Oh N.O.! Dallas Mavericks Lose Game 4
Posted on: Monday, 28 April 2008, 03:00 CDT
Game 5 of the Mavericks' first-round playoff series is Tuesday night in New Orleans, and has there ever been a bigger waste of jet fuel?
They knew going in that Game 4 was when their season would swing.
It swung, all right. It U-turned into a disastrous situation with the New Orleans Hornets rolling to a 97-84 victory and a commanding 3-1 lead in the best-of-7 series.
The Mavericks were pushed to the brink of elimination Sunday night, when the Hornets barged into American Airlines Center and treated the hosts like they were second-class tenants. The Mavericks must win three in a row to avoid a second consecutive first-round exit from the NBA playoffs. They have lost their last four trips to New Orleans, including the first two games of this series.
"It's single elimination right now," said coach Avery Johnson.
The Mavericks were never in the game after they fell behind by double figures in the third quarter.
They also lost their composure late, when Jason Kidd clotheslined Jannero Pargo on a fast break. Kidd was given a flagrant foul, penalty two, which carries an automatic ejection. The league will review the incident, and a suspension is possible.
That was a mere footnote to the Sunday plotline: A superior team came into the Mavericks' house and made them look like a bunch of old fogies. The Mavericks lost grip of the game in an awful second-quarter stretch when coach Avery Johnson took a chance on J.J. Barea and Jerry Stackhouse -- with disastrous results. A nine-point lead became a tie game in two minutes.
The Hornets took the lead, then stretched it to 13 in the third quarter and finally coasted to the finish behind 24 points by David West and a defense that held the Mavericks to 36-percent shooting
"You've got to make shots to win in this league," said Dirk Nowitzki, who had 22 points and 13 rebounds and very little help. "We just didn't have a great offensive series."
He was speaking in the past tense, although at least one game remains. The Mavericks again got nothing from Josh Howard (3-of-16 shooting) or Kidd, before he was ejected. They heaved 25 3-point tries and settled for jump shots and one-on-one plays when they needed great ball movement.
It added up to a deplorable loss.
"West just took over in that third quarter," Johnson said. "We went back to our old habits of really not going to the basket and being consistent penetrators, and we paid the price."
In what may go down as one of the worst two-minute stretches in Mavericks playoff history, they saw a nine-point lead disappear in amazing fashion early in the second quarter.
The Mavericks were up, 32-23, after a Devean George layup to start the second period. But when Avery Johnson inserted J.J. Barea into the game, the Hornets suddenly got energized, even without Paul on the floor.
They rattled off nine quick points to tie the score, and Barea was gone. It's hard to pin the blame on him. He got no help while he was on the floor. But it was his first action of the series, and he clearly had a case of the jitters.
Once they were back in the game, the Hornets blew by the Mavericks to take a 48-44 halftime lead.
Source: The Dallas Morning News
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