<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post"> Mavericks-Celtics preview <font size="+1">6:30 p.m. today, T.D. Banknorth Garden, FSNSW; ESPN-FM (103.3), KFLC-AM (1270, Spanish)</font> <font size="-1">08:38 PM CST on Sunday, January 8, 2006 </font> <font size="-1">By EDDIE SEFKO / The Dallas Morning News</font> Series: Mavs lead 1-0 this season; Celtics lead, 29-20, all-time. Key matchup Paul Pierce vs. Dirk Nowitzki: No, they won't guard each other much, if at all, but the players drafted ninth and 10th in 1998 have always been gauged against each other. Nowitzki shot only 7-of-20 in the first meeting. Pierce had 28 points, six rebounds and six assists and shot much more efficiently (10-of-19) than Nowitzki. Nowitzki had 36 points in his visit to Boston last season. Inside the Mavericks Blocking the main artery: They have blocked 33 shots in the last four games, lifting them into the top five in the league in rejections. Dirk Nowitzki has nine blocks in the last two games, and DeSagana Diop has six in the last four games. Briefly: Erick Dampier is on a rebounding roll, having pulled down 54 in the last six games (9.0 average). ... They already have played four overtime games (3-1), twice as many as they had last season. ... Adrian Griffin had 11 points and 10 rebounds in the first meeting. Inside the Celtics Earning his stripes: Al Jefferson has been rounding into form recently, having recovered from a preseason ankle injury. In the last 18 games, he has averaged just under 10 points a game and has shot almost 60 percent. He also poured in 21 points with 12 rebounds in the first meeting with the Mavs. Briefly: They should have to start in a three-point hole for the silly name they have bestowed upon their arena. ... They suffered a terrible home loss against Atlanta on Friday and a one-point loss at Washington on Saturday. PROBABLE STARTERS Mavericks Pos. Celtics Dirk Nowitzki F Al Jefferson Adrian Griffin F Paul Pierce Erick Dampier C Mark Blount Josh Howard G Ricky Davis Jason Terry G Delonte West </div> Dallas needs to win this game to get our confidence back up.
Mavs 104 Celtics 102 Grades: Stackhouse Nails the Game Winner! Dirk starts off 1-5. Jason starts off 1-5. Josh starts off 0-5. Keith starts off 0-6. Devin goes 0-5. Erick hits the bench half way through the first period with 3 fouls. Dirk gets his fourth foul and has to sit. Josh gets to sit as he picks up his 5th foul. Game over? Wrong. The Cardiac Mavs hang on and win at the end again. The first three periods of this game was slow; really slow as every touch foul was called (along with the normal, a bit more than touch-fouls). Dallas takes a 5 point lead into the fourth and even extends it to 12 points before the Celtics make their come back and tie the game on Paul Pierce?s trey over a lost Dirk. The Mavs have 4.5 seconds to win the game only Dirk is not open and neither is Jason. Josh finds Jerry in the strong-side baseline corner who manages to get past Ricky Davis to nail a 12-foot jumper with less than a second on the clock. Another gutsy performance by the Mavs, but really was the refs that controlled the flow of this game with each team being called for 28 fouls each. Ugly? You bet. Kind of Spurs / Pistons ugly though. Johnson: B, Avery tried a lot of different combinations tonight, but it was more forced on him by foul trouble than anything else. The Mavs came out very lethargic, but got going in the second half. Howard: C-: A tough night for Josh as he had neither his offensive nor his defensive game going tonight. Josh?s only saving grace tonight was a critical offensive rebound with less than a minute left. +1 Nowitzki: B, Dirk had a very poor first half but picked it up in the third and had nearly half of his points in the fourth quarter. Dirk was nearly the goat in this game as he left the Celtics leading scorer, Paul Pierce with 32 points, wide open for a trey to tie the game. Dirk backed up Jason with 26 points and 7 rebounds. Dirk recently set the Mavs record for consecutive free throws, but was really off tonight, leaving 4 points on the line. +25 Dampier: B-, Other than picking up 3 quick fouls, Erick actually played quite well with the minutes he had. Amazingly, Erick managed to play 12 minutes in the second half without getting called for any fouls. +1 Griffin: B+; Adrian was only 1-3 from the field, but once again a charter member of the ?Mavs Glue Guys? club, Griffin?s impact is always much more than his box score. Adrian grabbed 6 rebounds and delivered a team high 5 assists against Zero turnovers. +12 Terry: B+, Jason starts out 1-5 but doesn?t quit. Jason keeps plugging and nails a career high 7 treys on his way to lead the Mavs with 30 points (9-17 FG, 7-13 treys, 5-5 FT). +29 