Warriors 97, Mavericks 85

Wow.

One of two things will happen next.

1) The Mavericks will find themselves in a dog fight, slugging it out until late in the series where they will either barely lose or barely win.

2) They find some motivation, some desire, some sense of shot-making ability and slap themselves in the face and win the next 4 games.

This was a sad state of affairs, but that's why they play a 7-game series, I guess. Though if the Mavs keep playing like this, they won't last that long.

This was a game where everyone was giving little advantage to Golden State. Sure, they had beaten the Mavs 6 out of the past 7 times, and now 6 in a row. Sure that happened, but let's give you some excuses as to why none of it mattered. Well, it mattered last night. This team has figured the Mavs out, and they were the better team the entire way through. Nowitzki was a non-factor at best, nobody could make a shot, they gave up on defense far too quickly, and walked away with a deserving loss. On the other end, the Warriors were flying, grabbing tons of rebounds, making little plays and big plays, scoring like crazy, and letting Baron Davis take over in the late stages of the game. He ended up with 33 points to lead all scorers. He also had 14 rebounds and 8 assists. He could not be stopped. He hit three 3-pointers at the late stages of the third quarter to put just enough distance between the Warriors and the Mavs to allow them to win it. Stephen Jackson had 23 points.

For the Mavs, team shooting was 35%. Howard led the way with 21 points, most of those coming early in the game. He was only 8/21 shooting. He did snag 13 boards, though. He also played a ridiculous 43 minutes. Nowitzki had 14 points and and 12 rebounds, and was 4/16 shooting the ball. The Mavs actually had more success when he was on the bench. Terry and Harris were cold for sure. Stackhouse played 20 minutes and missed all of his shots. Dampier only played 2 minutes.

Stats don't really paint as clear of a picture as watching the actual disaster, but here they are nonetheless. Team shooting for the Warriors was only 43%, so the damage could have been much worse. Both teams were awful at the beginning of the game. The Warriors attempted 11 more 3's than the Mavs and made 4 more. Free throw shooting was about even, Mavs with a slight edge, but misses are a concern. Dallas actually ended up outrebounding Golden State, which is hard to figure out, because it didn't appear that way. Must have been late in the game. Assists were tied up at 16 a piece, Golden State had one more turnover, Dallas had 3 more steals. Blocks were even at 6. So stats paint a better picture for the Mavs, but the paintbrush was sweeping toward Golden State's direction.

You can expect Dallas to come out on fire next game. They better.