Mavericks Take the Edge of the Clippers

 Posted by Rick Mave

 

 

The Dallas Mavericks played the LA Clippers Tuesday night at the American Airlines Center and came away with a well needed victory. They have won 7 in a row against the Clippers including Tuesday’s game.The Mavericks led most of the first half. Dirk Nowitzki got ejected after two back to back technicals in the beginning of the third quarter. The Clippers fought back and tied it 69-69 with five minutes remaining in the third quarter. But its not a fight till both parties are swinging. The Mavericks brought it back to a 18 point lead with eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. They continued to rally to win the game, 106-96.

The Mavericks went in Tuesday night to the American Airlines Center with a few advantages though. First, Happy Birthday, Jason Kidd who turned 37 on Tuesday. The old man still plays like a ‘Kidd’. He got another double double with 26 points and 12 assists. Kidd has been playing spectacular this year. He is averaging 10 points and 9 assists for the season.The Maverick’s players definately wanted to celebrate with a win for their team leader.

Secondly, Jason Terry came back from his cheek injury on Saturday when they played the Celtics in Dallas. Jet looked like he got his swagger back on Monday, even though the Mavs lost the game to the Hornets. He has been averaging 17 points per game this season. He got 14 points and 7 assists on Tuesday off the bench. Finally, Rick Carlisle and the rest of the team have been preaching defense. They realize that they have to stop these teams during critical periods to be a championship caliber team. That’s exactly what they did on Tuesday, stopping the Clippers to only 18 points in the fourth quarter. Carlisle has been going small the last few weeks, with Beaubois and Barea playing a leading roll as guards. They have done an excellent job off the bench. Beaubois has had his best game scoring a season high of 22 during the 13 game winning streak. Shawn Marion has also stepped up his game on defense and offense. Marion also scored 29 points and 14 rebounds during the streak.

Despite the win, it has not been a smooth ride for the Mavericks lately. The Dallas Mavericks have been struggling the last week, losing three out of five games. They have lost against the Knicks, Celtics and the Hornets this Monday. They faced a very poor Clippers team and was able to pull off the win. Some fans have been displeased with the ‘mediocre’ performance by the Mavs. But dont be too quick to judge. The Mavericks know that they play in a tough conference. They have proven that they are a playoff contender by defeating many tough teams like the Lakers, the Hawks, and the Bobcats at Charlotte.

The Mavericks are 47-24 after Tuesday’s win. LA is leading the Western conference with 52-18 and has already clinched a playoff spot. Dallas is five and a half games under the Lakers. Denver holds the second spot with a record of 47-24, tied with Dallas. Dallas will have to win all 11 of the rest of their games and the Lakers will have to lose at least six for the Mavericks to get the first seed. With the remaining 11 games, the Mavs play five at home and six on the road. Eight of the 11 will be against winning teams. They play the Blazers, who are 42-29. The Mavericks play in Portland Thursday night at 9:30 central on TNT. Go Mavs!!

Celtics Invade Dallas

VS

Written by: John

Celtics come to American Airlines center Saturday night to take on the red hot Mavs. Well, the Mavericks better watch there back in this one cause it wont be  easy. Celtics being a championship caliber team, and still one of the best  in the east you can bet on this team to bring there A game. With Dampier and Terry  back in the lineup you should expect the Mavs to step up there play in these final games of the season in preparation for the playoffs.

Boston 44-24,  the third spot in the east will try to keep there lead in the standings against Atlanta who is tied with Boston. Mavericks coming off a win against Chicago, will have to keep an eye on Rasheed Wallace who promises retribution from the last meeting in January, which resulted in a 50 point loss by the Celtics.

Mavs play@8 Pm Saturday night on KTXA 21.

Mavs win streak snapped.

Knicks deliver knockout blow, end Mavs 13-game streak

By Dave Ivey, for NBA.com
Posted Sunday March 14, 2010 12:03AM

DALLAS (NBA.com exclusive) — About 20 miles from the site of Saturday night’s title fight between welterweights Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey, the Knicks delivered a surprising knockout punch to stop the Mavericks’ 13-game winning streak in a 128-94 rout.

