Sunday, March 25, 2007

What two-game losing streak?

The Hawks game today wasn’t televised in Boston, so here’s my box score analysis. It doesn’t look like the Mavericks made it very easy on themselves, completely blowing a 20-point lead before getting the win. A few gaudy stats from the game:
  • Dirk, Howard, and Terry combined for 83 points (28/28/27) on 29/46 (63%) FG. Of the three, Dirk had the worst shooting performance, hitting only 10 of 17. Unfortunately, however, the Mavericks’ top three logged 41, 39, and 39 minutes, a heavy workload for the fifth game of a six-game road trip and a game against a bad team.
  • The Hawks shot 49 free throws (making 40) on 32 Mavericks fouls. That’s an average of 3.6 fouls for each of the 9 Mavericks who played at least a full minute.
  • Jason Terry had 3 steals but 8 turnovers.
  • Devin Harris, after big offensive showings in three of the last four games (22/17/18), only managed 6 points today; however, he still managed to fill his share of the box score with 6 assists, 4 steals, 3 rebounds, only 1 turnover…and 6 fouls.
Perhaps the biggest news today for the Mavericks is that Phoenix lost to the Kings this afternoon. Mike Bibby scored 35 and hit 9/12 three-pointers, including two in the last couple of minutes to seal the win. Phoenix dropped to 52–17, which sets them on a pace to win a modest (for them) 60.8 games.

More importantly, Phoenix is now six full games behind Dallas with 13 to go for both teams. That means Dallas (58–11) only needs an 8–5 record to guarantee the top seed in the west. If Dallas can win their next three against the Hornets, Bucks, and Knicks (combined 86–120 record), then a win at Phoenix on April 1 could make for their fourth separate double-digit win streak this season. Plus, it would clinch the tie-breaker for Dallas over Phoenix and reduce the Mavericks’ magic number for clinching the west over Phoenix to 2.

So now, riding a 6-game win streak, the Mavericks’ win streaks for the season are 17, 13, 12, 8, 6, 1, and 1. Since Dec. 13 they have won 44 of 48 (91.67%), or 11 of every 12 games for the past 101 days. Since Nov. 9 their rate is not much worse, having won 58 of 65 (89.2%). Current pace overall is 68.96 wins.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry if this is getting annoying, but I thought this was hilarious since I brought up in a comment earlier. Here's a quote from Dirk reported in the ESPN game recap after the Hornets game tonight that shows what I was talking about:

"It was really a fun trip, obviously. We're trying to work hard offensively moving the ball, and everybody's making shots," said Dallas forward Dirk Nowitzki, who scored 15 points while shaking off an illness. "It was a fun trip."

Those reporters keep asking Dirk such OBVIOUS questions.

scoots said...

You’re right, Ryan, now I’ve started to notice that Dirk says “obviously” in pretty much every quote. I wonder if the guys in the locker room already rag on him for that.

Incidentally, I made a mistake in my post (which I’m about to correct): if the Mavericks beat the Bucks and the Knicks, they can break their franchise record for wins before the Phoenix game.