When the Mavs beat the Warriors 120-115 back in November at their place, only one thing was missing -- Stephen Jackson. He was serving a seven-game suspension to start the season so he missed out on guarding Dirk Nowitzki, a job he did pretty well in the first round.
With the Warriors in Dallas Wednesday night, I'll have an article that morning looking at the matchup between Dirk and Jackson and the Mavs and Warriors.
While Jackson seemed to really irritate Nowitzki in that series, Jerry Stackhouse was adamant on Monday that it wasn't so much what Jackson did to Nowitzki, but rather what Nowitzki and the Mavs did to themselves.
Here's Stackhouse's take on Jackson's defensive role in the playoffs:
"I just think we didn't take advantage of some of the things that we should have. We weren't aggressive in our moves. We allowed him to play; up until that series, nobody had ever thought of Stephen Jackson as no hell of a defensive player. He was just a guy that could shoot the basketball. He made some big shots for San Antonio when they won the championship that year [2003]. But, he's not no defensive stopper or anything. I think it was moreso what we allowed to happen to us. Like anything basketball is a game of confidence. When they come out and for a game and tell him that he did a good job on Dirk, now all of a sudden he's looking for him. It's up to Dirk to get that back. What's a better opportunity to do that than Wednesday night?"
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