By any measure, New York was a considerable underdog entering the ring, if not a total tomato can. The Knicks had lost nine straight meetings in Dallas dating back to 1999, and 15 of the last 16 overall. The Mavericks had whipped them by 50 points just 48 days earlier at Madison Square Garden. New York had dropped 10 of its last 11 road games and had only one road win against a Western Conference foe all season. Red-hot Dallas had not lost since Feb. 16 and hadn’t lost on its own floor since Feb. 5.

New York still had a puncher’s chance, however, and did major damage with a barrage of 3-point blows. The Knicks knocked down 16-of-30 shots from 3-point range and shot 56 percent from the field (50-for-89). They exploited openings in a shaky Dallas defense and also took advantage of the Mavericks’ sloppy play, scoring 19 points off 15 turnovers.

Six players scored in double figures for the Knicks, including four with at least 20. Bill Walker had a season-high 23 points off the bench and Wilson Chandler scored 22. Rookie Toney Douglas, making just his third start and first since Nov. 18, added 21 on 8-for-10 shooting (4-for-4 3-pointers) with eight assists. David Lee collected his 44th double-double with 15 points, 14 boards and seven assists.

“We had to be on our toes here because we didn’t want to get beat by 50 points again,” said Lee, referring to the 128-78 drubbing on Jan. 24 that was both the most lopsided win in Mavericks history and the worst home loss ever for New York. “The way Dallas has been playing, if we didn’t bring our best effort that was going to happen again. That was motivation for us to come in and play our best.”

Al Harrington, who added 20 points, eight rebounds and two blocks off the bench, suggested that Dallas may have taken the Knicks too lightly.

“Revenge is sweet sometimes,” Harrington said. “That’s a really good team over there, but we just caught them at the right time. They were ripe for the picking. When you’ve had that much success and you know the Knicks are coming in and you feel you can score 150 points on them in your sleep — that team didn’t show up today. I guess we caught them by surprise.”

The Mavericks trailed by as many as 37 points in their second-worst loss of the season. They lost 131-96 to the Lakers on the road on Jan. 3. Dallas held its last lead at 20-19 with 3:14 left in the first quarter. The Mavericks’ 13-game streak had matched the longest in the NBA this season and was their best since a franchise-record 17-game run in 2006-07. They had won eight straight at home.

Dirk Nowitzki paced six Mavericks in double figures with 20 points and 12 rebounds, his 15th double-double. Jason Kidd scored 15 points and was 4-for-7 from 3-point range, but the rest of the team was a combined 3-for-14. J.J. Barea returned after missing one game with a sprained left ankle and scored 14 off the bench. Shawn Marion also had 14.

New York controlled the action from the opening bell and had Dallas on the ropes early, leading by 10 at halftime. But the Mavericks weren’t ready to throw in the towel. They have been the master of the comeback all season, posting a league-high 17 wins in games where they trailed by 10-plus points, plus a league-leading 18 wins when trailing at the break — including six escapes during the winning streak.

Not this time. New York unleashed a third-quarter pummeling that would have prompted most referees to step in and stop the fight. The Knicks outscored the Mavs 33-18 in the third quarter, shooting 68 percent (13-for-19). Tracy McGrady scored all 11 of his points in the decisive period. Dallas shot just 8-for-22 in the quarter.

“You especially don’t want (the streak) to come to an end like this, but at the same time it was a great run,” Marion said. “It seemed like everything we did out there wouldn’t go right. They hit everything. They had everything going. They were attacking the basket early, and once we cut them off from that, they started hitting shots from outside.”

Seven different Knicks made at least one 3-pointer, including five by Walker.

“I think this kind of night defines, to a certain degree, the adage about on any given night, anything can happen,” Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle said. “I didn’t sense overconfidence or being full of ourselves, but over a 24-day period when you don’t lose a game, you’re going to have teams gunning for you and you’re going to have teams showing up that are going to get hot. If you don’t have answers, it’s going to be ugly. Tonight, it was ugly.”

Credit: NBA.com

Pacquiao Dominates at Cowboys Stadium

Updated: March 14, 2010, 9:36 AM ET

Pacquiao wins unanimous decision

Associated Press

• John Scully on Manny Pacquiao’s unanimous decision win in 12 rounds over Joshua Clottey

ARLINGTON, Texas — Fighting on the star, Manny Pacquiao showed once again why he is such a star.

