Mavs Get Off Their Big Fat Ballots For A Comeback/Blowout Of The Rockets

     For the first 17 minutes of Tuesday’s home game against Houston, the All-Star-candidate-heavy Mavs sat around on their big fat ballots and in doing so fell into a 17-point deficit.

    “We kind of got overwhelmed by their energy in the first half,'' said Dallas coach Rick Carlisle. "We're not going to have the luxury of having a bad half and then saying, 'OK, now we're going to kick it in.' You can't just flip a switch.’’

    Well, while it's not advisable, you can. ...

    Because then came yet another turnaround, headlined by offense but fueled by the work at the other end of the AAC floor, a 121-103 Mavs victory that establishes the difference between the Southwest Division-rival Mavs and Rockets: Houston’s roster is made up of hard-working refugees from the Island of Misfit Basketball Toys. Dallas’ roster really is star-powered … and if the Mavs will simply match the other team’s effort, they can elimnate the 17-point-deficits and start stockpiling 18-point victories.

    Take a Mavs team with five All-Star Ballot selections (but don’t remind ‘em too much lest they get the big head). Add a sixth guy who again performed like he’s getting paid by the point, by the rebound and by the blocked shot (that would be Erick Dampier, and he kind of is about to be paid that way, eh?). Now, by tossing in a cluster of reserves who share the Rockets roster’s rags-to-riches story arc …

    The Mavs should beat Houston.

    If the Mavs combine the blue-chip talent on the roster with the grit that the Rockets bring every night, the Mavs should beat Houston.

   Once the Mavs began heeding the defensive orders of Carlisle -- who really pushed some impressive buttons here, strategically and emotionally -- Dallas really needed just 5:25 to erase what lingered for a quarter-and-a-half as a potential embarrassment. You don’t want Houston to linger; the Mavs have enough issues in this division (as we’ll see Wednesday night in San Antonio) without allowing confidence to this bunch of scrappers. I think Carlisle knows that. I think therefore that Carlisle barked at his Mavs to be scrappers, too.

       Jason Kidd and Shawn Marion both made handfuls of All-Defensive Team-type plays to hold Houston to just three points and 1-of-15 shooting in the four-and-a-half minutes of the half.  Meanwhile, Dallas scored 22 in the same period.

    That’s a 22-3 run … and one man was as responsible on the offensive end as he was on the defensive end.

    That would be the much-maligned Erick Dampier, who has spent the entire early season backing up his claim to me that “people who know basketball’’ know what he contributes. This was Damp’s fifth double-double in his last six games, but this was monster for him: 14 points, three blocks and 20 rebounds. It was at that point in the game – the 20-rebound mark – when the AAC crowd gave Erick Dampier a standing ovation.

    You do not see that every night.

    When it comes to the Mavs, from Nellie to Avery and still today, there is much talk about SmallBall. It originates in part from the notion that Dampier is not worthy of being on the floor because he’s not one of the five best Mavs. (And not one of the five who are on that All-Star ballot, either.) And it comes up all the time when the subject is a SmallBall opponent. But we’ve written a million times in this space that maybe using a “real center’’ against those little teams – and hell, against every team – is a Dallas advantage. And not doing so simply shrinks the Mavs down to the other shrimp’s level.

    We saw the Mavs go conventional here, playing Damp despite the opponent’s lack of size, playing Damp despite the artistic beauty of the Fave Five, playing Damp because on this night he WAS one of the best five guys available.

    Hey, when he left the game in the first half, Dallas was up one. By the time he was called upon to again remove his sweatsuit, the Mavs were down by 15. What does that tell you?

    “I love the way Damp's playing,'' Carlisle said. "The one thing I do know is Damp's going to keep approaching it the same way. And he's going to keep playing hard and well.''

    That's what it tells you.

    (It also tells you that some smart team should next summer begin signing Erick Dampier to a series of one-year contracts. But that’s a tale for another day.)

      There was offense, too, of course.

     Off the bench, J.J. Barea poured in eight in the last couple of minutes of the third and for the game had 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting and five assists. Also of the bench, of course, was Jason Terry, who scored a game-high 24 . (Worth noting: Jet shot just 34 percent in the season’s first four games. After Tuesday’s 7-of-8 following up two other good performances, it's official. Terry's shot is fixed.)

      Dirk Nowitzki (23 points, six rebounds, four assists, a block and a steal) was part of the flood at the end of the first half (he scored six points in the two minutes before intermission as Dallas staged a 10-0 run to close it) and hit a big jumper early in the fourth help the Mavs to a 10-1 run and an 11-point lead. Josh Howard had 14 points and Marion had 10 points, six rebounds and three assists.

     But most of all, the Mavs found solutions on the defensive end. An example: Kidd, I think, figured out Brooks, who scored 19 in the first half but just three in the second. It looked like J-Kidd denied Brooks some pet spots and the veteran certainly did a superior job of fighting over screens and taking away Brooks’ options.

    The Mavs spent Tuesday basking in the fact that they matched the Lakers and Spurs with five Western All-Star nominees. Now they are 5-2. They are averaging 119 points in their last three outings and have a double-digit point differential. They staged an all-time comeback last week over Utah and this one – though they started earlier – shared some of that drama.

    You get the sense that the Mavs are talented enough to do this on a fairly regular basis … as long as they don’t sit around on their big fat ballots.

The Rockets-Mavs boxscore