Mavs @ Blazers

[mavsfoty]

[HMFFL]

Mavs favored to win by by 5.

O/U is 183.5

[Parasight]

Josh Howard playing?

[JES12]

My citizenship vs my homwtown

[dirkforpres]

Mavs SHOULD win. If Dallas plays like they have in April, this game should be in the bag. J-Ho should be playing.

[your_dallas_mavericks]

Go Mavs, nice thread foty. You da game thread King!

[TsunamiZC]

I think the Blazers are the new Golden State for the Mavs

[Captain_Obvious]

When Stack is back, Wright will be the last man to see minutes, and rightfully so

[TradeMachine]

Wow!

Props for the great gifs.

[ppp000]

terry
our defense

[ppp000]

These games remind me exactly why I don't like Terry. hopefully we get something for him this offseason.

[DDansby123]

The story for the Mavs (again): they must have at least average scoring nights from their big scorers (Dirk, JET, and Josh) to win the game. Any one of those guys has a clunker (like JET did tonight), and we're probably going to lose. (FYI, a "clunker game" offensively is one where the player has a PPS well below 1.00...that is, he has more FGAs than points.) Josh is prone to that, too. JET's not a bad guy to have on the team, but he can't be this inconsistent and be a guy we rely on every night to shoot 12+ shots.

I wish there were a stat for PPS standard deviation to see how volatile players' PPS numbers are from game to game. That'd be interesting.

With respect to this game, though, no Josh Howard + a non-playoff opponent = no interest in the outcome for me.

[Rand10]

I didn't think our defense was all that bad. Portland just shot the lights out. They answered every time we tried to make a run.

What bothered me the most was Allen coming in for the 1st time with 7 minutes left in the 4th and then playing the rest of the way. Avery either still doesn't trust Dampier or is just confused again.

I'm not going to worry too much about this loss though. We obviously need Howard and Dirk is still playing great. Terry was off tonight, but he always goes through stretches like this. EJ finally remembering how to shoot was nice.

[ppp000]

We are pretty much locked in 7th, still we had a chance to win. Ultimately Terry cost us the game.

Let's see the last few posessions after Dirk hits two jumpers to tie:
-Terry stupidly gives an AND 1 to Aldridge
-Terry misses a layup
-Terry misses 3

Remind me why someone who has been torched by the other team's guards and has been shooting like 20% gets the last couple shots?

The first quarter was costly as well.

Also Terry, Stackhouse are one and the same: VERY STREAKY guys who do NOT make good decisions down the stretch, so yes it's a bad thing that we rely heavily on those two to produce somewhat.

[DDansby123]

We are pretty much locked in 7th, still we had a chance to win. Ultimately Terry cost us the game.

Let's see the last few posessions after Dirk hits two jumpers to tie:
-Terry stupidly gives an AND 1 to Aldridge
-Terry misses a layup
-Terry misses 3

Remind me why someone who has been torched by the other team's guards and has been shooting like 20% gets the last couple shots?

Terry did cost us the game, IMO, no question about it (if we're pinning it all on one player anyway).

But I think the answer to your last question above lies in your first statement: the Mavs are pretty well locked into playoff position and are more concerned about "working on things" going in. We've said for awhile that somebody other than Dirk needs to step up and hit a clutch shot for us. That, IMO, is what Avery was trying to get from JET...hoping that some success might get him back in a groove offensively. Not caring about the outcome, I have no problem with that.

And like I've said for some time, whether we like it or not, JET and Stack have to be heavily involved offensively for us to win in the playoffs, and, of course, they have to play reasonably well on that end for us to win. I'm all for doing whatever's necessary to get them back in a groove offensively, and if that means sacrificing a victory to get JET some late-game, crunch-time shot opportunities, so be it.

[mavsfoty]

Guys it was a close loss from an unmotivated team missing Howard. We clearly missed Howard's defense on Roy and Jet shot horribly.

I'm dissapointed but at this point I want the playoffs to arrive.

[ppp000]

Terry has been clutch in the past, like the 06 playoffs run during the Spurs series.

But this season, he has declined from once being our 2nd best clutch shooter, to being a very inconsistent, bad decision maker down the stretch.

I don't think that's something you can regain by "practice"

Regardless, Dirk, Howard and Kidd better play consistently in the POs and hope that Terry/Stack shows up somewhat.

[JES12]

This guy should have played more.

[JES12]

I hate games when this is as much playing time as Howard gets (I mean the Howard at the top of the key).



Even starting to miss this guy.

[dirkforpres]

Welcome back JET. That was awful. This is EXACTLY the reason why we need Stackhouse back, because you can bet that Avery would have replaced Terry. The Mavs needed J-Ho tonight too.