With the biggest fight crowd in the U.S. in 17 years cheering him on at Cowboys Stadium, Pacquiao dominated a strangely passive Joshua Clottey from the opening bell Saturday night to retain his welterweight title and cement his status as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

The fight wasn’t close, and it was never in doubt. It was so one-sided that even those in the cheap seats among the crowd of 50,994 could tell without looking at the giant video screens over the ring that Pacquiao was in total command.

One ringside judge gave Pacquiao every round, while the two others gave him all but one. The Associated Press scored it a shutout for the Filipino sensation.

It wasn’t as flashy as his knockout of Ricky Hatton or as savage as the beating he gave Oscar De La Hoya, but there was no doubt Pacquiao was in command the entire way against a fighter who kept his gloves up high in front of his face and chose to engage him only in spurts. Clottey’s strategy worked to keep him upright, but he was never competitive in the biggest fight of his career.

“He’s a very tough opponent,” Pacquiao said. “He was looking for a big shot.”

Pacquiao was supposed to have been fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. instead of Clottey, but the megafight fell apart over a dispute over blood testing. He took out any frustrations over losing the biggest fight of his career by beating up Clottey on the biggest stage of his career.

“I want that fight, the world wants that fight, but it’s up to him,” Pacquiao said. “I’m ready to fight any time.”

That time won’t come soon. Mayweather is fighting Shane Mosley on May 1, and the earliest the two could get together would be in the fall and only if Mayweather backs off his demands for blood testing.

The fight this night was more of an event than a real competition, bringing in the biggest crowd in the U.S. for a fight since Julio Cesar Chavez fought Pernell Whitaker at the Alamodome in 1993. It paid off handsomely for Pacquiao, though, who earned at least $12 million and built on the reputation he has gained as one of the greatest fighters of his time.

Promoters not only sold out the 45,000 seats available for the bout, but added thousands more standing room only “party passes” for fans who could get a glimpse of the action and see every drop of sweat on the huge overhead screens.

“It’s one of the most incredible stories not just in boxing but anywhere,” promoter Bob Arum said. “Fourteen years ago he was sleeping in a cardboard shack in the Philippines and tonight he puts 51,000 people in this palace in Dallas.”

The tone of the fight was set early, with Pacquiao advancing against his taller opponent and throwing punches with both hands from all angles. It was the same style that gave him spectacular wins in his last three fights and, though Clottey was clearly the bigger fighter, he fought back only sparingly.

“Everything’s working now,” trainer Freddie Roach told Pacquiao after the third round. “It’s easy.”

It was easy, too, much to the delight of the crowd and much to the delight of an entire country back in Pacquiao’s homeland. There, traffic came to a halt and huge numbers of Filipinos, including army troops and allied American soldiers, jammed theatres in shopping malls and military camps nationwide to root for Pacquiao. In what has now become a familiar scene, Filipinos repeatedly yelled his name and threw punches in the air after the country’s boxing hero was declared the winner.

“I want that fight, the world wants that fight, but it’s up to him. I’m ready to fight any time”.

— Manny Pacquiao, on fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Unlike most of Pacquiao’s fights, this one lacked suspense from the opening seconds of the fight, when Clottey assumed the peek-a-boo position he would remain in except for brief spurts the entire bout.

“He has speed, I lost the fight,” Clottey said. “He’s fast, that’s why I was taking my time.”

Arum said he wasn’t disappointed in the effort put out by Clottey, who was guaranteed to make at least $1.25 million.

“What was he supposed to do? If he played offense he’d get knocked out,” Arum said. “I can’t blame the kid for trying to wear him down.”

Clottey seemed content to hold his hands high in a peek-a-boo style through much of the early rounds, trying to pick off Pacquiao’s punches and perhaps rally late. But he gave away round after round, despite landing some clean punches on the rare occasions when he would throw a combination.

“You gotta take a chance,” Clottey’s trainer, Lenny DeJesus, implored him after the sixth round. “You’re in a fight and you gotta start taking chances.”

