The Warriors went in to Dallas and punked the Mavs with a strong showing in game 1. They continued their great late season run and their dominance over the Mavs and showed neither of that was a fluke and neither needs to end today just because the playoffs are supposed to be different! They didn't play a particularly good first half, but the Mavs didn't do anything special either. The game was tied at 38 at the half and it looked like the Mavs had the W's exactly where they wanted them. The Mavs went on a mini-roll in the third, but Boom-Dizzle turned it up a notch or 3 in the third. He scored 19 points including a 3 pointer to end the quarter and the Warriors took a 6 point lead in to the fourth. They never relinquished it and really took it to the Mavs at the end with a strong showing. They bottled up the entire Mavs team except Devin Harris. He is too quick for everybody except Monta Ellis and he kept the Mavs alive in the 4-Th with his forays to the hoop. Nowitzki did nothing and Stackhouse scored as many points as me in this game - a big, fat 0! Dirk shot 4/16 for 14 points and Nellie's strategy to send a second guy at him just as he spins for the shot is brilliant! Thats good coaching and also a case of Nelly knowing Dirk and this team real well. The W's have had great success with Dirk with that strategy. They let Dirk make his first move, and just as he spins there's a guy blind-siding him and stripping the ball.
The Warriors are not bad defensively. They play really small, they run-and-gun and look like "Suns-lite", but they are better defensively than the Suns. They have a bunch of 6-6, athletic, long, active guys - midgets as Barkley called them, and these guys play a tight zone, constantly switch and swipe at the ball and just bother people. They cause a lot of turnovers and score off of them. The Mavs are not going to shoot this bad rest of the series and this is far from done, but the Mavs have to adjust to the defensive style of the Warriors. Also, they can't stop Baron Davis. He had a near triple double with a 33-14-8 night. He takes bad 3's at times, but he made all of them tonight. He led both teams with his 14 boards. May be Avery will put Josh Howard on him next. Josh is Avery's goto guy on defense. Avery got a lot of criticism for going small and starting Devean George instead of his big centers. He needs to now come up with adjustments to slow this Warrior train down. Of course the Mavs will shoot better and Boom-Dizzle probably will cool down with his jumpers, but the Warriors have a lot of weapons and right now, they just need to figure out how to defend Devin Harris and continue to bother Dirk the same way. The defining moment of this game came when Harris stole the ball and streaked down the court for a layup. J-Rich stayed with him and blocked his shot hard with both players crashing on to the back board. Barnes hit a quick 3 on the other end and Harris stayed down hurt. That added injury to insult for the Mavs and they sure hope Harris is healthy and back. Game 2 will be tough for the W's, but the Mavs better send them a strong message.
Denver got the other upset as they bothered San Antonio as expected and closed them out at the end. Duncan just had 14-10, Parker 19-6-8 and Ginobli 9-7-2. The Spurs surprisingly could not defend either Melo or AI as both had 30+ nights on high percentage shooting. Bowen played just 19 minutes and was not effective defending either of these guys. I am sure Pop will have him play a lot more to shore up the D. The only good spot for the Spurs were the strong play form Horry and Oberto. It's the playoffs and what else do you expect from Horry? It's about adjustments and defense for the Spurs now. They had lost game 1 as the top seed against the Suns in 2003 and they have also lost a home game to Denver in the playoffs a few years back. In both cases, they came up victorious and they hope this is no different.
In Cleveland, the entire city missed a heart-beat or 10 when King James twisted an ankle. Luckily he came back up again and everything was good. Larry Hughes had a strong game against his former team with 27 points and the King had 23-9-7. Jamison's 28 was not good enough. People in Cleveland are talking about a Eastern finals appearance and this was a good start.
Washington @ Cleveland - 82-97
LA Lakers @ Phoenix - 87-95
Denver @ San Antonio - 95-89
Golden State @ Dallas - 97-85
Playoff schedule for 04/23/2007
Orlando @ Detroit - Can the Magic shoot free throws and will the Pistons stay focussed enough to go up 2-0?
Utah @ Houston - Utah is playing real bad at the most important point in the season.
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