Geoff JohnsonThe San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks will clash again in what has become a crazy but entertaining rivalry, this Friday at AT&T Center at 8:30 PM ET, for an NBA regular season classic.
Despite the Mavs being the reining champs, the Spurs seem to be the best of the two; their record say so, and their momentum says so, as well.
Dallas received a butt whipping in the game against the Lakers on Wednesday; they frankly never played defense, never seemed comfortable defending in the post or even Kobe in the perimeter, and ended up surrendering 109 points from Los Angeles.
“It was tough all night,” Dirk Nowitzki said. “You give up [58 percent shooting by the Lakers] on your home floor, that won’t cut it. Every time we made a little push, they answered.”
“We can’t bellyache about guys being out with injuries,” Carlisle said. “It’s one of the realities of the season. I’m not into that.”
The Mavs need some help from the ex Laker Lamar Odom, who has been inexistent the whole season, and he finished with an embarrassing sheet of one point, one rebound and one assist in almost 24 minutes against his old team. “I’m not going to blame it on anything,” Odom said. “It’s just something I have to figure out.”
Also on Wednesday, San Antonio beat Minnesota 116-110 with Tim Duncan scoring 21 points and 15 rebounds; however, the bad news is that Tony Parker left the game with a left hamstring strain with 8:03 remaining in the second quarter.
“I think they said mild hamstring, so we won’t know much until tomorrow,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “Not good timing.”
Parker´s status is a game time decision.
To be fair despite San Antonio could be without two of their three best players (Manu Ginobili is the other one); they are playing much better than the Mavs. They have a great beach and can handle a game against a no-soul Mavs team.