Diop: A, The Sultan of Swat delivered tonight as DeSagana had a game high 5 blocked shots to go with his 7 rebounds. +15 Harris: C-; Devin struggled again tonight going 0-5 from the field as he picked up 5 fouls. +1 Stackhouse: A-, Jerry has a season high 20 points including the game winning shot. +17 Armstrong : A, Just the sight of seeing Darrell at the scorer?s table got the Mavs to pick up their energy tonight. +1 M?Benga: A, DJ got less than a minute but got a key offensive rebound. +1 Van Horn: B-, Keith struggled with his shot again tonight but got going late in the game draining 3 treys on his way to 12 points (3-10 FG, 3-4 treys, 3-4 FT) to go with his 6 rebounds. +12 Powell: DNP-CD. Daniels: DNP-CD, Marquis is out yet again with neck swelling from the Kurt Thomas clothes line hit. Marshall : Rawle has been sent to the Fort Worth Flyers (NBDL) to get playing time. Podkolzin: DNC-CD, Pavel had surgery to repair his right foot and ankle and is expected to miss three months. Typical Chef Ed Type
Avery Johnson is right. When Howard picks up early fouls, his game is less intense. He's got to continue to play the same with the same energy and confidence. So what if he has 4 fouls. That's why Dallas has so many great players.
<font size="-1">By EDDIE SEFKO / The Dallas Morning News</font> BOSTON ? With 38 first-half foul calls, the officiating crew seemed intent on euthanizing Monday's game via death by whistle. When that didn't work, Jerry Stackhouse and friends put the Boston Celtics out of their misery with clutch long-range shooting. Stackhouse dropped in an 18-footer from the baseline with 0.1 seconds left to breathe life into the Mavericks' 104-102 win over the Celtics at TD Banknorth Garden. Their third win in a row came after the Mavericks erased a nine-point Boston lead with a season-best 12 3-pointers (on 22 tries). Yet they still needed key shots by Stackhouse and Dirk Nowitzki after the Celtics wiped out a 12-point deficit in the final six minutes. The Mavericks' last three wins have been by a combined eight points. Five of their last seven wins have been by five points or fewer. "These games are giving us a comfort zone in late-game situations," said Stackhouse (20 points). "It was my night to knock it down. There's not a better feeling than to see that ball go in with zero-point-one showing on the clock." Stackhouse follows Devin Harris (at Denver) and Jason Terry (at Seattle) in the Mavericks' game-winning shot parade. This one came after Nowitzki's jumper with 16.1 seconds left put the Mavericks up three, 102-99. Paul Pierce, who led the Celtics with 32 points, faked Nowitzki out of position and swished a 3-pointer with 6.5 seconds showing to tie the score. After a timeout, the Mavericks inbounded to Terry, who was having a career night from 3-point range and would finish with a team-high 30 points. The Celtics fouled, and the Mavericks restarted with 4.5 seconds remaining. Stackhouse took the inbounds pass, got defender Ricky Davis off balance, then rose up on the baseline for the winner. The Mavericks have excelled at executing with the game on the line lately. Said Avery Johnson: "We practice it. Del [Harris, assistant coach] is always telling me to run a play or two at the end of practice because you never know when you're going to need it." The Mavericks, who are a Western Conference-best 13-5 on the road, fought through horrid shooting early and the incessant stoppages of play in the first half by making a living on 3-pointers. The biggest cheer through three quarters was when the Celtics showed New England Patriots running back Corey Dillon on the big screen. Dillon was in courtside seats courtesy of Terry, who grew up with Dillon in Seattle. Terry had an outrageous shooting night. He had a career-best six 3-pointers before the third quarter was done and finished with seven treys on 13 heaves. Those triples were the primary reason the Mavericks made up ground in the third quarter and led, 79-74, going into the fourth. "I never had to shoot that many 3s before when I was in Atlanta because I was always creating," Terry said. "Here, we got other guys creating, so I can spot up." He wasn't alone. Keith Van Horn, who for weeks has been colder than the ice sculptures outside Boston's Quincy Market, got into the 3-point action with three of them. He should stay outside the arc as he was 0-of-6 from closer range. But his two 3s in the fourth quarter helped garner the 96-84 lead with 5:53 remaining. A zone defense by Boston flustered the Mavs into three turnovers, and the Celtics made a run. "We thought we had control of the game," Johnson said. "But they went to a little zone and we didn't execute against it. We kept fighting and handled that adversity."
