[Chron] Mavs bank on road prowess to dig out of hole

Mavs bank on road prowess to dig out of hole
Dallas believes role reversal rests in thwarting T-Mac
By FRAN BLINEBURY
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

DALLAS - The door to the practice court swings open and the Dallas Mavericks are gathered at midcourt in a tableau that looks and sounds like a prayer vigil.

Light the candles. Maybe that's all there is left for the Mavs to stop Tracy McGrady's heroics and the Rockets from running away to a sweep of the first-round NBA playoff series.

"There was not a word said after the game," Dirk Nowitzki said. "Everybody was in shock and really, really disappointed. But we've got to overcome that. They still have to win two more. That's all we can hang our hats on."

The Mavs are puzzled about how they could outrebound the Rockets by a wide margin in the first two games and be looking up out of a 2-0 hole.

The Mavs are bewildered that their high-powered offense could crank out 111 points in Game 2 and have that not be enough.

The Mavs are flummoxed by McGrady and his ability to hold the series, like a basketball, in the palm of his hand and do whatever he wants. Especially late, such as with 2.2 seconds left in Game 2 when he drilled the 23-foot game-winner.

"That high screen-and-roll has given us problems for the last two games," Nowitzki said. "He's so good up there. I guess we're off him too much. He made big shots all game. We should have contested it a little more, I guess."

The glazed looks in their eyes, the voices that contain a combination of disbelief and defiance tell you how the Mavericks' world has been turned on its head in less than a week.

"Obviously, it's very disappointing right now. I don't really have a lot to say," said Nowitzki with a shrug. "Everything went against us. That's not how we planned it coming into the playoffs. But we've been a good road team (29-12) all season long. Obviously, we have to have this third game. If we get this third game, we're in good shape. If we don't, we're really in trouble."

The Mavs also had been a good home team over the second half of the season, going undefeated at American Airlines Center since Avery Johnson took over as head coach March 19.

That is, until the Rockets arrived for the lost weekend.

Now Dallas is looking into the history books for inspiration. Johnson recalled how the San Antonio team he played on in 1995 lost the first two home games of the Western Conference finals to the Rockets, then went to Houston and evened the series. Of course, the Spurs lost that series.

The pages of the history books contain only two teams that dropped the first two games at home and rallied to win a best-of-seven series. Those were the 1969 Los Angeles Lakers, who rallied past Golden State, and the 1994 Rockets, who got up off the floor against Charles Barkley and Phoenix in the series that carved out their Clutch City reputation.

"It's possible," the Mavs' Michael Finley said. "It's not like we've got to win the lottery, one in a million. It's happened twice in the past. Why can't we do it?"

First, they have to figure out a way to prevent McGrady from making the court his personal playground.

"This is not his first game making big shots," Finley said. "As a fan of the game and student of the game, he's done it against other teams. He's made big shots. We have a guy on this team (Nowitzki) who's capable of making big shots. So maybe the tide will turn for us."

Johnson said it might be time for the Mavericks to view whatever is left in the series as a personal challenge.

"From my experience as a player at a time like this, I looked for one-on-one challenges," he said.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/3158012