Mavericks hang on for another day

David Snyder

Most people that watched the Dallas Mavericks take on the Golden State Warriors Tuesday claim to have seen a heroic performance by Dirk Nowitzki. The Mavs' star forward scored 12 of the teams last 15 points. I saw a giant trying to gasp for air.

Dallas is trying to keep from becoming the first number one seed to lose to an eight seed in a seven game series.

The way they did it last night was by gaining and then losing a 21 point lead to the Warriors. It took a two minute span of time where Dirk Nowitzki, a 38% career three-point shooter, began to take and hit low percentage, long range shots, for the team with the best NBA record this regular season, to keep from being knocked out of the first round.

And despite the victory the Mavs are doomed. Why? Because they have allowed Golden State to turn this into an emotional series.
"The bottom line is, we don't like each other," Warriors forward Matt Barnes said. "We don't like them, they don't like us. It's going to get chippy, there's going to be hard fouls and that's the way we like to play."
When you are the giant, the reigning king of the Western Conference, the last thing you want to do is make a seven game series with an athletic group of underachievers about emotion. Stephen Jackson has been ejected twice and Barron Davis is being double-teamed, but it doesn't matter because Dallas still had to rely on low percentage shots, what most would call luck, to win the game.

If the Warriors win they will be labeled giant killer, giving the Mavericks more credit than they deserve. If the Mavericks somehow come back in the series to win they will be labeled as having heart and being clutch, everyone forgetting that this team was supposed to easily move throughout the West.

If and when Dallas loses the Warriors will simply have outplayed them. Owner Mark Cuban believes and loves intangibles. He said of Warrior coach Donnie Nelson, "He is afraid to win."

Well he hasn't been afraid three out of the five games so far this series and he wasn't afraid to try and put the stake in the monsters heart last night. He just slipped and missed. Now he has two more chances to remind Cuban what it feels like to lose a playoff series.

David Snyder adds his opinion and insight to many of the topics floating around the sports world at bigdaveonsports.com. He welcomes criticisms and questions at dave@bigdaveonsports.com

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