Mavs blacking out talk of Spurs dominance
By Mike Dyce
The Dallas Mavericks slipped into the playoffs as the eighth seed in the Western Conference, though their record would’ve had them in the third seed in the Eastern Conference. Unfortunately for them they draw the San Antonio Spurs in the first round, a team that has the best record in the NBA and have dominated the Mavericks lately.
“I don’t really listen to that stuff,” coach Rick Carlisle said, via ESPN Dallas. “My attention has to be to preparing our guys and making sure we’re getting enough work and we’re going to be fresh and we have a simple, effective strategy for playing better because we just haven’t played well against these guys. We had a good day today, we’ll have another day tomorrow and then we’ll tee it up.
“Our challenge is to play our hardest and most efficient game. That’s really where it’s at. We got to keep our approach simple. We got to keep turnovers down and we got to be scrambling our butts off because of how well they move the ball.”
Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki called it a challenge but that is what makes the game fun.
“We’re the eighth seed playing against the best team, so it’s going to be hard,” said Nowitzki. “But it’s a challenge, and if I didn’t like to compete still, I might as well go home. That’s why I’m still playing, because I love to be out there trying to help my team win games. That’s why I still play.
“Yeah, it’s going to be a great challenge, but also a fun one. We’ve got to make it fun. We’ve got to play hard, we’ve got to compete, we’ve got to try to defend and rebound and see how far we can ride it out.”