Mavs Still Searching For Win Over Elite Team
Apparently, Dallas Mavericks coach wow gold learned from his much-criticized decision to leave Kidd on the bench in the final 34.5 seconds at San Antonio on Thursday. But the Mavericks also left Staples Center with the same lesson that has been repeated since the All-Star break: not even Kidd’s presence is enough to bring them a road victory against the West’s top teams.
They have lost to the Hornets, the Spurs and now the Lakers. They have battled, they have held fourth-quarter leads … they have yet to prevail. And you have to wonder how this translates to the playoffs. The 108-104 overtime loss to the Lakers left the Mavs three games behind the Lakers and four behind the Spurs in the loss column, which makes it all the more likely they’d start playoff series against those teams on the road.
And both the Spurs and Lakers stand to get better by the end of the season: power leveling will re-sign with San Antonio after his 30-day;cooling-off period,; and Andrew Bynum and Trevor Ariza will come off the inactive list once their injuries have healed. (Ariza will have the walking boot removed from his broken right foot Monday and said he expects to return in April).
The Mavericks have made their move, landing Kidd in the trade saga that had more false endings than the last;Lord of the Rings; movie. He has been everything they expected, instantly injecting a fast-break turbo into their offense. On Sunday, he transformed the half-court offense and brought life to the corpse known as Erick Dampier, setting him up for 16 points (which also inspired Dampier to grab 17 rebounds).
Kidd had 15 points, 11 assists and four steals. Given a chance to play in crunch time Sunday (while an ineffective wow power leveling sat on the bench), Kidd set up Dirk Nowitzki for a 3-pointer with two seconds remaining to send the game into overtime. Then he stole the Lakers’ attempted inbounds pass to Kobe Bryant. In overtime, Kidd drove for a layup and foul shot that could have tied the game. But Kidd missed the free throw with 10.4 seconds left. (;I just left it short,; he said.;That falls on my shoulders. I have to be able to step up and make that free throw.;)
logo design made the most of his time on the court at the beginning of the game, hitting a 3-pointer, finding Josh Howard for a jump shot and throwing an alley-oop to Dampier for a dunk. At that moment, it looked like the greatest trade ever.