<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Forty-eight minutes into the Dallas Mavericks' first NBA Finals, this much we know: The team cannot afford another Jason Terry suspension. The Mavericks' best player in the biggest game in franchise history was undeniably Terry. His back-to-back 3-point shots about four minutes into the fourth quarter raised Dallas' lead from four to 10 as the Mavericks earned a 90-80 victory over the Miami Heat in Game 1. Those consecutive 3s gave Terry 30 points, and he would finish with a game-high 32, rendering a wildly entertaining 28-point night from Miami's Dwyane Wade useless. "They got a great, great game out of Jason," Heat coach Pat Riley said. "We talked about it, that you've got to close down his airspace. "There's no doubt he kept them in it in the first half when we had an 11-point lead." The Heat came out, well, hot because Wade was everything he was advertised to be. And the Mavericks did, in fact, give him a lot of looks, as coach Avery Johnson said they would. Open looks. Wide-open looks. Ridiculously wide-open looks. Adrian Griffin, Josh Howard, Marquis Daniels ? none of them could keep Wade from the basket. He attacked Dallas for 13 first-quarter points. Had Wade been given superstar-like support from Shaquille O'Neal, the Heat would have captured the series opener. But Dallas did an effective job against Shaq, limiting the three-time NBA Finals MVP to 17 points and seven rebounds. The Mavericks' foul line defense was particularly impressive as Shaq went 1-for-9 on the uncontested shots. But with Dirk Nowitzki and Josh Howard not delivering their customary games at the offensive end, it was left to Terry to pick up the slack. He had no problem elevating the team to victory. Does it strike anyone as strange that a guy who spent his first five years with the Atlanta Hawks would be this good a big-game player? The Hawks' last big game came sometime early in Spud Webb's career, about a decade before Terry came into the league in 1999. But Terry was huge in Game 7 against Houston last year. He was big in Game 7 against San Antonio this year after his foolish act had caused him to be suspended for Game 6. This was Terry's fourth 30-point playoff game for Dallas. He has scored 30 just twice in regular-season games as a Maverick. And the Jet made American Airlines Center his personal runway against the Heat. When he reached the 30-point mark, he had hit 13 of 16 shots. "I just wanted to come out, be aggressive," Terry said. "Fortunately for me, they were falling tonight." Terry made four of seven 3-pointers, which the club needed because the rest of the team was going 2-for-11 from long range. For the night, Terry hit 72 percent from the field. The rest of the Mavericks hit 35 percent. His efficiency is what made Terry's Game 1 performance more impressive than Wade's. The Heat's star guard, who always seems to be this close to making Cleveland's LeBron James the second-best player taken in the 2003 draft, showcased his array of slashes and drives to the hoop and dunks. But Wade missed 14 shots from the field and was only 6-for-10 from the foul line. And Wade had no help as the Mavericks did a nice job on the rest of the team. The Heat shot 35 percent from the field over the final three quarters. Stopping one star, it seems, will be enough for the Mavericks in this series. Dallas has too much depth, too much speed, too many weapons for the Heat to handle unless Wade and O'Neal are both performing like superstars. I certainly expected to see a lot more from Shaq, given that this was the most rest he will have before any game in the Finals. For the Mavericks to win by 10 when their two best players (most nights), Nowitzki and Howard, are going 7-for-28 from the field, it says that the Heat is in over its head in its first Finals. Terry may not drill the Heat for 32 again Sunday night, but it's not likely that Nowitzki and Howard will shoot 25 percent again. </div> Source