Clottey didn’t, though, and his prize was that he was the first fighter in Pacquiao’s last six fights to make it to the final bell. The only suspense when it came time to announce the decision was whether the three ringside judges would give Clottey any of the rounds.

Pacquiao threw three times as many punches as Clottey, an average of 100 a round, and landed as many power shots as Clottey threw. Final punch stats showed Pacquiao landing 246 of 1,231 punches to 108 of 399 for Clottey.

Clottey had gotten the fight off a good performance in his last bout against Miguel Cotto, but he was clearly more concerned with surviving the all-out assault that Pacquiao is noted for than winning the fight.

“Joshua Clottey had the power to knock him out but was reluctant to punch,” DeJesus said. “We clearly got beat. I don’t think he won a round.”

Roach agreed, saying he saw nothing in Clottey to win.

“He had a good defense, but defense isn’t enough to win a fight,” Roach said.

Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press

Pacquiao Comes To Jerryworld For Possible Last Title Fight.

Pacquiao shoots for fireworks against Clottey

by Rebecca Bryan – Wed Mar 3, 11:18 pm ET

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Manny Pacquiao doesn’t know if his March 13 welterweight world title clash with Joshua Clottey in Dallas will be his last, but if it is, he’d like to go out with a bang.

Then again, Pacquiao says he always wants to provide some fireworks for the fans.

“For me as a fighter I have a big responsibility not only for myself and my family, but I have to give a good fight, more action, give enjoyment to the people,” Pacquiao said amid the crush at trainer Freddie Roach’s Wild Card gym in Hollywood on Wednesday.

“I don’t want them to say it’s boring.”

Pacquiao, 50-3 with two drawn and 38 knockouts, will defend his World Boxing Organization title against Ghana’s Clottey, 35-3 with 21 knockouts, at the spectacular Cowboys Stadium – the billion-dollar home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys that opened last year.

The bout will be on the same date that Pacquiao was expected to face unbeaten American Floyd Mayweather, before negotiations ended in acrimony.

Mayweather is now booked to face fellow American Shane Mosley on May 1.

The collapse of the highly anticipated Mayweather bout, and Pacquiao’s run for a congressional seat in his native Philippines, has sparked talk that this could be the 31-year-old Filipino’s last fight.

“I don’t know,” Pacquiao said Wednesday with a small smile. “I can still fight.”

But Roach acknowledged that Pacquiao’s last bell could be approaching.

“You know, it could be,” Roach said.

“The thing is, if Mayweather or Mosely – depending who wins that fight – doesn’t come on board to fight us, who else is out there to fight right now?

“Mayweather’s the fight the world wants to see. I feel if he doesn’t come to the table, maybe if Manny wins the election and gets into politics and gets busy in politics it could be his last fight, yes.

“I don’t think so, but it could be.”

Promoter Bob Arum said it would all depend on Pacquiao.

“If he wants it to be his last fight it’ll be his last fight. It’s completely up to Manny,” Arum said. “Sure, I’d love him to keep fighting because he’s at the top of his game.”

Added Roach: “I think Bob Arum wants to introduce him at the Mayweather fight as ‘Congressman Pacquiao.'”

But first, there’s Clottey, who has vowed to be more than simply a fill-in fighter destined to fall to the Philippines’ powerhouse.

Roach and Pacquiao say they have been working on a strategy to tackle the defensive-minded Clottey.

“We have been working on that quite a bit,” Roach said, adding that if Clottey goes too far into a defensive shell, he can’t win the fight.

“You’ve got to throw punches to win the fight,” Roach said.

“I know that Clottey is a very good defensive fighter, but we have a technique for his style,” Pacquiao said.

That’s what Pacquiao will be thinking about until March 13 – and not the mega-fight that might have been.

“Right now I don’t want to talk about Floyd because he has an upcoming fight and I have a fight, too,” Pacquiao said. “I think what we need to do is focus on our fights.”

Mavericks win 91-82

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Brendan Haywood came to Dallas to ease the burden on Erick Dampier’s balky left knee.

Turns out a dislocated finger is giving the newest Mavericks player in the middle a chance to shine.

Haywood tied his career high with 20 rebounds – most of them uncontested while he controlled the lane on defence – and the Mavericks improved to 4-0 with him as their starting centre in a 91-82 victory against the Indiana Pacers on Monday night.

