so we work on the assumption that this day finally came because all involved were ready for it to come.

    WHERE DID THE MINUTES GO?: Conventional wisdom had it that when Josh returned, we’d see more of the Fave Five (that came true) and Josh might specifically take the place of J.J. Barea (that didn’t exactly come true).

    JJB was actually quite involved, notching 12 assists while playing 24 minutes. Damp? He was down to 18 minutes (And there’s your DUST Chip Note O’ The Night!). It’s probably Quinton Ross who gets pinched; he returned to the floor despite his back bruise and the defensive ace made 3-of-4 shots for six points in nine minutes.

    And that doesn’t count Drew Gooden (ribs), who missed the game. … and for whom the notion of him as “the starting center’’ seems a distant thought.  

      BOSH VS. DAMP: We bumped into Chris Bosh’s mom before the game and demanded that she instruct her son to use the Summer of 2010 to find a way to land with his hometown team.

     Just kidding. We really did bump into Mama. But we didn’t demand anything.

     As always, Bosh demonstrated his brilliance with 26/12. CB4 was especially effective at creating his own shot in the paint; this is as aggressive as we’ve ever seen him, and his numbers bear that out.

    But Bosh – who entered the weekend fourth in the NBA in scoring (29 ppg) and second in rebounding (11.8 rpg) – faded in the second half. He scored just 11 in the second half and grabbed just two rebounds.

    How much of that was Erick Dampier? Well, we note that Damp’s early-season inspired play continued, really, because while Damp played a secondary role here (18 minutes, but still six rebounds and five points), I bet when the Mavs coaches watch film of what the Mavs center accomplished here, they will applaud him for his mental and physical work defending the Bosh-centric pick-and-roll. It certainly looked to me like Damp and Jason Kidd were in synch here, and while Bosh had those numbers, the Mavs were successful in inventing a way to curtail one of his strengths.

    Of course, really this was about Dallas’ star vs. Toronto’s star. That makes it Dirk vs. Bosh.

    Dirk’s line: Eight points in the first quarter, 29 for the game, on 12-of-20 shooting. Plus nine rebounds, four assists, two steals and a block.

    Bosh’s aforementioned line: 26 points, 12 rebounds, one assists, one steal, one block.

    And, if you agree that in many ways the Raptors swapped out Shawn Marion for Hedo, here’s that comparison:

    The Matrix: 18 points, on 9-of-11 shooting (!), eight rebounds, one assist, one steal, one block.

    Hedo: Um, did he forget to get off the bus? He goes 3-of-8 shooting for eight points. Blecch.

    The guy who really makes Toronto a potentially different team than it was last year is Andrea Bargnani. The supposed “Next Dirk’’ isn’t that; in fact, the Mavs felt pretty comfortable letting Nowitzki guard him. But Bargnani was a 12-ppg guy last year and, with 22 points, once again proved himself to be a 20-pgg this year.

     IT’S THE SHOES: I know that the NBA has relaxed its demand that everybody on a team wear shoes that match in primary colors. But it certainly looked to me that while all the other Mavs were wearing mostly-white shoes, J.J. Barea broke out the non-conformist dark tennies.

     He’s a fashion plate, this kid.

    JOURNALISM 101: Maybe I’m the only guy who noticed, but let me give some friendly advice to the two finalists for the PA announcer job at the AAC: Bros, you have to list the team that is ahead first. You cannot say, “Raptors 25, Your Dallas Mavericks 26!’’

    You just can’t.

    OLD-HOME-WEEK REVENGE: Shawn Marion, a former Raptor, really has nothing to prove here. But he proved it anyway, with that in-the-paint easy-bucket approach that really keyed the Mavs’ 62-percent shooting.

   “Shawn’s game was terrific,’’ Carlisle said. “He’s starting to really get his conditioning now after missing those 10 days toward the middle part of training camp. That was something that set him back a little bit. He’s playing a little bit different style of play, especially with that first group, and I think he’s starting to adapt to it a little bit better. We’re just going to keep working on that stuff.’’
   Antoine Wright, the former Mav, really has nothing to prove here, either. The ex-Mav has such a comfort level at the AAC – he owns an apartment across the street – that he felt fine about taking nine shots in this game. Happily, he made just one. 

    Kris Humphries did want to prove something. He did -- he outplayed Amir Johnson. But we already knew that was going to happen.

    HARRY BELAFONTE’S ‘J-HO!”: The AAC led the crowd in chants of “J-Ho’’ – you say it like Harry Belafonte sang “Day-O’’ – and as old-timers, we were amused to see a gimmicky Calypso song from the ‘50’s being sung by thousands of fans who can’t have any idea what it is they were singing.

   (UPDATE: 'Kenny' from the Mavs' Facebook page notes that the movie "BeetleJuice'' probably informed thousands of Mavs fans regarding "Day-O.'')

     It added to an “event’’ night, the 4-2 Mavs finally playing really well at home, going dark-at-home with the new uniforms (Dallas is 3-0 in the Rhapsody In Blues) , and celebrating the long-anticipated return of a favorite son.

    “I'm not ready to say this is some kind of magic wand," Carlisle said.

     But yeah, it was pretty magic.

Hat-tip to D-Page and to Stereolith