Heat vs. Mavericks Game 4
- Thread starter Widowmaker2k
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MIAMI (AP) -- There's no record for shots missed on a single possession of the NBA finals. If one existed, the Dallas Mavericks may have challenged it Thursday night.
In a 47-second span of Game 4, the Mavericks took five shots -- and missed them all.
It started with 3:42 left in the first quarter, when Dirk Nowitzki rebounded a hook shot that sailed long out of the hand of Miami's Alonzo Mourning. The Mavs brought the ball upcourt, and here's what happened:
-- Jerry Stackhouse missed a jumper, Adrian Griffin got the rebound.
-- Jason Terry missed a driving layup, and Stackhouse controlled that rebound.
-- Stackhouse missed again, with Griffin getting another rebound.
-- Terry missed, but Griffin got his third rebound in a 31-second span.
-- Terry missed again, and Mourning -- finally -- controlled the ball for Miami with 2:55 remaining.
Take away those five misses, and Dallas would have shot 50 percent in the quarter. But with them, the Mavs' percentage for the opening period sunk to 39 percent -- 9-for-23.
It didn't get much better for Dallas the rest of the way. The Heat won tied the series with a 98-74 victory.
EPSOM REMEDY
In case the team of medical personnel and the high-tech equipment that fills every corner of the Miami Heat training room wasn't enough, Pat Riley suggested a different treatment for Dwyane Wade's injured left knee.
Epsom Salts.
Hey, it worked for Riley once.
"I broke my nose one time, came home, told my mother I broke my nose, she said 'take a bath,"' Riley said. "I did. Back in the old days, that's how they used to handle a broken nose. Epsom Salts helps everything."
He might be right.
According to Web sites devoted to Epsom usage, the salts can be added to bath water for a soothing soak, help take the sting out of insect bites, cleanse and exfoliate skin, make a nice skin mask (when mixed with cognac, milk, lemon and one egg, of course), plus do wonders for garden and lawn growth.
But good old-fashioned electronic stimulation and ice seemed to do the trick for Wade, who injured the knee in the third quarter of Miami's Game 3 win Tuesday over the Dallas Mavericks. He had 36 points and six rebounds in Game 4, no Epsom Salts required.
DIRK RECORD
On the day where Michael Jordan got a new job, he lost one of his NBA records.
Dallas forward Dirk Nowitzki's two free throws 30 seconds into Thursday's Game 4 of the finals gave him 184 makes from the line in this postseason, one more than Jordan's total for the Chicago Bulls in the 1988-89 playoffs.
Nowitzki finished 11-for-13 from the foul line, giving him 193 free throws made in the playoffs.
Jordan became part-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats on Thursday in a deal that gives him a stake in most of majority partner Robert Johnson's ventures. Jordan's investment makes him second only to Johnson as the largest individual owner of the Bobcats.
WORD WAR
Heat coach Pat Riley said he wasn't aware of comments Mavericks owner Mark Cuban made Wednesday on CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman."
Cuban told Letterman that he was trying to make the game more fun, including some rule changes to rid the game of "that old Knicks ball, the old Pat Riley stuff, where they'd just beat up on people."
Riley was read the quote Thursday morning.
"I've been taught if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything," Riley said. "But, you know, Mark's Mark."
HACK WATCH
Mavs coach Avery Johnson said before Game 4 that, if the situation arose, he'd use the Hack-a-Shaq tactic.
Invented by former Dallas coach Don Nelson, it's the ploy when teams intentionally foul Shaquille O'Neal away from the basketball and put the notoriously bad free-throw shooter on the line instead of giving the Heat an opportunity to run their offense.
O'Neal was shooting 6-for-22 from the line through the first three games of the finals.
"It's a tool that in the right scenario, we like to use it," Johnson said.
No Hack-a-Shaq in Game 4, though. O'Neal was 5-for-10 in Miami's big win.
COVER GIRLS
For the women who have everything, how about a magazine cover?
Five wives of Miami Heat players -- Shaunie O'Neal, Siohvaughn Wade, Monique Payton, Tracy Mourning and Denika Williams -- posed for the cover of Ocean Drive magazine earlier this week, a gift their husbands successfully bid for in an auction at the Heat Family Festival earlier in March.
The auction was part of a weekend that raised $1.5 million to benefit charities like Jackson Memorial Hospital, Safespace and The Miami Coalition for a Safe & Drug-Free Community.
