Brainy Mavs Commit A Foul, Miss A Free Throw, Dull A Memory, Beat Steve Nash's Suns

   If you are a Mavs follower possessive of a long memory and a short fuse, you doubtlessly freaked on Tuesday when you saw Steve Nash waterbugging up the floor against the waterbug who five years ago replaced him in Dallas, Jason Terry.

   Dirk Nowitzki is a Mavs follower. He is possessive of a long memory and a short fuse. And yes, I think the scene caused Dirk to freak a little bit.

    “When Steve kept making those 3's at the end,'' Nowitzki said in the postgame, "that felt like a little déjà vu.’’

    The most haunting of Nash’s many, many big plays for the Suns against the Mavs is, of course, the unguarded 3-pointer he made in Game 6 of the 2004-05 NBA Western Semi-Finals, when Jason Terry was indecisive about how to handle Nash in the final seconds with Dallas up 3 … so Jet decided to do nothing.

    Nash made the shot, Phoenix won that deciding game in OT, and Dirk famously questioned his team’s “basketball IQ.’’

     Nowadays, of course, the Mavs have a cerebrum in Rick Carlisle and a cerebellum in Jason Kidd and so – in a no-brainer – Terry fouled Nash before he could launch yet another trey, thus turning Tuesday’s Mavs-Suns duel into a free-throw-shooting contest.

    And when Terry was again on the hot seat, having missed one FT that would’ve iced this thing, he intentionally missed the second, eating up just enough ticks to preserve Dallas’ 102-101 victory.

     Score one for increased BBIQ.

     The final seconds went something like this:

     *Dallas is ahead 89-96 with 1:16 remaining. But moments later, Nash comes off a screen and shoots over Dirk for a 3-pointer than makes it 96-93 with 47 seconds left.

     *The Mavs want to answer by running their offense through Dirk, and they do, Nowitzki getting the ball at one of his pet spots, the free-throw line. He’s working against Jared Dudley (in way over his head against The UberMan, who had 33) and then Jason Richardson slides off Kidd to show a double-team on Dirk – who instantly flips to Kidd for a toe-on-the-line 2-pointer and a 98-93 edge with 21 seconds left.

     My man Chuck Cooperstein on the radio calls it: “Kidd with the killer shot!!’’ … but Steve Nash doesn’t kill that easily.

     *The Suns foul Terry. I’m standing next to Mavs in-game host Chris Arnold, who turns to me and says, “Terry always tells me he wants to be this guy. He wants to shoot these free throws. He wants to be the designated guy.’’ Of course, the numbers generally support Jet’s confidence; he’s an 84-percent guy, which isn't Nash's 90-percent, but still. On the other hand, with Jet, what the hell happened earlier this year in New Orleans?

      But, sure, this seems like a sweet setup. Indeed, Jet hits ‘em both with 12.3 left.

     *Here comes Nash.  Another 3-pointer over JJ Barea, who again cannot battle through the pick.

      *Terry back to the line. He hits two more for a 102-99 advantage with 6.1 remaining.

      “Kill shot,’’ anybody? Nope. Not yet.
      *Nash charges up the floor and it feels like the spring of 2005 and it feels like Jet is about to be deflowered all over again. But this time, Terry fouls him with 3.7 seconds left. Genius! The Mavs are ready to turn this into a free-throw contest, a sound strategy but one Carlisle seems to rarely employ.

    "The way things have been going,’’ says Dirk later, maybe referring to Dallas’ historic inability to prevent Nashie from getting his 3’s, or maybe referring to some of this year's gaffes, or maybe referring to this game's trending, “we thought that was the best strategy.’’

     Added Carlisle: "The Suns') execution was great. So we had to make sure we were making free throws and doing the right things defensively from a strategic standpoint.''   

     Nash hits his two free throws – better than letting him have three points! -- to cut the lead to one, but so what? Dallas is going to get fouled, and it’ll do the same.

     Right?

     *The Suns don’t have any timeouts, and just 2.4 seconds remain as Terry toes the line. Make ‘em both and let’s go home with the Mavs moving up to 15-7, the Suns slipping to 15-7, and Dallas in third place in the West.

       Terry misses the first shot!

       Time for BBIQ, which coincidentally, DallasBasketball.com discussed just today in great detail with Jason Kidd. Terry misses the second one intentionally, and it’s tricky, because you don’t want to shoot an airball there; if you can, you maybe want to just misdirection your normal shot off to the side. Terry executes the imperfect shot perfectly, the ball sliding off the left iron, fairly harmlessly into the hands of Amare Stoudemire, whose 76-foot heave is hopeless.

     From Carlisle: "Jet’s intentional miss at the free-throw line was a huge play because he grazed the rim in such a way where Stoudemire had to kind of double-hitch and then put it on the floor, and that probably burned a half a second or a quarter of a second, which in that situation when you are flinging up a (long) shot, it makes a difference. So, we had to be precise. ...''

    The outcome here doesn’t erase horrid memories of Steve Nash’s successes against his old team; really, he deserves better than that. Instead, I’ll just say that the outcome allows for a new memory, a new memory to be stored in a more capable brain.