They always say you learn more from your losses than your victories and I was counting on that when Dallas lost game 1 at Miami. For some reason, I felt like it was a good thing for the Mavs. Dallas has this vibe of a veteran, mature team that learns and adjusts game to game. They also have the depth to switch things up and Rick Carlisle is a thinking man's coach. He is not headed to the hall of fame yet, but I consider him to be under-rated. Also, game 1 was on the road and the Heat are a young team prone to letting things get to their head and can act immature at times. I think both Wade and LeBron still have these youthful tendencies and that shows from time to time. They don't possess the killer instinct of a Kobe or a MJ and don't effectively step on the throat of the opponent when the opportunity presents itself. All this led to my belief that the Mavs are going to be fine after the game 1 loss and even be better for it. I thought they will learn from it, adjust, and come out with a more aggressive game plan for game 2.
Of course, all my theories looked shaky when the Mavs were trailing by 15 with around 6 minutes to go in game 2. This is a close series between 2 equally matched teams and the Mavs were doing very well in the first half. But then the Heat went on one of it's runs and the Mavs suddenly were staring at a 15 point deficit and some early celebrations from the Heat. Here is the amazing thing about this Dallas team and Nowitzki. They never give up. They have supreme confidence and never panic. They did to the Heat what they did to the Thunder earlier in the playoffs. They focussed a little more on the defensive end, unleashed Nowitzki on the offensive end and chipped away at the lead. Next thing you know, the lead was gone and the Heat didn't know what to do. When LeBron and Wade start hoisting long 3's, you know you have a shot at winning. They have become decent long-range shooters, but still thats not their game. As a defense, thats exactly what you want them to do. LeBron has been making more of these shots in the clutch than in the past, but still he is "settling" anytime he attempts those and we saw a few of those in that 4-Th quarter of game 2.
Mavs finally outdid themselves when Nowitzki kept scoring and killed the Heat down the stretch. At least they needed overtime during their comeback against the Thunder, but Nowitzki finished things in regulation here. May be it was the Heat's premature celebration that fueled this run. Whatever it was, it wasn't pretty for the Miami Heat or it's big 3. Jason Terry did his best to give the Heat a shot at redemption when he left a 3-point shooter wide-open, but Nowitzki erased that mistake in a hurry at the other end. It was either that or he was going to erase Jason Terry off the face of the Earth after the game! Thats how angry he was after Terry's defensive brain-cramp. Reminded me of Nowitzki publicly yelling at Terry after Nash nailed a 3 to tie a playoff game for the Suns back in 2005. But Nowitzki is a lot more mature these days. He didn't show any emotion on the court, but apparently was hot in the huddle during the timeout. Terry seems like a good guy, but it's funny how he always finds himself in the middle of something interesting.
Now the series goes to Dallas for 3 straight games. It has traditionally been hard for teams to win all of those 3 middle games. The reason for that is very simple. It's just hard to beat a good team 3 times in a row and more often than not, good teams make it to the NBA finals. It can happen if there's a big talent differential between the 2 contending teams. But thats not the case here. So I expect Miami to steal one game out of the 3. Then the series becomes even more interesting and Miami would have won home court back at that point. Thats when home court is truly relevant because game 6 and 7 would be at home and it's almost impossible to win game 7 on the road. If anybody can, it's this Dallas team with the experience and depth. Still if I were Dallas, I wouldn't want to "take my talents to South Beach" for that game 7 on the road. So this is basically a 4 game series for Dallas now where they have to win 3. Doable for sure and thats why that game 2 win was big. But game 3 is also equally big. If Heat comes back and wins game 3, momentum is right back on their side and probably will never return to Dallas again. But if the Mavs win game 3, then the pressure builds on the Heat and Dallas can really work it.
When it's all said and done, I think Dallas takes it in 6.
No comments:
Post a Comment