Warriors 117, Mavericks 100

Whoops.

Well, you knew it had to happen. Against Golden State, though? I mean, the NAME of the team isn't even a place. It's not a city, it's not a state. It's a NICKNAME of a state. That blows. When everybody was counting this as the 18th win for the Mavs, they had to subtract 18 and leave it at 17. Time to start a new streak.

The loss really doesn't bother me. The only thing that bothers me is the number of points allowed, 117 is a ton of points. But all the rest is positive. I think it helps give the team some focus. I mean, they found a lot of stuff to talk about that didn't go well, but you win 17 in a row, even if you try really hard to nitpick and find things that went wrong, it's hard. On a subconscious level, you sort of tune that stuff out of your head. But now, with a sizeable loss, it makes it that much more tangible to fix some problems. And the Mavericks hardly have any problems, but they still need to keep winning, because God knows Phoenix and San Antonio still are.

Well, where to begin? The team that has given Dallas the most struggles lately has been the Warriors, oddly enough. Not the Kings, not the Spurs, not the Suns. Not even the Lakers anymore. It's the Warriors. Hard to figure that out, they just know what they're doing. Or Don Nelson, the old coach of the Mavs, has some insider tricks. Whatever it is, the Mavs better figure this team out, especially if they wind up with the #8 seed in the playoffs.

But, to the Warriors discredit, it was the Mavs that fell apart. I guess you can credit the defense of Golden State, but it was the Mavs' own ineptitude that did them in. A season-high 23 turnovers did not help matters, Nowitzki chipping in 7 of those. The Big 3 saw Jason Terry get 16 points and was clearly the best player on the floor. Nowitzki was well off, getting 13 points on 3/11 shooting. Josh Howard got 11 points. Devin Harris was pretty decent last night, matching Terry's points total with 16, but he was 5/13 with poor shot selection. Nobody really played all that well besides Terry, except Austin Croshere picked up a huge 13 rebounds! It was garbage time, but he was all over the trash can at least. Speaking of rebounds, the Mavs usually win when they out-rebound the other team. And they certainly did that, getting 50 rebounds (a season high) to the Warriors 28. Which is the largest margin of rebound differential, so, of course, the Mavs lose. What the?

Just look at the shooting, though. Poor shot selection or wise shot selection and poor shot, as the Mavs shot 42.3% and the defense was not up to the task at the other end as the Warriors shot 57.1%.

Oh well, the Mavs finally reached double-digit losses. Time to win again. HUGE GAME coming up tomorrow night vs. the Suns. We'll see what they're made of. Suns and Mavs, that is.