The Spurs got back on track today as they bottled up the rich-creamies. They held them to 88 and limited Melo to 8/21 shooting for 26 points and AI to 9/25 shooting for 20. Nene had a good game with 17, but their bench gave them next to nothing. Spurs won as usual behind their defense. Timmy had 22 and Tony had 20, but Manu's 17 was very critical in this one. He played real well in the second half. The Nuggets still cut the lead down to 3, but the Spurs held on to win. They took the lead at 11-10 and never relinquished that rest of the way.
Washington suffered the same fate as Denver as they trailed most of the second half, but closed in late, only to see the King put them away. The King was not his usual self, but why should he be if Drew Gooden is "making it rain" on the court? Drew had 24 points to go with his 14 boards with most of the scoring coming on sweet jumpers in the first half. Bron-bron did have 27-8-7, but most of it came in late when he had to step up to keep the Wizards away. For the Wiz, it was the same story. Jamison had 31 and the rest of the team did nothing to write about.
Golden State met it's match today as the Mavs came to play. Nowitzki was still not a huge factor as he was hounded. But the other big names helped him out. Howard had a great "Josh Howard type" game with a box score filling 22-11-3-5-2 night. Terry was fantastic. He had 28 on 12/23 shooting despite going 1/7 from downtown. He dominated stretches of this game and kept the pressure off Nowitzki. Nowitzki did make some adjustments to counter the Warriors defense. He didn't post up much and stayed away from his predictable spin moves. This prevented the surprise double-teams coming from his back and blind siding him. He at least saw the double and triple team come to him and made decisive passes or jump shots. Stack showed up with 17 big ones and Devin Harris was as effective as ever.
For the W's, they started on fire, well at least Stephen Jacko and Monta Ellis did. They actually led after the first quarter and were still close after 2. It was the third quarter that exposed the Warriors. Jacko was still hot, but Monta was out of the picture by then. J-Rich and Al Harrington are still struggling in this series. But the Warriors go as Baron Davis goes. I did not expect him to have a game like game-1, but he had just 13 points and 2 dimes. On top of that, he got ejected for showing the ref up by clapping furiously at a foul call on him. The Warriors probably would have lost this game anyways, but they were at least in the game when he got kicked out. It was over at that point. Jacko then got ejected in the fourth and got progressively angrier as he reluctantly walked off the court. He was pretty close to getting suspended for game 3 if he had stayed on the court for a minute or 2.
So the Warriors took the whole "us versus the world" act too far in this game. I thought almost all the foul calls on the Warriors were good calls. May be they thought they were not getting the calls on their offensive end, but they had nothing to complain with the fouls they committed on defense. Nelly has to calm them down now. They can't carry this "we are the underdogs playing against the super stars and we are getting no calls" routine back home. The Oracle arena should be rocking when they get there Friday. The fans have been waiting for 13 years for this. Lets see if Boom-Dizzle, Jacko and the gang adjust well to the emotion at home. Speaking of adjustments, Avery went back to his big lineup with Damp and Diop at the pivot and it served him well at least for a day. The Warriors have to run to win. They are not even in the same league as the Mavs in the half-court.
Denver @ San Antonio - 88-97
Golden State @ Dallas - 99-112
Washington @ Cleveland - 102-109
Playoff schedule for 04/26/2007
Phoenix @ LA Lakers - Can the Lakers step up at home? How will the Phoenix offense look on the road?
Houston @ Utah - Utah better win at home and get in this series. They definitely can do that.
Detroit @ Orlando - Should be 3-0 time for the Pistons.
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