Round 1: Dallas Mavericks vs Golden State Warriors

Randy Galloway

 

Yep, was listening to him on the ESPN radio yesterday and he called the mavericks playoff run a "pig nasty display"

It's great!

 

That's him. Good and entertaining analyst.

 

That never gets old, LMAO

 

i was exposed to him when i was in the dallas media market up at baylor. he is a good writer.

he wrote an article about how houston had it all over dallas in terms of sports around the time the super bowl was in houston.

 

its funny, Nellie knows Tmac played the best defense of anyone on Dirk, long althetic and in his face. Now he is doing the same thing with stephen jackson since they are both large.

Dirk 7'0 SJax 6'8 a 4 inch difference isn't that huge, it turns dirk into a 3 or a 2 and then the GSW have the edge.

 

Same here, he's fun to listen to on my drive home from work, esp during the finals collapse last year and during this dallas disaster

 

A look back at Mavericks' past might help explain the present

By Randy Galloway
Star-Telegram staff writer

Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!


This stuff doesn't just happen by coincidence. The basketball gods, or Nellie, the Golden State god, are obviously speaking to us, coming in loud and clear, spreading the word that the gutless and the confused are again going to be on the wrong side of a historic NBA postseason collapse.

Tonight, the Mavericks face an elimination game, and utter disgrace, on May Day, not to be confused with the international signal of extreme emergency.

Aviators, ship captains and maybe tall Germans will note I have used the "Mayday" call properly (protocol says to repeat it three times), and that it is derived from the French m'aidez, meaning "help me."

Thank you, Google, for all that info. BTW, I also googled "Dallas Mavericks," and came up with instructions for the Heimlich maneuver.

Gawd, is this a twisted message or what?

The Mavericks have bottomed out into a "help me" state, and on May Day's mayday we've also got a word connection related to the French, a region noted for being hopeless in conflict, until, that is, Mickael Pietrus, the Frenchman, did a foie gras number on the locals Sunday night.

Four games into this opening-round series, the hows and whys of Golden State's domination are not exactly a mystery. It remains impossible to believe it's happening to this Mavericks team and this coaching staff, but 16 quarters of playoff ball have given us the evidence.

The Warriors have simply been better, from star players starring, to bench heroes, to Don Nelson making every right move.

As massive a first-round upset as this will be, unless the Mavs do basically the impossible and win the next three games, based on players playing and coaches coaching, the Warriors winning three of the first four contests totally fits with what has been seen on the court.

Never, ever could I have imagined such a thing. But the eyes don't lie, and neither do the previous 16 quarters.

The basketball stuff aside, there have been two major shocks in the four games. In Game 1, the Mavericks came out fat, happy and waiting for June and The Finals to get here. Once they got cold-cocked, I thought that would be the end of that.

But in Game 3, when the series shifted to Oakland, that was a scared and gutless team that showed up in body only. If Game 1 could be almost -- I said almost -- excused as a case of complacency, the Friday night unraveling will go down as by far the worst moment of the Avery Johnson era, including all four of the meltdowns against Miami last June.

Then again, it's the irony here that jars me, and floors Mark Cuban, whether he admits it or not.

But Cuban knows enough about the game to know what's happening in this series. Which brings us to this irony:

All those years with Nellie here, and "the problem" was defense. Got to play defense. Nellie won't concentrate on defense. Cuban hated Nellie for that. Nellie hated Cuban for being Cuban.

Plus, Steve Nash, he was Nellie's boy, and Nash had to go because he couldn't defend Mike Bibby in a couple of playoff series. It will be better with Nellie gone and Nash gone. Avery will make defense a priority.

On May Day for the Mavs tonight, the Warriors can win this series because of....

Yes, defense. Half-court defense. Nellie's defense.

The Mavericks are being transformed into an absolute wreck in half-court offense. It's Dirk, No. 1. But it's also everybody. The final three minutes of Game 4 on Sunday night were a shocking display of offensive ineptness. Poor shots, air balls, bad looks, brain-dead turnovers, all as a result of a clampdown Nellie defense.

