Posts tagged ‘shawn marion’

["What he did? Told them he cut his eye ... in sparring." -Wu-Tang Clan, Bells of War]

I kept telling myself, even Tweeting, when Miami was looking like unstoppable beasts for all but about seven minutes of NBA Finals game two, “Is Dallas the type of team you don’t want to let hang around?”

Of course they are. The Mavs are a unit well-versed in veteran composure, lest they would have had a seven game series with the Oklahoma City Thunder. But Miami isn’t Oklahoma, in so many senses.

Late in the game, after countless amazing dunks with little defensive resistance, Miami finally pulled away and took an 88-73 lead on a Dwayne Wade three. After nailing the shot near Dallas’ bench, Wade held his follow through and slowly walked toward his own bench, as Mavs coach Rick Carlisle had called a timeout. LeBron came over to give Wade celebratory chest jabs.

At that point, we all thought it was just about over… and I’m taking the entire series, not just the game. I wasn’t quite traveling toward the doomsday scenario of the Heat shutting down league competition (lockout and team parity be damned) with unforeseen future domination, but figured that they were the scariest, most unimaginable basketball animals alive and the Mavericks were simply prey in their territory.

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It late in the third quarter against the Dallas Mavericks and Washington made a quick 7-0 run sparked by a John Wall layup, a Kevin Seraphin offensive rebound put-back and a Mo Evans three from the corner. The Wizards cut Dallas’ once comfortable lead to just four points at 76-72 and then got Jason Terry to miss a three with 30 seconds left in the period. But on Washington’s next possession, Wall turned the ball over and the Mavericks went breaking in the other direction with a seemingly easy opportunity. The old Wizards might have just let Shawn Marion get the bucket, spawned by their often seen habit of displaying a willingness to lay down for a superior opponent. Not newcomer Evans though.

Mo Evans has made a name for himself as a tough role player for playoff teams in Sacramento, Detroit, Los Angeles (for the Lakers, obviously), Orlando and Atlanta over the previous two seasons. He played for Wizards coach Flip Saunders on the 2005-06 Pistons team and as an undrafted rookie with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2004-05.

As Marion glided down the court, the third quarter clock ticking with less than five seconds left, Evans tracked him down and wrapped him up. In the NBA of the past, such a foul was meant to not let the other team get something easy. They were a message sent to not take a team lightly, and in the Wizards’ case, that they weren’t just to be looked at as a bad, young, inexperienced squad.

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Ready for a sports cliché? Wait for it …. wait for it …. here goes …. “Games are not won or lost on a single play.”

Not exactly comforting to Wizards fans. Definitely not comforting to certain players in the Wizards’ locker room. Especially not comforting to head coach Flip Saunders.

After overcoming just 15 assists to 14 turnovers for the game and a seven point deficit with a minute left, the Wizards fell short by just one point to the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday night. Down 94-93 with 6.7 seconds left, just after Brendan Haywood drew a huge charge call on Dirk Nowitzki, Caron Butler had the ball in his hands to win the game, either with a shot or a pass to a teammate.

After receiving the inbounds pass, Butler halted any previously set up process and dwindled clock with unproductive bounces of the ball, something you can’t exactly afford when you’re down. He drove left against Shawn Marion into the strong side help of Jason Kidd. With good defense quickly closing up the lane, Butler threw up the only shot he could muster, a weak, fading attempt that was sent back in his direction by Marion. Game over. Fans were left baffled.

No, games aren’t won or lost on one play, but when it came down to one play, why did Washington screw the pooch in between taking it out for a nice seafood dinner and never calling it again? There must have been a better way for the Wizards to court their first three-game win streak of the year. Perhaps being on the same page as to how the final play was to be executed would have helped.

Flip Saunders wasn’t baffled. He was down right pissed, at least for the two minutes of his terse press conference. When asked about the game’s final play, Saunders said, ”That wasn’t the play we were supposed to run.” He reaffirmed his previous statement and followed with, “It’s not what was designed,” when asked how the play was supposed to be run.

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The Wizards will play the second game of their preseason slate against the Dallas Mavericks tonight … the only home preseason game on the schedule. It will televised on Comcast SportsNet and can be heard on DC’s 106.7 The Fan.

Also, I’ll be reporting from the game, and likely doing another live Twitter post on Truth About It (of course, this time within the NBA guidelines of a three ‘Tweet’ limit during each quarter and one during each of the two quarter breaks (but no limit on pregame, halftime and postgame Tweets).

But in terms of the Mavs, fellow TrueHoop Network blogger, Rob Mahoney of The Two Man Game, agreed to answer a couple questions about his team. Here that goes …

[UPDATE: Head over to The Two Man Game to see my return answers to Rob's questions.]

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flickr/Keith Allison

Haywood is a non-starter for 20 NBA teams.

by spurchief on Jul 26, 2009 4:00 PM EDT

Is that so?

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