Tag: Dwyane Wade

Nowitzki leads late rally as Mavs tie series 1-1

By BRIAN MAHONEY
Associated Press

MIAMI — Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks put a stunning end to their misery in Miami.

Now they can win their first NBA title without ever coming back to South Florida.

Nowitzki made the tie-breaking layup with 3.6 seconds left, and the Mavericks roared back from 15 points down in the fourth quarter to beat the Heat 95-93 on Thursday night and tie the NBA finals at one game apiece.

Capping a furious rally by scoring Dallas’ final nine points, Nowitzki made two late baskets left-handed — despite a torn tendon on that non-shooting hand. He finished with 24 points.

Dwyane Wade had 36 points for Miami, but his desperation 3-pointer was off at the buzzer.

“I thought defensively we really got into them,” Nowitzki said of the rally. “We pressured them full court and we scrambled defensively. We even gave up some offensive rebounds, but we kept scrambling.”

Game 3 is Sunday in Dallas.

Seemingly out of the game when the Heat led 88-73 with 7:15 remaining, Dallas held the Heat to just one field goal from there, a 3-pointer by Mario Chalmers with 24.5 seconds that tied it just 2 seconds after Nowitzki’s 3 had made it 93-90.

But after a timeout, Jason Kidd ran the clock down before getting the ball to Nowitzki, who drove into the lane, spun back to the left and made the layup.

Jason Terry, largely silent since the first half of Game 1, fueled the comeback with a couple of jumpers and finished with 16 points. Shawn Marion had 20 points for the Mavericks, who had lost four straight finals games in Miami since taking a 2-0 lead in the 2006 series.

They were about to go down 2-0 this time before Nowitzki, who insisted his injured finger wouldn’t hinder him, led a rally even more amazing than the one that won Game 4 of the Western Conference finals, when the Mavs trailed Oklahoma City by 15 in the fourth quarter before pulling it out in overtime.

LeBron James scored 20 points for the Heat.

He and Wade were running by and over the older Mavs for three quarters, and it appeared the only thing that could slow them down was that big trophy they would soon be holding.

Not so fast.

Wade angered the Mavs, particularly Terry, when he held his follow through after his 3-pointer from the corner with 7:15 left capped a 13-0 run and made it 88-73.

The Heat suddenly went cold, holding the ball too long on possessions and forcing James and Wade to attempt long jumpers with the shot clock winding down, instead of playing to their strengths and driving into the lane.

A series of those missed jumpers eventually ended with the Mavs getting possession, and Nowitzki making a layup that tied it at 90 with 57 seconds to play.

The Heat lost for the first time in 10 games at home in the playoffs and will have to win at least once in Dallas to force the series back here.

Yahoo ranks Spurs’ ‘Big Three’ among top NBA trios in history

Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker have combined to help San Antonio win three of the franchise’s four titles in NBA history.

Yahoo Sports writer Victor Chi considered that past history when he ranked the San Antonio trio among the seven greatest threesomes in NBA history.

Chi’s dividing point was that each group must have been involved in at least two NBA championships.

Here is what he had to say about Duncan, Ginobili and Parker and :

The Spurs were never the sexiest team in the league, but they were brutally efficient while parlaying sound fundamentals into three championships. Duncan had a previous title, tag-teaming with David Robinson.”

The other six trios that are included with the Spurs’ “Big Three” include the following:

  • Boston’s Bob Cousy, Tom Heinsohn and Bill Russell
  • New York’s Walt Frazier, Dave DeBusschere and Willis Reed
  • Los Angeles Lakers’ Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy
  • Chicago’s Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman
  • Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and Derek Fisher
  • Boston’s Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish 

When considered in terms of the others on the list, the Spurs’ grouping ranks in the middle of the pack at the worst. Duncan and Ginobili are certain Hall of Fame members and Parker has a good shot if he finishes his career strongly.

Obviously, if LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade stick together for several years and can win a couple of championships with Miami they will qualify on a future list. And others fail to make the cut because they weren’t around to win two titles together.

The numbers don’t lie: Spurs’ D has taken a dip

There’s no doubt the Spurs are coming off one of their worst defensive efforts of the season. They allowed Miami to hang 110 points on them in a convincing 110-80 loss that ranks as the team’s largest margin of victory of the season.

It continues a couple of noticeable trends. Miami hit 53.8 percent from the field, becoming the fourth consecutive team to improve the field-goal percentage from the previous game. A streak like that hasn’t happened for the Spurs’ defense all season.

The Spurs also have allowed their last four opponents all to score at least 100 points against them. That’s the second longest streak of the season, topped only by five straight 100-point performances allowed from Dec. 16-23.

But the best way to judge the effectiveness of a defense is to look at the number of points scored per 100 possessions.

Matt Moore of CBS Sports.com’s Eye on Basketball . And he found that the Spurs’ defense has taken a noticeable step back in its March games.

Moore  writes that the Spurs entered Monday night 7th in the league at defensive efficiency (which estimates points per 100 possessions, removing the element of pace and providing a more true image of defensive productivity). That’s not as good as Gregg Popovich’s defenses typically are, but it still ranks among the leaders in the league.

But they also entered Monday night’s game against Miami having averaged giving up 102 points per game in March, as opposed to their typical mark of 97. Their season defensive efficiency has been a solid 101.1.

In March games, the Spurs have averaged a 108.5 defensive efficiency, including marks of 117 to Memphis, 112 to the Lakers, 114 to Detroit and their worst score of 122 to the Heat Monday night.

Moore notes that the worst team in the league, the Cleveland Cavaliers, average a 110 defensive efficiency. So in a supremely small sample of the recent games, the Spurs are surrendering a defensive efficiency that would be the worst in the league if spread over the season.

And looking at the Spurs’ defensive efforts per game, there were some noticeably stolid efforts betrayed with huge breakdowns. Most notable was a two-possession series against the Heat capped by thunderous dunks by LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in the fourth quarter Monday night.

These defensive struggles are something that have rarely been seen around the Spurs franchise — especially in their championship seasons.

The Spurs will have their work cut out over the next several days to rectify those woes before facing Dallas, which ranks fourth in the NBA in field-goal percentage, seventh in 3-point percentage and 11th in scoring.

The Mavericks have had their own slumps in recent games, failing to score 100 in two of their last three games in losses to the Lakers and New York heading into their game Tuesday at Portland. But before that, the Mavericks had scored at least 100 points in 19 of their last 20 games.

The Spurs will get one more edge that should help their defense improve. San Antonio will be coming in on three days of rest for Friday’s game. And the Mavericks will be playing their third game in four nights Friday, after games against Portland on Tuesday night and Golden State on Wednesday.

The Spurs’ defense should improve. If not, Popovich might have some major worries heading into the playoffs.