In what could be one of the best series in NBA playoffs history, the Mavericks edged out the Spurs 119-111 in overtime. There were a lot of chances for both teams to put the other away. Spurs fans will argue that Duncan was fouled at the end of regulation. Maybe he was, but like I’ve said before, you can’t blame officials for losses. If you let the refs decide the game for you, you deserve to lose.

Looking ahead, I see three keys defensively for the Mavericks.

1. Don’t let the Suns attempt more than 20 three point shots or shoot better than 35% from behind the line.

In the four games that Dallas and Phoenix played this year, Phoenix was 10-22 (45.5%) and 16-24 (66.7%) on their three pointers in the games they won. When the Mavericks won, the Suns shot 7-21 (33.3%) and 6-21 (28.6%) in games they lost. Phoenix loves to drive to the basket then kick the ball out to an open player for an easy three pointer. If the Mavericks are able slow them down from the perimeter, it will be much easier to win.

2. Don’t let Steve Nash score 20 points and/or have 10 assists.

You have to pick your poison with Nash. He will torch you one way or another. If you let him score, you’ve got to limit his passes. If you’re going to double team him, don’t let him find the open man.

Looking back to the regular season matchups, Nash’s numbers in the two Phoenix wins were 25 pts, 11 assists on March 5, and 6 pts, 13 assists on April 13. In the Dallas wins, he had 30 pts, 9 assists on November 1, and 20 pts, 5 assists on December 14.

3. Outrebound the Suns

This one is plain and simple. The Mavericks won two of the three regular season games against Phoenix when they outrebounded them (55-51 and 54-44). In the one game the Suns pulled down more boards the Mavs lost. With Phoenix being one of the best shooting teams we’ve seen in a long time, you can’t let them get 2nd chances. They will burn you almost every time you let that happen.

There are some offensive keys for Dallas. I’ll talk more about that before tipoff Wednesday night.

Series prediction: Mavs in 6.

I’m putting this out for the world to see. It’s 3:06 PM on Monday, May 22. The Mavericks will win game 7 in San Antonio. Here’s why. In a seven game series, the best team almost always wins. We saw it happen yesterday in Detroit. We saw it happen last year when Dallas edged Houston in the first round of the playoffs. And I believe we’ll see it happen again tonight.

Even though San Antonio is the defending champion and they won three more games than the Mavericks this year, I still believe the Mavericks are better. They have more depth, more athleticism, and more talent top to bottom. The best team should win game 7. I believe that team is Dallas.

May the best team win.

Oh, and this is my 99th post to my blog. Seems like destiny that my 100th would be talking about the Mavericks advancing to the Western Conference finals.

I don’t think that you can blame officiating for losses in the NBA. There are missed calls and wrong calls that happen all the time, every game. Sometimes a player gets called for a foul when he didn’t even touch the other player, and other times a player will knock someone to the ground and won’t draw a whistle. Usually the fouls balance out, and the referees don’t dictate the outcome of a game.

If the Spurs end up winning the series against the Mavericks, I won’t blame Stu Jackson for suspending Jason Terry. It looked like Terry made a punching motion toward Michael Finley, so the suspension could be deemed as deserved.

However, I think that the NBA has proven, once again, that favortism exists. There are certain players who get away with almost everything (Tim Duncan’s traveling) and other players who have to make sure they don’t breate on another player wrong (Ron Artest). Jason Terry was another victim in this preferential, star treatment, biased league. He’s not well known by the fans throughout the league, so the league decided to use him to make a statement.

If Tony Parker, who is the Spurs starting point guard, had done the exact same thing there is NO WAY that he would have been suspended for ANY game, let alone game 6 in the Western Conference Semi-Finals. There would have been weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth in the streets of San Antonio if he were in Terry’s position. The tears from the fans would have made the riverwalk overflow all the way up to Austin. The league would have fined him, but they would conclude that he was making a shoving motion while trying to stand up or something along those lines.

What Terry did wasn’t smart, but I don’t think he was trying to punch Finley. He was frustrated that there were two Spurs players laying on top of him without a foul being called. He didn’t deserve a suspension.

That said, I return to my first thought. The Mavericks fate does not rest in the office of Stu Jackson. It rests on the court at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, TX. If the rest of the team can’t get it done on the court without Terry, the only people to blame are the players and coaching staff. No one else really matters.

One more thing. I wish Duncan and Ginnobli would stop acting like they’ve never commited a foul in their lives. Every time a call goes against them, their eyes shoot wide open and they stick their hands in front of their bodies. Play the game and stop whining.

Last year, everyone was blown away by the Phoenix Suns. Adding Steve Nash as their point guard, coupled with Amare Stoudemire having a breakout season, catapulted them to the best record in the NBA. They were the darling team in the media. They scored a lot of points and had a lot of fun doing it. I had no problems with Nash being the MVP last year.

This year, however, I don’t think he deserves it. There are a lot of people who will argue that Nash kept the Suns together with Stoudemire being hurt all year. There is some truth to that, but I don’t think Steve Nash is even the Suns best player this year. Shawn Marion has kept that team alive. The problem I have with giving Nash the MVP this year is that he is overated based on the system that the Suns run.

