The best first round series this season (may be ever according to some experts) came to an end today at Oak-town as the W's rode their home crowd one more time to frustrate Nowitzki and the Mavs. This series had captured the nation's imagination with the whole 8-v-1 upset angle plus the crazy crowd syndrome. The Oakland crowd is getting rave reviews all over the NBA and experts say it's the loudest and the most energetic they have seen in a long time. I am surprised that people say it's even better than crowds at the Arco arena when the Kings were good. ESPN's Bill Simmons says the best NBA crowds are at MSG in New York and Oakland. Looks like all the pent-up frustration from 13 years of playoff extinction is coming out now in a big, loud way. This crowd is so good there were many people who thought there's no way Dallas wins one on the road in this series. As expected, the Mavs collapsed in front of what one writer called "Raider fans under a roof".
The game started off with Mikale Pietrus leading his team out holding a "We Believe" yellow jersey and driving the fans into a frenzy. Avery said they W's will have 10000 pounds hanging off their right arms, but actually they came out loose and scored at will. The Mavs stayed in the game purely on 3's. Dallas' first seven made field goals were 3s, 4-of-6 from Stackhouse in the opening period, and the Mavs were 0-for-14 from 2-point range before Jason Terry's jumper at the 11:22 mark of the second quarter. It was a weird start, but the Mavs were in it. Then Boom Dizzle left the game with a sore hamstring and it looked like the W's were in deep trouble. Baron kind of slipped out and it took a while for the crowd to realize what happened and they were still loud and cheering wildly for their team. Then Baron came back in a la Willis Reed and the crowd went crazy. But Baron was clearly hobbled and couldn't drive to the hoop. The Mavs also went at him at the other hand with J-Terry and Devin Harris.
Baron hit some long threes to keep his team going though he clearly couldn't drive to the hoop. The W's stumbled in that second quarter without him, but his lucky 3's kept them in it. They went in to the half leading by 2 with Baron's hammy being the biggest question mark. Nowitzki was struggling all along as he finally figured his only option in this series was taking jumpers and he took a bunch of them, but none went in.
Then came the third quarter and before you know it this game was over. Boom-Dizzle came out looking a little more comfortable and the W's started running their offense. Jacko went nuts. He hit 7/8 3's for a total of 33 points in this game with most of the 3's coming in that third quarter. The W's outscored the Mavs 36-15 behind a raucous crowd and the game was over. The crowd just enjoyed this game the rest of the way as the Mavs looked clueless, discombobulated, flustered and rudderless. Nowitzki ended the game with 8 points on 2/13 shooting with 10 boards and he was the topic across the NBA world as people called him all kinds of names from No-wins-ki to No-nuts-ki. Poor guy is getting killed and his MVP trophy is going to be one of the most hollow wins ever.
The W's are now on to the second round. This series was just special and even though they are now in the second round, I think that series would not have the same juice as this one. This series had everything from a 8-V-1 to Nelly-V-Cubes to Nelly-V-Avery to the whole matchup edge for the Warriors against the Mavs. It will be interesting to see how the W's crowd react to the second round. They will be loud, but not this loud I suppose. Speaking of Nelly, he made another money move in this game as he started Matt Barnes ahead of Monta basically saying I'll go with the best 5 guys I got. Worked beautifully as Barnes had 16-11-7 on a sore hammy. Not bad for a free-agent training camp pickup.
In the "other" game, Utah won at home to setup a game 7 in Houston. Yao had 25 and T-Mac had 26-10-3 on 8/23 shooting, but the home team won again in this series. For the Jazz, there was balanced scoring as AK-47 had another strong game with 14-5-4-3(steals)-5(blocks). Thats the stat-sheet filling AK-47 we all know about. Houston will be at home for game 7 and they hope that doesn't end up being the first game in the series with a road team winning.
Dallas @ Golden State - 86-111
Houston @ Utah - 82-94
Playoff schedule for 05/04/2007
Toronto @ New Jersey - Elimination game for the young Raptors.
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