Mavs 104, Sixers 102: Your All-Access Pass

   Before Monday’s home tipoff, Mavs coach Rick Carlisle reflected on his team’s recent habit of being drawn into playing at the wrong speed, into exchanging baskets, into allowing the opponent to dictate back-and-forth pace.

   “Windshield-wiper games,’’ he called them.

   The Mavs didn’t control everything in this way-too-tight 104-102 victory over the struggling Sixers. But it was a game in which the masterful Jason Kidd owned the road. In fact, in many ways, Kidd was the windshield. … and the Sixers were the bugs.

  Your All-Access Pass from a night at the AAC:

   You felt it again on the final Mavs possession of the first half, when he performed some inbounds magic with an almost-half-court no-look lob from out of bounds to the rim, where Shawn Marion was hovering, his slam giving Dallas a 57-43 halftime lead.

   You felt it again when the Mavs opened the second half, Kidd hitting a jumper for his 15^th point, then lobbing to Marion for another dunk and his ninth assist, then a minute later recording a 10^th assist …

   “Jason Kidd is one of the best passers to ever play this game,’’ said Jason Terry in what actually qualifies as an understatement.

    Kidd committed one gaffe, and it came in the one spot that he hasn’t found himself this season: At the free-throw line. Rather stunningly, up until the :10 mark of this game, Kidd had attempted just four FTs all season long. Four! Now, he’d made them all. …

    But at that 10-second mark, after securing a late defensive rebound, he made just one of two. Can ‘em both and this game wouldn’t have been so dramatic.

    So Jason Kidd -- with 22 points, 11 assists, six rebounds, three blocks and four steals, the first time in his stellar career he’s had a boxscore that overflowing -- wasn’t perfectly in control.

    He was a free throw away from being perfect.

   THE GAMEWINNER … WITH OPTIONS: With 5.6 seconds remaining and the score tied at 102-all, one Mavs’ great option was to find Dirk Nowitzki near the free-throw line. That’s one of his pet spots, the Mavs can clear out from there, it allows him to see the floor if he chooses to distribute, and his resume includes a long list of game-winners from there.

   Instead, Kidd inbounded to Jason Terry … who hadn’t scored a basket in the entire second half.

   Now, this is a scary thing about the Mavs’ offense: Big moment, needing one basket, and who do you guard? Dirk is money, Kidd won’t shy from it, Marion’s been that guy a skillion times, a healthy Josh can be that guy, J.J. Barea’s fearlessness comes into play here. …

    It’s The UberMan atop the totem pole, of course; his days of being politely deferential to teammates Finley and Nash seem like a whole different Dirk. But who is the second guy?

    Jason Terry thinks it’s Jason Terry. And even Kidd is claiming that Jet was “Plan A’’ here.

    Jet tried to launch immediately, but that was taken away from him, so he moved to his right – and he’s pretty deadly when doing that. To the baseline he spun, rising from 17 and fading away just a little bit to guarantee him some space.

    And with 1.4 seconds left … it’s good!

   "We ran something that was going to be him or Dirk, two good options," said Carlisle. "I thought the key on the whole thing was, he could have taken the shot quickly but he had the presence of mind to get the guy on his hip, use some clock and able to get some separation and take the shot. … He hit a great shot. Tremendous.’’

   “That’s what he does,” Nowitzki added. “To me, he’s one of the best crunch-time shooters that we have in this league.”

    The gamewinner … when it probably shouldn’t have come down to that, given the fact that Dallas was up 17 in the first half. But it is nice to employ Jason Terry as one of many options.

    MEANWHILE, THE SIXERS’ OPTIONS. …: I don’t think this is just me. I think this was the Mavs’ thinking, soo.

     The Sixers’ options seemed to come down exclusively to Iguodala. It seemed the Mavs knew he’d be the go-to guy for that last shot, a 3-point launch that was off the mark (maybe because Iggy’s teammate, the tough-to-figure-out Samuel Dalembert, two-hand-slapped the ball while it was approaching the rim?). Of course, Iggy took the previous game-on-the-line shot on the previous possession and was defended brilliantly by Shawn Marion. The Matrix (14 points) earned a chunk of his paycheck right there, preventing one of the game’s most explosive and creative weapons from getting a desirable shot.

    In total, Iguodala struggled to his 19 points and Marion gets a lot of credit there. But on that final shot? A total of three Mavs converged on Iguodala, all jumping in his face in unison, all as if they knew he’d be the guy.

    SOME CREDIT AND SOME ‘BUTS’ FOR THE SIXERS: This was their seventh straight loss, and the second night of a B-2-B after having lost in San Antonio on Sunday. They’ve got injury issues  with guys missing, they’ve got injury issues with guys coming back (one of my favorites, Eldon Brand, was back in the mix Monday and plowed his way to 21/10 in 25 minutes), and they’ve got distractions.

   Namely, Allen Iverson, who was in Dallas to meet with Philly executives about becoming an unretired prodigal son who will demand to start, demand to shoot and end up torching the Philly executives he just met with.

    With that going on, coach Eddie Jordan’s bunch deserves a hat-tip.

