Wow. This post covers the stunning come from behind win by the the Mavs in G4 of the OKC series.
Best game of the NBA playoffs? That game had it all: great offense by OKC if the first 3 and 2/3 quarters; amazing comeback by the Mavs powered by a Dirk "I Won't Be Stopped Except by Homicide" Nowitski in the final four minutes of the fourth quarter; incredible defense by Jason Kidd/Shawn Marion; and on and on. Sad to see OKC go down - unlike their resilient performance in winning G4 of the Memphis series in triple overtime, they had nothing to draw upon at the end of the game.
Scott Brooks failed attempt to rally the troops award: Perhaps the most plaintitive moments of the NBA playoffs came as Brooks called time out after time out in a doomed attempt to rally the troops. I've never seen worse body language than when Brooks called a full timeout with OKC down by 3 in the final minute of overtime.
Hidden History: Even though Durant and Westbrook completely disappeared at the end of the game, Sefolosha (who has been fairly quiet throughout the playoffs) made two very nice plays to keep OKC in the game that will be completely forgotten because of the loss. His first was keeping Terry scoring on what looked like a clean breakaway towards the end of regulation that would have cut the lead to 101-100. Then he made a nice mid-range jump shot in overtime to calm the team a bit and bring it to 105-103.
Quickfire round: Here's a few random thoughts I jotted down while watching the game:
--James Harden is developing a nice blank stare to go along with his rapidly developing game. Look for more of that in the future.
--Kevin Durant may have the nicest mother in all of professional sports.
--Worst (but accurate) nickname: Serge I-Block-A.
--Worst extended announcer debate: the ESPN guys spending 7 minutes on the importance of "protecting the fans" from bad language
The Mavs March On, or Not: The conventional wisdom is that the Mavs will win G5 and advance. And I would probably bet on that outcome. However, and this gets back to the difficulty of being in Scott Brooks' shoes, if they can muster up a good performance in G5 and go back to OKC, this series is not over. They played great basketball for almost 90 percent of the game!
Nice! This game seemed like a paradigm case of the old experience vs. youth motif. And I think your nickname for Dirk has legs; it made me laugh. The most significant or revealing part of the game for me was how OKC's offense totally fell apart like, the moment Harden fouled out. It's cool for him that he's become so indispensable, but it doesn't bode well at all for the teams prospects in this series. A related important point that one of the announcers made: OKC has a good offensive players and good defensive players, but very few players who can do both. So he's constantly subbing based on the needs of the moment, which can have the effect of throwing off the teams rhythm on both ends. Dallas has more guys who can do both...which is also partly another reflection of the veteran experience thing.
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