The seven-footer became a starter when Dampier injured his finger the first game after Haywood, Caron Butler and DeShawn Stevenson were acquired from Washington on Feb. 13. He scored 13 points for his second straight double-double and added three blocks to anchor a defence that was struggling before the deal.

The Mavericks, whose four-game winning streak is their longest in two months, have held all five opponents since the trade to less than 100 points after the previous eight broke that mark.

“Both teams didn’t shoot well, so I had a lot of opportunities to get some rebounds,” said Haywood, who had 20 rebounds Jan. 15 at Chicago when he was still with the Wizards. “I was trying to attack the boards and be aggressive.”

Dirk Nowitzki led Dallas with 23 points.

Playing his second straight game in his native Texas, T.J. Ford led the Pacers with 14 points.

Indiana played without Danny Granger, making it consecutive games that the Dallas opponent was missing its leading scorer. Granger didn’t play for unspecified personal reasons after Dwyane Wade sat out Miami’s loss in Dallas on Saturday night.

“Granger obviously is their go-to guy and he always makes big shots, so we definitely caught a break that he wasn’t here,” Nowitzki said.

Without Granger, the Pacers shot 26 per cent in the first quarter and 37 per cent for the game. Despite plenty of open three-pointers, Indiana shot a season-low 13 per cent (3-of-23) from beyond the arc.

“Got to make some shots to win in this league,” Pacers coach Jim O’Brien said. “We missed 27 open looks, and that was the difference in the game.”

Still, Indiana was down just eight in the third quarter before Jason Kidd had two of his seven assists and the punctuating three-pointer on an 11-3 run that put the Mavericks ahead 64-48. Their lead was never less than nine after that.

Dallas wasn’t much better from the field, though. The Mavericks shot 39 per cent, winning for just the fifth time this season when shooting less than 40 per cent.

“We played a sloppy game,” said Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle, whose team faces the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night. “The ball movement wasn’t crisp, and we had questionable shot selection. Defensively, we had too many breakdowns. We have to get better.”

Haywood was the exception. He had nine rebounds in the game’s first nine minutes, and his 10th was an emphatic put-back dunk in the closing seconds of the first half. During the key third-quarter run, he had four points, a rebound and a block.

“The guy has rejuvenated himself,” Jason Terry said. “It’s funny. When you’re on a losing team, people don’t see what kind of talent you have. Now that he’s with us, he’s able to showcase his skills.”

Coming off a 23-point night during a win in his hometown of Houston, Ford played despite a sore groin and kept the Pacers close in the first half. He led all first-half scorers with 10 points. He used his quickness to draw fouls, converting a three-point play and going 6 of 7 from the line.

credit: Canadian Press/Google

Josh Howard and his Maverick Exit

The never-ending Josh Howard ‘hangover’ story

Although Josh Howard has denied reports that excessive partying contributed to him missing a game against the Wizards on Jan. 20 — thus prompting his trade to the team less than a month later — the story lives on.

Howard was scratched from the game — a 93-92 Wizards loss in which the guy he was traded for (Caron Butler) had his game-winning attempt blocked by Shawn Marion — with what the team claimed at the time was a “stomach illness.”

A person who witnessed Howard at Verizon Center before the game told me that Howard was connected to an IV. The same person brought Howard a blanket because he was shivering. Howard told the person that his illness was caused by eating some “bad chicken.”

On Monday, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was on Dan Patrick’s radio Show when Patrick brought up the rumors about Howard’s reported hangover. Cuban said that Howard looked ill but thought he could’ve done more to play in the game.

“He sat out a game, but I talked to him before the game and he didn’t look hung over to me. He certainly wasn’t feeling well,” Cuban said. “I thought I had a good relationship with Josh, so I didn’t think he was hung over. But he certainly wasn’t feeling well. I was like, ‘How you feeling? What’s going on? And we just chatted about it. [Howard said] that he didn’t feel well. He wasn’t the first player that sat out because he wasn’t feeling well.”