     However …

     *Down two with the ball, with one tick left and the game on the line, shouldn’t Jason Kapono be on the floor? I know he doesn’t look like a 3-point specialist anymore now that he’s wearing jersey No. 72; it’s kind of like how the Colts’ Dallas Clark wears No. 44 and somehow deceives everybody into forgetting he’s a big, rangy stud of a tight end.

    So maybe Jordan saw No. 72 down there and thought he was an offensive tackle?

    *Midway in the third quarter, Jordan went into his bag of silly tricks and out came. … a full-court press? After made Philly baskets, the Sixers attempted to put decision-making and ball-handling pressure on the Dallas point guard, a High-School Harry move in the following sense:

    The Dallas point guard is Jason Kidd. Jason Kidd laughs at your full-court press.

    I do not believe Jordan can plead ignorance here; as I recall, he was an assistant in New Jersey when Kidd was there. In fact, as I intimated at the time, when the Mavs were looking to replace Avery Johnson, Eddie Jordan was on the investigatory list largely because Kidd suggested his name to Dallas management.

    *Did I mention that Iggy’s potential game-winner seemed to have been clonked away from going in by his own teammate, Samuel Dalembert?

    ONE MORE WINDSHIELD-WIPER REFERENCE: This would be about “cleaning the glass,’’ the one thing in this game that Dallas did very, very poorly. Philly totaled 24 offensive rebounds, an absurd sum that was a big part of its 60-37 overall edge. (Dalembert had 19 total, not counting his “offensive rebound’’ of a shot that might’ve been going into the basket.)

   I don’t want to blame all of it on Dallas’ 3-PG Attack. Having Jet and JJB on the floor at the same time would figure to cut into a team’s rebounding prowess.

   So I’ll just blame some of it on Dallas’ 3-PG Attack.

   DAMP IS BACK!: Carlisle made the announcement in such a subtle way during his pregame presser that it really wasn’t an “announcement’’ at all. More like a mumbled confession.

    Erick Dampier is back.

    The mystery of his illness absence remains; for me, in terms of pop culture, this now ranks with the question, “Where did the first spouses of the parents in ‘The Brady Bunch’ disappear to?’’

     But Damp is back, he started, he handled an alley-oop from Kidd at the 7:50 mark of the first quarter and then, after another brief appearance to open the second half, his cup-o’-coffee was empty. Damp – after having missed two weeks dating back to that pregame dizziness in Detroit – registered just 16 minutes of burn.

    THE ODD MAV OUT: I think we got a better feel here for who might be the Odd Mav Out as the team inches nearer full strength. Damp started over Gooden, and while James Singleton got some early burn, that was probably just because Damp played only those 16 minutes. Singleton looks like an extra guy, and Kris Humphries (DNP) looks even more extra than that.

    Rookie Roddy Beaubois got the start (and wasn’t at all effective, with a lazy pass that was easily intercepted by Iggy causing Roddy to be pulled back to the bench). But J.J. Barea opened the second half, and got a lot of clutch time – enough, anyway, to make a trio of big 3’s in the second half.

    This can all change from night to night – and will change all over again when Josh Howard tries to give it a go later this month. But the Mavs’ much-ballyhooed depth must at some point become fine-pointed to a nine-man rotation. And this was a glimpse at that.

    Oh, I almost forgot. One more guy who needs to be squeezed into the conversation, Tim Thomas, who is apparently still dealing with a tweaked back after having slept wrong last week.

    Oh, I almost forgot another one. Quinton Ross’ back is keeping him out.

    So yeah, a few somebodies are going to have to be Odd Mavs Out.

    FREE THOUGHTS ON FREE THROWS: In addition to the aforementioned note on Kidd at the line, three more quickies:

    1. A measure of clutch: Dirk Nowitzki (28 points here) still hasn’t missed all fourth-quarter free throw all year.

    2. Dirk shot a technical FT to start the second half. But Dallas didn’t shoot another one until there was 3:56 left in the game.

    3. After what happened at the end of regulation in what became an OT loss in New Orleans and after what happened here, I think we can assume that Rick Carlisle doesn’t believe a team up three with a few seconds left should foul. Frankly, I think the Dallas Mavericks – in this decade one of the best free-throw-shooting teams in NBA history – ought to savor opportunities to turn end-game situations into FT-shooting contests. But that’s just me.

   KILLER INSTINCT?: Should the Mavericks be getting ahead by 17 and staying there? Is this a “killer-instinct’’ thing?

   "If you look at the record, at least we found a way to kill 13 times, and not kill five times," Nowitzki said.

    FISHELLANEOUS: Dallas is now 13-5 and heading to winless New Jersey, where Kiki and Del Harris are taking charge, as DB.com suggested on Monday afternoon. … The Mav’ defense was much superior then when last seen in Cleveland. In the first half, the Mavs held Philly to 33-percent shooting. … Iggy averages two steals a game and got four here. … Dallas has yet to lose two in a row. … It’s happened more than a few times this year, and it is a very good thing: Drew Gooden (15 points, 10 rebounds) muscled up to hug down a Sixer before he could make a layup, a “hard foul’’ that in the past really wasn’t Dallas’ style. … Dirk and Kidd in the two-man game, left side of the floor, cleared out for a pick-and-pop, was pretty much unstoppable in the second half. … The Mavs completed a 12-4 November – the same excellent mark this team had in 2006. …

The Mavs-Sixers boxscore