Let me go through some stats. The Suns average 87.4 FGA per game, of which 25.6 are three-pointers. Those are both the highest among the NBA. The next closest FGA is the Charlotte Bobcats (83.4) and the average for the league is about 79-80. The Suns attempt the highest percentage (29%) of their field goal attempts behind the three point line. They are dead last in free throw attempts per game (18.1), with the next closest team (the mighty Toronto Raptors) attempting five more per game. They are also dead last in offensive rebounds per game (9.4).

They do have some really bright points. They are the most accurate team shooting three pointers (39.2%) and second in overall field goal accuracy (47.8%). They’re third in defensive rebounds (32.1), and first in assists (26.6) and points per game (108.3).

In case you’re having trouble grasping the big picture, the Suns are trying to beat you by shooting more shots and beating you in transition. They don’t make an effort to get the ball down low or to get to the free throw line. If they have a somewhat-open shot (especially behind the three point line) they’re going to fire it up. They have people who can make jump shots and they base their entire gameplan on using them.

They remind me a lot of a college team. Watching the NCAA tournament, I was shocked by how often teams would launch (and hit) three pointers. I could tell that some of the players were only on the team because they could hit the three and that was about it. If you’re one-dimensional in college, most NBA teams will pass on you.

What does all this have to do with Nash not deserving the MVP? I believe that the reason Nash is so successful and puts up the big numbers is because he is in a system that rewards people with his skill set. However, if you put almost any other starting point guard in the Suns starting lineup they would do almost just as well. If you look back to the 2003-04 season (the year before Nash arrived), Stephon Marbury put up huge numbers (20.8 ppg, 8.3 apg) for the Suns. The biggest difference between him and Nash is that Marbury is a shoot first, selfish player. In most systems, that doesn’t work well for the point guard. This is especially true in the Suns up-tempo, run-and-gun style.

I think the reason the Suns have done so well these past two seasons is teams just aren’t used to the style they play. Most of the time you don’t have to worry about the other team shooting a three pointer 1.7 seconds after your team just missed a shot. Like I pointed out before, the Suns are most interested in making shots from the outside. Nash just has to find the open player and get him the ball. To me, that is not what being the MVP is all about.

I had never heard of a plus/minus reading of road wins to home losses before reading the latest Power Rankings at ESPN.com. Mark Stein points out that San Antonio has a better reading (+17) than Dallas (+15). I thought I had heard of every stat that was out there, but I was wrong. My question is, what does that stat really tell you? I know that you’re supposed to win at home, but it’s harder to win on the road, so I guess it could have some value, but it seems pretty worthless.

For the first time this season, the Mavericks are ranked first in the ESPN NBA Power Rankings. I would be more excited about this if Stein didn’t go to ESPN from Dallas. No matter, it’s nice to see them get some respect.

When you think of the Mavericks, you think of Dirk Nowitzki. He is the heart and soul of the franchise. As Dirk goes, so go the Mavs. However, Josh Howard is almost as important to Dallas as Dirk. His numbers aren’t as impressive as Dirk’s in every category except for steals and 3 Point Shooting (he’s shooting the same percentage as Dirk, see for yourself). But Josh Howard is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with. In tonight’s win against the Clippers, he led the Mavs with 23 points. A footnote to the game in the AP Recap paints the picture of Josh Howard’s impact: “Dallas is 16-0 when Howard scores at least 20 points.” He won’t get the national media attention, but Josh Howard has done nothing but get better every year. (What were the 28 teams who passed on him in the draft thinking?)

–UPDATE–
I got done writing this entry and about 20 minutes later ESPN.com’s front page looked like this:

Dirk Nowitzki did what no other Maverick had done before. He won something at the All-Star Weekend. Dirk had previously come up just short in 2000 and 2001, but kept it together (with a little help from no replay in the contest) to take home the title.

That wasn’t the most surprising thing of the night, though. Charles Barkley actually spoke highly of both Dirk and the Mavericks. He said they’re an impressive team, but they just need to do something in the playoffs to prove they’re really a contender. I agree with him. If Dallas is going to be a true powerhouse in the NBA they’ve got to be more succesful in the postseason. Until then, they’ll only be considered a second-tier team.

That’s fine with me, for now. They’re still a lot of fun to watch and have great team chemisty. Something you can’t say for a lot of other teams in the NBA.

Being the Mavericks fan that I am, I was wondering why every national sports website had the Spurs listed ahead of the Mavericks in the standings. After doing some searching, I found the answer. Even though the Mavs and Spurs have the same overall record and are 1-1 against each other this year, the Spurs still technically have the tiebreaker since they have a better conference winning percentage. They are 18-4 (.818) against the West, and Dallas is 21-7 (.750). The order of the tiebreaker is: 1) Head-to-head; 2) Conference winning percentage; 3) Division winning percentage (only if the teams are in the same division); 4) Winning percentage against playoff opponents in the same conference; 5) Winning percentage against playoff opponents in opposite conference; 6) Better point differential.

I really think they should put division winning percentage above the conference in the tiebreaker when it comes to the division title. The seeding for the NBA playoffs gets thrown off now that there are 6 divisions. For example, if the season ended today Dallas would have the 4th seed behind San Antonio, Phoenix, and Denver. Dallas is 10 games ahead of Denver and 5.5 ahead of Phoenix. Getting the division seeding is extremely important, and it just makes more sense to me that in a tiebreaker scenario like this, the title should go to the team who did better in that division.