While he didn’t dispute that Howard was sick — “He would’ve had to have been a great actor,” Cuban said — Cuban added that he was disappointed that he missed the game. “Was I upset a little bit that he didn’t get in a little earlier and get IVs or whatever to try to get through? Well yeah, because a lot of guys come to work not feeling well,” he said. “I wasn’t mad at him. I just wish he would’ve taken more precautions.”

Asked a general question about partying and the nightlife, Cuban told Patrick, “You can’t be out partying the night before a game. Period. End of story. Now if we got a day off and you’re getting trashed and you can deal with it [and] It takes you less than a day to recover — which hopefully you can because you’re a 20-something — then fine. Go have fun. You’re in LA, you’re in Miami, whatever we have a night off before the next game, tear it up, I don’t care. But on the flip side, you’ve got to be ready to play. That’s your responsibility to me. You’ve got to be ready to practice, that’s your responsibility to me, your teammates and the fans.”

Patrick then asked Cuban about how often players wake up with hangovers on game days. “Let’s put it this way: it happens, typically, once for a player and he finds himself playing for another team,” Cuban said. “It wasn’t the case behind Josh Howard. We had it happen with two other players the season before and one of those guys was put out to pasture and another guy was traded.”

Howard has said that he won’t respond to a lie, but in Toronto, he was asked if he was hurt that a story like this would come out a month later — and after he was traded elsewhere.

“It makes me wonder. It makes me wonder, what was all of the hard work for? But it was for myself at the end of the day,” Howard said. “It’s kind of sad, hearing all of the lies coming out of there. Especially when I’m gone. Why would you want to talk about a guy who did so much for your organization and he’s gone?”

Asked if he felt the situation would’ve been handled differently if he was having a better season in Dallas, Howard said, “They didn’t really give me … I don’t want to talk about that. I only said it because they tried to fire off. … I think that’s where the other rumors came from because I basically told the truth.”

He added, “I loved what I did in Dallas, but it’s time to move on.”

credit: Washington Post

Texas Rangers, Best in the West?

Texas Rangers on the Verge of AL West Dominance

As the sun rose this morning, a new feeling came over the city of Surprise, Ariz.

A feeling, an excitement, was in the air that hadn’t been there in quite some time.

Today was the day that baseball returned to the spring training facilities all over the state of Arizona.

For the Texas Rangers that feeling was one of possibility. A feeling that they could possibly be the team to beat in the AL West after so many years of watching the Angels run away from everyone else.

In 2009, the Rangers hung in the race longer than anyone expected them to.

“Expect the Rangers to finish the season with a better than .500 record and a second place finish in the AL West but any more than 85 wins would be a surprise.”—MLBCenter.com

The Rangers finished the 2009 season with 87 wins but still 10 games back of the eventual division champion Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

In 2010, the Rangers could put it all together and give the Angels a serious run for their money. When asked about both the Rangers and Mariners being contenders in 2010, Angels’ outfielder Torii Hunter didn’t exactly give either team respect.

“Since I’ve been with the Angels, that’s what they’ve said every year,” Hunter told Yahoo Sports . “It’s no big deal. We’re still wearing the crown. They’ve got to take it away.”

Pitchers and catchers are just reporting to their respective camps and already there’s bulletin board material.

What do the Rangers need in order to “take the crown away” as Torri Hunter implies? Who are the biggest factors that will make or break a successful and winning season? Who will take the leadership role of the team and run with it?

All questions that aren’t going to have easy answers nor will the answers be known before the end of spring training. What is known is the abundant talent that the Rangers have stockpiled in their minor league system.

Guys like Chris Davis, Elvis Andrus, Taylor Teagarden, and Derek Holland all came from the Rangers’ own minor league system. All will have a significant role in the team’s success in 2010.

What’s also known is the Rangers are finally free of former owner Tom Hicks. They will begin a new regime under Nolan Ryan who has spent the last few years under Hicks building this team to what is and what it can become.

While the Rangers were 10th in baseball in runs scored (784) and tied for second in home runs (224) with the Philadelphia Phillies, they were 18th in team ERA (4.38) and had the fifth lowest strikeout total (1016).

It won’t be long before the Rangers will be able to show what they’re made of as they will have back-to-back series in New York against the Yankees (April 16-April 18) and then in Boston after an off day to face the Red Sox (April 20-April 22).

credit: Bleacher Report