HERE AND THERE
Jason McElwain, the autistic basketball manager from the suburbs of Rochester, N.Y., who earned national acclaim for scoring 20 points in four minutes of Greece Athena High's final home game this season, was in attendance. ... Dallas has allowed an opposing player to score 30 or more points in 10 of its last 17 games. ... A video montage before the game set to Eminem's "Lose Yourself" showed Gary Payton hitting his lone shot of Game 3, a jumper that put Miami ahead to stay. The lyric blaring at that moment? "You only get one shot." ... Heat guard Dwyane Wade on if constant scrutiny bothers Shaquille O'Neal: "I don't think he really, really, cares about what's said about him overall. He's dominated this league for 13 years." ... Dallas center D.J. Mbenga is eligible to return Sunday from a six-game suspension for entering the stands in the Mavs-Phoenix series. ... Not only was Game 4 sold out in Miami, the "watch party" at Dallas' American Airlines Center also was a sellout. ... Heat fans chanted "Da-vid Has-sel-hoff" when Dirk Nowitzki shot free throws. The Mavericks complained about how video screens were used to remind fans about the ploy, which was rehearsed before tip-off. But for some reason, the screen asked fans to chant with 3:56 left in the half -- when Jason Williams shot a free throw, and missed.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...6/06/15/bc.bkn.nbafinalsnoteboo.ap/index.html
In a 47-second span of Game 4, the Mavericks took five shots -- and missed them all.
It started with 3:42 left in the first quarter, when Dirk Nowitzki rebounded a hook shot that sailed long out of the hand of Miami's Alonzo Mourning. The Mavs brought the ball upcourt, and here's what happened:
-- Jerry Stackhouse missed a jumper, Adrian Griffin got the rebound.
-- Jason Terry missed a driving layup, and Stackhouse controlled that rebound.
-- Stackhouse missed again, with Griffin getting another rebound.
-- Terry missed, but Griffin got his third rebound in a 31-second span.
-- Terry missed again, and Mourning -- finally -- controlled the ball for Miami with 2:55 remaining.
Take away those five misses, and Dallas would have shot 50 percent in the quarter. But with them, the Mavs' percentage for the opening period sunk to 39 percent -- 9-for-23.
It didn't get much better for Dallas the rest of the way. The Heat won tied the series with a 98-74 victory.
EPSOM REMEDY
In case the team of medical personnel and the high-tech equipment that fills every corner of the Miami Heat training room wasn't enough, Pat Riley suggested a different treatment for Dwyane Wade's injured left knee.
Epsom Salts.
Hey, it worked for Riley once.
"I broke my nose one time, came home, told my mother I broke my nose, she said 'take a bath,"' Riley said. "I did. Back in the old days, that's how they used to handle a broken nose. Epsom Salts helps everything."
He might be right.
According to Web sites devoted to Epsom usage, the salts can be added to bath water for a soothing soak, help take the sting out of insect bites, cleanse and exfoliate skin, make a nice skin mask (when mixed with cognac, milk, lemon and one egg, of course), plus do wonders for garden and lawn growth.
But good old-fashioned electronic stimulation and ice seemed to do the trick for Wade, who injured the knee in the third quarter of Miami's Game 3 win Tuesday over the Dallas Mavericks. He had 36 points and six rebounds in Game 4, no Epsom Salts required.
DIRK RECORD
On the day where Michael Jordan got a new job, he lost one of his NBA records.
Dallas forward Dirk Nowitzki's two free throws 30 seconds into Thursday's Game 4 of the finals gave him 184 makes from the line in this postseason, one more than Jordan's total for the Chicago Bulls in the 1988-89 playoffs.
Nowitzki finished 11-for-13 from the foul line, giving him 193 free throws made in the playoffs.
Jordan became part-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats on Thursday in a deal that gives him a stake in most of majority partner Robert Johnson's ventures. Jordan's investment makes him second only to Johnson as the largest individual owner of the Bobcats.
WORD WAR
Heat coach Pat Riley said he wasn't aware of comments Mavericks owner Mark Cuban made Wednesday on CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman."
Cuban told Letterman that he was trying to make the game more fun, including some rule changes to rid the game of "that old Knicks ball, the old Pat Riley stuff, where they'd just beat up on people."
Riley was read the quote Thursday morning.
"I've been taught if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything," Riley said. "But, you know, Mark's Mark."
HACK WATCH
Mavs coach Avery Johnson said before Game 4 that, if the situation arose, he'd use the Hack-a-Shaq tactic.
Invented by former Dallas coach Don Nelson, it's the ploy when teams intentionally foul Shaquille O'Neal away from the basketball and put the notoriously bad free-throw shooter on the line instead of giving the Heat an opportunity to run their offense.
O'Neal was shooting 6-for-22 from the line through the first three games of the finals.
"It's a tool that in the right scenario, we like to use it," Johnson said.
No Hack-a-Shaq in Game 4, though. O'Neal was 5-for-10 in Miami's big win.
COVER GIRLS
For the women who have everything, how about a magazine cover?
Five wives of Miami Heat players -- Shaunie O'Neal, Siohvaughn Wade, Monique Payton, Tracy Mourning and Denika Williams -- posed for the cover of Ocean Drive magazine earlier this week, a gift their husbands successfully bid for in an auction at the Heat Family Festival earlier in March.
The auction was part of a weekend that raised $1.5 million to benefit charities like Jackson Memorial Hospital, Safespace and The Miami Coalition for a Safe & Drug-Free Community.
