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Dallas News
Found in the Dallas Morning News
Mavericks update
02/05/98
By Marc Stein / The Dallas Morning News
Mean Green
For the second straight game, Mavericks
forward
A.C. Green put the defensive clamps on
one of the
league's bright young stars.
Monday, Green helped hold Vancouver's
Shareef
Abdur-Rahim to nine points. Wednesday,
he held
Boston's Antoine Walker to eight
points.
Abdur-Rahim is the No. 6 scorer in the
league, and
Walker is seventh.
"I talk a lot of junk to them, just to
let them know
where I'm coming from and how hard
they're going
to have to work tonight," said Green,
34. "That
young fellow [Walker], he wanted to
talk a lot. I
think he kind of talked himself out of
playing
basketball."
Green also had 14 rebounds to go with
the 11
boards he snared against Vancouver. It
was his
first back-to-back games with
double-digit
rebounds since November, when he
reached that
plateau in each of the first seven
games of the
season.
Finley ailing
Michael Finley's problems against
Boston had
nothing to do with the infrared light a
young fan
flashed in his face during a trip to
the free-throw
line in the third quarter.
Finley sustained a groin pull in the
first quarter of
Monday's win over Vancouver and is
still hobbled
by the injury. But having never missed
a
regular-season game, the third-year
swingman has
decided to play through the pain.
Finley, who appeared in his 211th
consecutive
game, didn't even notice the fan
shining the infrared
light from behind a basket until a
referee pointed it
out between free-throw attempts.
Because the fan
was so young, arena personnel
confiscated the light
instead of ejecting him.
Road woes
Wednesday's loss in Boston extended the
Mavericks' road losing streak to 19
games, tying
the third-longest skid in franchise
history.
Celtics roll over Mavericks
Celtics spoil Nelson's trip as
Mavericks
fall, 110-99
02/05/98
By Marc Stein / The Dallas Morning News
BOSTON - Old No. 19 made it back to
Beantown on Wednesday night, only to
see those
once-magical digits lose a little
mystique.
Nineteen is the jersey number Don
Nelson wore as
a five-time NBA champion with the
Boston Celtics,
but it's also the number of consecutive
road losses
coach Nelson's Mavericks have suffered
after a
110-99 setback before 17,159 at the
FleetCenter.
Boston's swarming, college-style
defense and a hail
of three-pointers from little-used
Celtics captain
Dee Brown ensured that this wouldn't be
one of
Nelson's fonder memories in a city he
called home
for 11 seasons as a player.
"You got that right," snarled Nelson,
whose No. 19
was retired by the Celtics in 1978.
That response, though, was really mock
anger.
Nelson somewhat expected the outcome
that
enabled the Mavericks to match the
third-longest
road victory drought in franchise
history.
Dallas' most glaring weakness is the
lack of a
steady point guard, and the Celtics -
who lead the
league in turnovers forced and steals
per game with
their unconventional approach - pressed
Nelson's
team into 22 giveaways.
What Nelson or Celtics counterpart Rick
Pitino
couldn't have expected was the outburst
from
Brown, whom Boston has been trying to
trade for
years. After the veteran guard's
team-record eight
three-pointers in 10 attempts - six of
them coming
in a 22-point fourth quarter - Brown
suddenly
looks a lot more tradeable.
"I started out guarding [Ron] Mercer,
but I saw he
was getting hot and I said, 'Let me try
it,"'
Mavericks rookie Bubba Wells said of
his
ill-advised request to guard Brown in
the final
period.
"When he missed his first one, I
thought I had his
number, but he didn't miss too many
after that. He
even caught one on the turn and hit
it."
The shot Wells described was Brown's
sixth
three-pointer in the final period,
which came with
the crowd chanting, "Dee, Dee, Dee."
Brown
received the ball with his back to the
basket and
released it while spinning to make it
105-84 with
3:28 to play. He finished with a
game-high 32
points.
The Mavericks (9-37), in truth, were
finished in the
third quarter, when Boston (22-25)
pushed the
lead from 52-47 to 81-64. Nelson had
hoped to
attack the Celtics' pressure with long
passes, but
the Mavericks' lack of a true point
guard made it
difficult to sustain their early
success. Especially
since Michael Finley (pulled groin) and
Dennis
Scott (sore shoulder), the best
ballhandlers among
the starters besides Hubert Davis, were
playing
hurt.
"I think they give problems to West
Coast teams
the first time you see [their
defense]," said Finley,
whose 18 points and nine rebounds were
offset by
a team-high six turnovers. "East Coast
teams get
surprised the first time they see it,
but you get three
more chances to go against it."
Said Nelson, who is more accustomed to
orchestrating unusual strategies rather
than
combating them: "We're really not good
in the open
court with decision-making and passing,
but still I
wanted to attack them because I thought
it would
be good for our team."
In the end, the only real positive for
the Mavericks
was the play of rookie center Chris
Anstey, who
had a career-high 12 points and matched
his
previous best with eight rebounds in 21
minutes.
Starting center Shawn Bradley took a
knee in the
chest from Walter McCarty in the first
quarter and
never regained his equilibrium,
clearing a chance for
Anstey to get some quality minutes for
the first time
since November.
"It was good for me to get into a game,
play some
good minutes and have a chance to make
a couple
mistakes," Anstey said after scoring 10
of his points
in the final quarter.