Earl K. Sneed, Mavs.com (04/01/10)
Mavs' April Fool's Day frowns
Orlando Magic 97 at Dallas Mavericks 82
The Dallas Mavericks had no April Fool's jokes awaiting the Orlando Magic on Thursday night. Instead the joke was on the Mavericks, and it was no laughing matter.
Though the Mavericks entered the matchup with a three-game win streak and the psychological edge, after sneaking out of Orlando with a 95-85 road win on Feb. 19, the Magic was the team leaving the American Airlines Center floor with a smile and a 97-82 win the second time around. With the Mavericks coming off of a grueling 106-102 overtime win in Memphis the night before, Orlando was the fresher team. The Magic squad also stuck to what it does best, torching the Dallas defense from three-point range.
"We were in a dogfight last night. We gave our all, but Orlando was the better team tonight," point guard Jason Kidd said after the loss.
(Photo by Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images)
The opening quarter was a test of wills, with both squads feeling each other out while looking for a weakness to attack. The Mavericks attempted to go right at All-Star center Dwight Howard on the offensive end. But the Mavs had their hands full with No. 12 inside at the other end of the court. The result was an 18-16 Magic edge at the end of one, in a low-scoring affair. Both teams struggled shooting early on, as the Magic hit on seven of 19 shots compared to the Mavs' 7-for-23 shooting.
"Some nights, it's going to be like that," forward Shawn Marion said. "It just felt like a lid was on the basket."
"The game was tight after the first quarter, and then they started hitting threes," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said.
The two squads remained pretty even in the second quarter, with Dirk Nowitzki pulling his team closer every time the Magic got breathing room. But with Nowitzki on the bench, the Magic ran off seven unanswered points to go comfortable in front. With Mickael Pietrus schooling understudy and fellow Guadeloupe native Rodrigue Beaubois, the Magic took a 43-36 advantage into the halftime break.
Behind Pietrus' 15 first half points in 12 minutes off the bench, the Magic out-shot the Mavs 38 percent to 35 percent in the half. Nowitzki's 12 points kept the Mavericks in contention at the midway point.
"We just weren't able to get anything going early," Nowitzki said. "We were a little flat."
"They are a very good defensive team, top two or three in the league. They are going to make it hard. Early on, Dirk is the only thing we were really able to get going and that made it tougher because then they were locking in on him," Carlisle explained.
But Nowitzki picked right back up where he left off to begin the third quarter. Still, the nine-time All-Star was unable to keep his squad from falling behind by double digits. The Mavs tried to find a spark plug in the play of reserve guard J.J. Barea, as the fan favorite returned from a two-game hiatus with a sore left ankle.
"I was just trying to be a spark in the second half. We needed to get something going," Barea explained.
But the quarter was all Orlando's, as the Magic dominated the Mavericks in the paint and on the perimeter. Deadly three-point shooting and the combination of Howard and former Mav Brandon Bass inside lifted Orlando to a 72-56 advantage heading into the fourth.
"We didn't execute our game plan at all," sixth man Jason Terry said.
"We couldn't make shots and we got frustrated," Kidd added. "It carried over to our defense."
Despite Barea's dribble-penetration and Terry's outside shooting off the bench, the Mavericks continued to trail by double figures early in the fourth.
"The second half, we were able to get some more guys involved," Carlisle said. "Barea came in and made some things happen. JET (Terry) got going and we had some better activity. But it was an uphill battle all night."
The duo did cut an 18-point deficit down to nine inside of the final two minutes of play. But the Mavericks never got any closer, after Pietrus closed the door on Dallas with back-to-back threes in the final minute.In addition to out-shooting the Mavericks 49 percent to 38 percent, the Magic connected on 14-of-24 from behind the arch. That's a far difference from the 4-for-25 from deep that Orlando shot in the February meeting.
"The thing that killed us was the threes," the coach said. "The last two times we played these guys, this year and last year, we made a real effort to run them off the line. There were a lot of times they had shots they would normally knock down but they didn't make. And tonight, they were making them. There were times tonight when we didn't do a good job of finding shooters in transition."
"You take the threes out of the equation and we were right there. They were shooting just as bad as us," Marion said.
Dallas won the points in the paint battle (30-28) and were just slightly out-rebounded (43-42), even with Howard's 17-point, 20-rebound effort. What the Mavericks didn't prepare for was Pietrus' season-high 24 points off the bench on 7-of-8 shooting and 6-for-6 from behind the arch.
"Pietrus was on fire," Nowitzki simply said.
The Mavericks also didn't anticipate an off-night from the squad's starters with the exception of Nowitzki. Take away Nowitzki's 24 points on 9-of-22 from the field, and the four Dallas reserves that saw playing time (Barea, Beaubois, Terry and Erick Dampier) outscored the other four starters (Kidd, Caron Butler, Marion and Brendan Haywood) 38-20. Barea and Terry were the only other Mavs in double figures, scoring 16 points apiece.
"We want to get everybody playing well," Carlisle said. "The fact is, there are going to be nights when guys have some struggles. That's why you have a team, so you can try to find other guys who can help.
"Our first unit, a lot of it, we've got to be efficient, move and screen well. That's a group that plays a lot of basketball off the flow, not a lot of play calling. The recognition of one another has to be really good. That group's played some really fine basketball in some instances. We can do it, we just have to work to do it."
Now the Mavericks try to catch a convenient case of amnesia, putting this loss out of their minds so they can concentrate on Saturday's home matchup with the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Mavericks lead the season series 2-1 over Oklahoma City. The Thunder-Mavericks matchup will air locally on Fox Sports Southwest at 7:30 p.m. CT. Tickets are still available and can be purchased by calling (214) 747-MAVS.
"It was not a good night, but we've got to move on. We've got an important one on Saturday," Barea said while looking ahead.
For up to the minute news on the Dallas Mavericks, visit Mavs.com. Follow Earl K. Sneed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/EarlKSneed.
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