HERE AND THERE
Jason McElwain, the autistic basketball manager from the suburbs of Rochester, N.Y., who earned national acclaim for scoring 20 points in four minutes of Greece Athena High's final home game this season, was in attendance. ... Dallas has allowed an opposing player to score 30 or more points in 10 of its last 17 games. ... A video montage before the game set to Eminem's "Lose Yourself" showed Gary Payton hitting his lone shot of Game 3, a jumper that put Miami ahead to stay. The lyric blaring at that moment? "You only get one shot." ... Heat guard Dwyane Wade on if constant scrutiny bothers Shaquille O'Neal: "I don't think he really, really, cares about what's said about him overall. He's dominated this league for 13 years." ... Dallas center D.J. Mbenga is eligible to return Sunday from a six-game suspension for entering the stands in the Mavs-Phoenix series. ... Not only was Game 4 sold out in Miami, the "watch party" at Dallas' American Airlines Center also was a sellout. ... Heat fans chanted "Da-vid Has-sel-hoff" when Dirk Nowitzki shot free throws. The Mavericks complained about how video screens were used to remind fans about the ploy, which was rehearsed before tip-off. But for some reason, the screen asked fans to chant with 3:56 left in the half -- when Jason Williams shot a free throw, and missed.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...6/06/15/bc.bkn.nbafinalsnoteboo.ap/index.html
That sequence pretty much epitomized the Mavs' efforts in Game 4. Even when they had good, open looks at the basket, they couldn't make them, and with Miami in a zone, it took Dallas out of its ability to use Dirk at the elbow post as much as Dallas would have liked.
That Game 3 has all the makings of the Kings' Game 4 against the Lakers in 2002, at least if the Mavs don't win the NBA Finals. They had a fantastic chance to put a team one loss away from elimination (and facing an almost impossible climb back into the series), but they couldn't hold a large lead in the 4th quarter, and lost the game in heart-breaking fashion. The Mavs still have a chance to avoid such a fate (and I'm hoping they do), but it looms there on the horizon if they can't right what is wrong in two of the next three games.
That Game 3 has all the makings of the Kings' Game 4 against the Lakers in 2002, at least if the Mavs don't win the NBA Finals. They had a fantastic chance to put a team one loss away from elimination (and facing an almost impossible climb back into the series), but they couldn't hold a large lead in the 4th quarter, and lost the game in heart-breaking fashion. The Mavs still have a chance to avoid such a fate (and I'm hoping they do), but it looms there on the horizon if they can't right what is wrong in two of the next three games.
you guys aren't in the minority. I watched Wade at Marquette, and I watched him explode his first two years in the league. I'm rooting my heart out for the Heat, because of Wade, who throws everything he's got out there every game, because of JWill, at least one former King has a chance of getting a ring, and because of Gary Payton, I never wanted him to win with the Lakers, but he is one of the best NBA defensive point guards in history. I remember a game when he played with the Sonics where he shut down Jason Kidd. All I remember was Kidd: 41 mins and goose eggs the rest of the stat line.
Wade did have a bad knee, I don't know why Armstrong and Johnson would say he's just acting. instead they should say "Wow, he's just that damn good." And Cuban disgusts me. With all that's been said about the Maloofs, you never hear them bag on another teams coach. Go Die Cuban
Wade did have a bad knee, I don't know why Armstrong and Johnson would say he's just acting. instead they should say "Wow, he's just that damn good." And Cuban disgusts me. With all that's been said about the Maloofs, you never hear them bag on another teams coach. Go Die Cuban
Potentially, but he's going to have the same problem as Kobe had if the Heat win a title this year --- people will always question whether he could he have done it without Shaq until he wins one without Shaq.
Now, I think the situation is a little different since Wade is clearly the dominant force on this Heat team, but the fact remains that without Shaq stepping up his play against the Pistons, I doubt the Heat are even in the Finals (even considering how poorly the Pistons played). The Mavs even centered their defensive game plan around O'Neal the first two games, even though Wade's first four games against the Pistons were borderline superhuman.
It will be interesting to see whether Wade signs his contract extention this summer to stay with the Heat knowing that Shaq will only get worse from this point on and that there is no other player on this Heat team that can truly step into the big man's shoes as he is declining (nor is there the money to bring in a player with O'Neal's contract on the books for two more years). I'd like to see him stay with the Heat and try to make them his team (as I hope that Lebron stays in Cleveland, and Melo with the Nuggets, etc., etc.) past the time Shaq is a factor.
Now, I think the situation is a little different since Wade is clearly the dominant force on this Heat team, but the fact remains that without Shaq stepping up his play against the Pistons, I doubt the Heat are even in the Finals (even considering how poorly the Pistons played). The Mavs even centered their defensive game plan around O'Neal the first two games, even though Wade's first four games against the Pistons were borderline superhuman.
It will be interesting to see whether Wade signs his contract extention this summer to stay with the Heat knowing that Shaq will only get worse from this point on and that there is no other player on this Heat team that can truly step into the big man's shoes as he is declining (nor is there the money to bring in a player with O'Neal's contract on the books for two more years). I'd like to see him stay with the Heat and try to make them his team (as I hope that Lebron stays in Cleveland, and Melo with the Nuggets, etc., etc.) past the time Shaq is a factor.