And this has been going on the entire series. Stunning stuff.

It starts at the point. Jason Terry is not one. He is not a point guard. He's a shooter, and I love him. But he cannot create penetration on a consistent basis. Nellie knows this. And in a half-court game, under heavy pressure from Nellie's smaller but much quicker defenders, the offensive movement has cement loafers.

Meanwhile, the almighty Mavericks defense is being shredded by Baron Davis, among others, in dribble penetration.

Meanwhile, Steve Nash is proving again against the Lakers what some NBA historians were already calling him: maybe the best half-court offensive creator (as opposed to Magic in the open court) the game has ever known. True? I don't know. John Stockton? Whatever, Nash is the best in the game today in the half-court, unless, of course, it's Baron Davis. OK, I'm kidding about Davis, but in this series, Baron looks like Nash II.

Meanwhile, there's an MVP award to be announced next week. Just save Dirk the embarrassment, please. Give it to Nash.Meanwhile, Avery took a verbal slap at Dirk on Monday, saying he was tired of hearing hints of verbal discouragement from his star player. The coach said Dirk needed to snap out of it. Honk, if you agree. (That's me, leaning on the truck horn).

Meanwhile, the irony is killing the Mavericks. Nellie is a defensive genius.

And that's why it's Mayday time on May Day for the Mavs.

Randy Galloway's Galloway & Co. can be heard weekdays 3-6 p.m. on ESPN/103.3 FM.

http://www.star-telegram.com/318/story/86922.html

 

Nor do these...

 

I don't like to hear this Mavs have no chance garbage. Just look at Phx last year, or SA versus Dallas. The only thing stopping the Mavs from choking away their 3-1 lead on the Spurs was the Spurs end of game 7 and OT choking.

The Mavs still only need to take one game in GS. I am going to be concerned until the Warriors have a 20 point 4th quarter lead and the big lady is warming up those pipes.

 

i hope the mavs can win a game or two so the warriors wont be so rested haha

 

Rest for the Warriors might be good. They have been on such a roll of late, maybe they will sit, get cold and think too much.

Anyway I'd galdly take a Warriors win tonight. Them having more rest bedamned.

 

Go Warriors! Finish off Allas tonight and make Irk Noskillski cry.

 

You know it's almost like ... us playing the Hornets or the Timberwolves.

Doesn't matter how much better we are then them, we just don't match up with them and lose to them often even though they are not elite/good teams.

The Mavericks just can't match up with the Warriors and it's their fate they caught them in the first round, this series is as good as over...

Dallas winning 3 straight is not news, Dallas winning 3 straight against Golden State is not going to happen.

Actually, if they can win game 5 and somehow game 6, then the Mavs have like an 80% chance to win the series because no way a team as young as the Warriors will keep their composure on the road in game 7 but I don't see the Mavs winning in Oracle, even if they pull this game off tonight.

Game, Set, Series.

 

I hate to say it, but the Mavs will win the series. It's been fun while it lasted.

 

I don't think they can win at Golden State, I think they lose to GS in 6.

DD

 

i love galloway, i listen to him on the radio... he's pretty funny. he's spot on in callin the mavs an utter disgrace. he was playin "MAYDAY MAYDAY we're goin down" on the radio today.

funny funny stuff.

 

I'm glad I didn't see this.

I still think Dallas will pull it out. They are the better team and now they will be playing for life.

 

I think it's too late. Common sense says that this is a fluke and that GS will come back down to earth. But there's nothing that's common sense about this series. Dallas still has no answer for Baron Davis, and I'm pretty sure they've exhausted their options. They still can't find a way to get Dirk going. JVG exposed Dirk two years ago, Riley exposed Dirk in the finals last year, and Nellie is doing the same again. Ain't nothing changed.

What's left for them to do? It wasn't like they didn't fight hard in Game 4. They really did. They gave it their best shot and still came up short. Common sense says that the Mavericks are still the better team. The reality is that Golden State still has the upper hand in this matchup, and Dallas is actually the underdog now.