What a performance by Dirk Nowitzki.
That's the first thing that comes to mind after watching him put on a shooting clinic in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals. .
Unstoppable, unguardable, and unbelievable is also what comes to mind.
How do you go about guarding a 7 ft shooter, who has tremendous abilities for his size? That's the answer that nobody from the Oklahoma City Thunder could even answer in Game 1.
The Oklahoma City Thunder threw many different looks at Nowitzki, hoping that maybe one of the different matchups would possibly slow him down. Not a single one worked. But, the one thing I was waiting for, and never saw, was the Thunder trying to double Nowitzki. Not once did they try and force him into passing to someone else. Why wouldn't you at least try to get someone else to hurt you? At some point you just have to say, Dirk is killing us, if we are going to give up points, let's make someone else do it.
Dirk went on to dominate the game by almost pitching a basketball "perfect game". He shot 12-15 from the field, and a record setting 24-24 on free throws, breaking the old record held by Paul Pierce with 21 straight free throws without a miss. Dirk finished with 48 pts, just 2 pts shy of tying his previous playoff high of 50 pts in 2006.
The Mavericks once again got tremendous play out of point guard JJ Barea. Barea got into the lane at any point he wished, and gave the Mavericks a huge momentum boost coming off the bench. Barea finished with 21 pts, shooting 8-12 from the field in just 16 minutes of play, and at one point in the 4th quarter Barea scored 10 straight pts. He was key in keeping the lead for Dallas, and keeps proving everyone wrong with his level of play.
Speaking of coming off the bench for Dallas, Jason Terry once again proved to be a lethal shooter going 8-16 from the field, with 4-8 of those shots hitting from 3 pt range. Terry finished with 24 pts, and was the second leading scorer for Dallas. To have a shooter like him coming off the bench only makes Dallas tougher to deal with.
I wrote an article previous to Game 1 about Russell Westbrook's play being the key to this series, and I think it's even more obvious after his performance in Game 1 that they need "smart" play out of him to win. Westbrook had 20 pts, and most people looking at that would think that's not bad at all. But, the pts scored don't tell the story of his play. In Game 1 Westbrook shot an awful 3-15 from the field, and had 4 turnovers. If it weren't for him getting 18 free throws, he would have had 6 pts. The main thing that stands out in his stat line to me though is that he only had 3 assists. That's unacceptable coming from as skilled of a point guard as him. We saw in Game 7 of the last series what happens when he shoots less, and assists more....they win, and win big. For the Thunder to turn the next game around, Westbrook has got to be looking for his teammates more often, or they could be heading back to Oklahoma City down 0-2.
A bright spot for the Thunder is that Kevin Durant in Game 1 came out aggressive on the offensive end, and lit up the scoreboard. Durant scored 40 pts total in the loss, but shot 10-18 from the field and 18-19 from the free throw line. Going into Game 2, that's the one positive the Thunder have going for them, and they'll need to keep it going to keep up with Nowitzki's scoring.
We all saw the Mavericks quiet the critics on all the talk about them being rusty after an 8 day layoff. Can they sustain the hot shooting the rest of the series is the next question.
Game 2 should be interesting to say the least.
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| Image Source Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JJ_Barea.jpg |
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