Monday, April 28, 2008

New Orleans Hornets 97, Dallas Mavericks 84

By Pegasus News wire

DALLAS — The Dallas Mavericks showed the world what they're made of Sunday night, putting forth a terrible team effort in a pathetic 97-84 loss to the Hornets at the AAC. The loss dropped the Mavs to 1-3 on the series and in danger of another first-round exit.

Photo not provided by the Dallas Mavericks

At least there's some good news for the Mavs

The Mavericks were playing well for one quarter, up 30-23, when the bottom fell out in the second. For the rest of the game, the Mavs were outplayed, outshot and outhustled, and thoroughly embarrassed by the clearly more-motivated Hornets. As a team, the Mavericks only shot 36% from the field, compared to 50% for the Hornets, and went an entire quarter without getting a single free throw in the second half. Dallas seemed content to settle for jumpshots all night, and appeared to have checked out of the series already.

The Mavericks did get two halfway decent individual performances from their starters. Dirk Nowitzki led the Mavs with 22 points, 13 rebounds and even led the team with his paltry three assists. Jason Terry scored 20 points for the Mavericks, but missed five of his seven three-point shots and suffered from poor shot selection at times.

The rest of the team seemed to have taken the night off, however. Josh Howard had one of the worst games of his life, scoring just six points on 3-of-16 shooting, and completely avoiding his trademark inside game. Howard did manage to snag seven rebounds, but other than that Howard took absolutely nothing to the rim --and was not awarded a single free throw attempt all game.

Jason Kidd also refused to show up, putting up three points, four rebounds and three assists, before being ejected after a flagrant foul in the fourth. Eric Dampier scored all of 4 points, and was the poster boy for a seemingly endless series of easy inside baskets for the Hornets all night, despite playing just 18 minutes.

Since going up 2-0 on the Miami Heat in the 2006 NBA Finals, the Mavericks have gone just 3-11, and head coach Avery Johnson is likely in danger of losing his job if the Mavs do not come back in this series.

Posted by Todd M.

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