<div align="left"> Listen live on ESPN 103.3 FM Tues Oct 18, 6:00 PM </div> vs. <font color="DarkOrange"><font color="Red">Detroit Pistons (3-0)</font> </font><font color="Black">v</font>s <font color="Blue">Dallas Mavericks (2-1)</font> Dallas preseason Dallas 96-83 Sacramento Dallas 80-95 Los Angeles Cl. Dallas 104-102 New York I think the main question here is DeSagana Diop for Darko Milicic, both highly touted foreign lottery picks who haven't seemed to work out so far. Both have shown some talent in the preseason (Darko had a 10/6 reb/6 block game). Dirk also seems to struggle against the Pistons due to their twin towers, but they always seem to struggle at beating us. Will be a close game, but I predict Detroit to win by 3
Have you been to any of the Pre-Season games? I'm going to next Tuesday's game (vs. Bogut!) but I have no idea what to expect. I've never been to AAC and I've never been to an NBA function, except last summer I saw the Mavs summer league team against the China national team at SMU. I'm originally from Alabama, so I never really had the opportunity to see a game until the Hornets came to N'Orleans. But, anyway, what are pre-season games like live? Are they at all comparable to regular season? Also, do you know anything about the view from the nose-bleed section. I'm sure it sucks, but...
This is not a good matchup for the Mavs at every position. Sheed will frustrate DN as usual and then Detroit's 3-point defense is maybe the best in the league. This is a frustrating team for Dallas to play. If the Mavs ever make it to the finals they better hope they don't see Detroit there. They could match up with Indiana or Miami a lot better. All you have to do is put Sheed on Dirk, Tay on Howard, have Chaunce and Rip defend the perimeter and have Ben play help D.... Dallas will have trouble cracking the 80 mark, that's IF Detroit takes the game seriously enough. If Detroit committed to it, they could hold the Mavs to 70. Perhaps we'll see Arroyo and Milicic get extended minutes though, in which case, Dallas has a shot to win.
Mavs 94 Pistons 88. Good game, and a nice showing by Devin Harris with 20 pts in a little over 20 minutes
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) -- Devin Harris scored 20 points to help the Dallas Mavericks beat the Detroit Pistons 94-88 in an exhibition game Tuesday night. Harris had 13 in the fourth quarter, including nine during a 13-1 surge that put the Mavericks up 79-68 with 7:42 to go. Jason Terry added 15 points and Josh Howard had 14 for the Mavericks. Rasheed Wallace had 12 points, Tayshaun Prince and Chauncey Billups each scored 11 for the Pistons. The Pistons led 47-45 at the half as Wallace had nine points. Dirk Nowitzki had 12 for the Mavericks, who stayed in the game despite being outshot 60 percent to 41.9 percent. With both sets of starters back in the game for most of the third, Detroit maintained its advantage. The Pistons led 67-66 at the end of the third quarter, helped by eight points from Prince. Rawle Marshall, a graduate of nearby Oakland University, played 11 minutes and scored six points in front of a large group of friends, family and college teammates.
Seeing as how I don't get to see many Mavericks games, I'll do something called boxscore observations which I'll try to post after every game <font size="3">Theo's Boxscore Observations </font> <ul> [*]Not only did Devin Harris score 20 points, he did it on an amazing FG% (8-12 FG) and he had 2 steals and 2 rebounds. The only bad thing seems to be that he only had 2 assists, as we need him to be the passing PG and Terry is the scoring PG [*]Rawle Marshall outperformed Josh Powell (Rawle: 6 points, 4 rebounds and 1 assist -- Josh P: 1 point, 3 rebounds, 1 block) in the same game time. I would imagine this because he was playing in front his family and friends. [*]Marquis Daniels had a nice rounded game with 10 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals. He seems to be our versatile SG of the future, and proving that his rookie season wasn't a fluke. [*]Avery seems to have struck a chord with our offense, we made 60% of our threes proving they don't really seem to be ill-advised [*]This is Erick Dampiers first game with 10 rebounds, any surprise that we won? I think not (well, im trying to say when Damp rebounds we win) [*]DJ MBenga did not get any game time, possibly showing that Avery only plays him when theres nothing to lose, he is not yet a regular part of the rotation [*]Josh Howard got the most game time, and from Detroit Rip Hamilton had one of the worst offensive games (FG wise). We all know Rip runs a lot, so this points to good things for Howards stamina and durability.[/list] They probably won't be as good as that, but hope you like it.
