So he disappears when the pressure is really on, on the biggest stage of his career? Just face it, Cuban surrounded him with 'clutch' players and a load of talent that would cover up for his individual shortcomings. It's not like he's a bad player, he's still a superstar just not the type I would count on when it gets down to the truly big moments. Anyways, that's just my two cents...
All of the Mavs bigs were in foul trouble and Dirk had to guard Duncan the entire 4th quarter. You couldn't even touch Duncan without the whistle.
By this standard, every single player should have been considered a choker until they win it all. Was the pressure really not on in the WCF? Given that he hadn't been to the finals yet, was that not the biggest stage of his career? Or what about previous playoff series? They were low pressure? This is the same logic that gets us to "Peyton Manning will never win the big one" stuff.
Exactly. Dirk is a tough match-up but he often fades under pressure. Enter Jet Terry and Jerry Stackhouse to take the big shots for the German.
My point is that foul TD is not exactly the same as to foul Wade. He is shooting 60% at FT line. I don't think Spurs would like him getting fouled. If Refs intentionaly put TD on the line, guess what, my conclusion would be that they werer siding with Mavs!
If Dirk doesn't miss that freebie or doesn't play blah in Game 3 does it even go to 5 games? Dirk had a shot to put his team up 3-0, and he blew it.....
So was Karl Malone. He is still a choker. If you are money in every game until the biggest one, and you blow it, YOU STILL BLEW IT. Thank's for getting us here buddy....but I sure wish you would have kept playing well when it mattered the most.
apparenly you still didn't look at the stats. he's been a huge playoff performer his whole career. if a bad series or two makes you unclutch and crappy under pressure, then we've got a lot of bad players in this league. getting crushed by tmac was his only really bad series ever. he dominated kevin garnett a few years ago in a series and had an enormous series in what was the mavs biggest series to date when they played the spurs last year. i guess you can believe what you want to believe. that load of talent didn't send anyone to the ASG last year and only sent one this year b/c of injuries. they are very versatile and talented but they've also been one of the best teams in the league for 3 years as you would only expect if being led by a great player, which dirk is. and i'm not sure who you think on the mavs is so clutch and takes all the big shots. dirk is their 4th quarter guy and the guy who made the 3 point play in game 7 against the spurs and got the free throws at the end of another game in that series and who hit the shot with 9 seconds left in game 5 against miami to give them the lead. yeah, like down 3 in game 7 against your biggest rivals. if only he could come through in those situations. not being dwyane wade-level clutch doesn't make someone unclutch.
then you don't understand free throws. 60% on free throws is still the equivalent of shooting 60% from the field. even shaq at his career ft% is still more efficient than most offensive possessions in the nba. unless it's ben wallace at the line shooting about 22% like he did last playoffs, going to the line is almost always a good thing. if tim duncan shot 60% from the line and went there on every possession the spurs would be scoring 111 ppg this season instead of 98.5.
so in your opinion if you don't make 100% of your free throws in the clutch then you are unclutch. no clutch player has ever missed a free throw close to the end of a game? just from watching the spurs and suns series he must've taken somewhere in the range of 14-20 free throws at the tail end of really close games and i hadn't seen him miss one until then. unless you're a robot or reggie miller, at some point in time, you will miss a free throw towards the end of a game if you have to shoot them often enough. even dwade missed both at the end of game 6 when the heat were up 3 and he could have sealed the title. it happens. it seems a big game wrt to dirk is only one the mavs lose. the spurs series was about as big as it got for the mavs considering their recent history with the spurs and dirk put up 27 and 15.5 in that series and came up huge at the end of 2 close games. even his heat series he put up 23/11 and hit a big shot in game 5 to cancel out messing up in game 3. if the only time there is pressure is when dirk doesn't do well, then i guess he'll never do well under pressure. pretty much all of the playoffs is pressure-packed and he's had a great playoff career and was on a huge tear last year before a down series against miami. we're not trying to say he's michael jordan or even dwyane wade in the clutch, but the guy has come up big plenty of times.
A bad playoff series when it matters most takes precedence over you stepping up in a previous round. He got to the Finals and flamed out. I believe what I see. Prior to last season's playoff run, other Mavs were usually the ones stepping up in key playoff moments (JT, Stack, Finley). Dirk finally started doing that last yr...up until the Finals.... If he did the same thing in the Finals then no one would be calling him out. Unfortunately he was disapearing for quarters, missing key FT's, etc. It's not our fault he played below expectations on the biggest stage....
My opinion is if it's in the games final seconds and you can make a FT to win or extend the game, and you miss, then you nutted up. Especially if you shoot near 90%. He has. He just happened to blow it on the biggest stage. I can give him props for playing great basketball up until the Finals, where it mattered most.
the problem with that rationale is that you the round you lose in always comes after the supposed less important rounds that you win. and you will, in general, play worse in series you lose than series you win. so unless you win the championship every year, you will probably play worse in a more important series than one that you played well in. yes but he played above expectations on a stage that was basically considered the nba finals at the time. if you have to play above expectations at all times to be considered good in the playoffs, then again there are going to be lots of bad players. tim duncan used to get shut down against the lakers in the 4th quarter back during the lakers 3-peat, but that didn't make him a bad performer in big moments. he just struggled occasionally, like almost everyone does. but people do in fact miss free throws. all the time in fact. the laws of probability make it so that occasionally that will occur, in spite of one's best efforts, at a big moment. like i said, he was probably 18 of 18 or something big like that in last second free throws in the playoffs up until that point. unless he's supposed to finish his career 142 out of 142 or something on pressure free throws, he's going to miss one at some point. you can't just ignore everything that came before and say he doesn't step up in the clutch when he succeeded in that same situation time and again. even the best aren't perfect.
No actually I DO think the Mavs will win a championship (or two) before it's all said and done. So I am not saying that he "can't" win the big one, I actually think the Mavericks can because they have a terrific, well-balanced team that does NOT live and die by Nowitski's individual performance. But that's exactly my point: his team is good enough to win whether or not he decides to 'chip in' or even when he stinks it up (e.g. the Rockets series). However, the vast majority of teams in this league do not have that luxury, and they do actually live and die with their superstars. The Mavs are a solid, solid team and it's all a credit to Mark Cuban and his business savvy. However, that one time it DID cost his team when it mattered the most. It was a stark contrast between two very different stars: there was Wade and then there was...well...Dirk.
Nonsense. The Mavs cannot get to the NBA finals or ever win them if Dirk is not at his best. Dirk is currently the best player in the NBA, period. Stop hating on the guy.
There is nothing bigger than the NBA Finals, regardless of opponent. BTW, even though T-Mac and Yao are my boys and I love them I will 'point fingers' if either one of them chokes -- like Dirk has done on more than one occasion -- and costs us a championship. It's one thing when a player struggles for one game, but struggling for an entire playoff series is a SERIOUS choke job, and it goes way beyond a "bad game".
