Brandon Roy or no Brandon Roy, the Portland Trail Blazers give the Phoenix Suns fits.
Game 1 of their first-round playoff series was no exception, and the homecourt advantage the Suns worked so hard to get is history after Portland pulled away over the final 4 1/2 minutes of the game to beat them 105-100 on Sunday night. Andre Miller stepped up in the absence of Brandon Roy and scored 15 points in the fourth quarter and tied his career playoff high with 31 points as Portland made Phoenix the only home team to lose in a playoff opener.
LaMarcus Aldridge added 22 points and Nicolas Batum had 18 for Portland in a game played in the methodical style the Blazers wanted. Jerryd Bayless also had 18 for the Blazers, 10 in the fourth quarter, but missed two free throws with 12.2 seconds left to give Phoenix a shot to tie. Steve Nash's 3-point try was well short, though, and Miller's two free throws iced the victory. Marcus Camby also grabbed 17 rebounds for Portland, two off his career playoff best.
Roy is out for the series after arthroscopic knee surgery, and the Blazers lost Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla earlier in the season. But Portland won two of three against the Suns during the regular season, including a win at Phoenix when the Blazers didn't have Roy. Miller was in his attack mode from the start, but found another gear in the final quarter. The Suns, the NBA's highest-scoring team at 110 points per game, never got into that fluid style. Phoenix shot just 42 percent and was 9 of 24 in the final quarter, including 3 of 13 on 3s.
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Dirk Nowitzki must have been amazed. Even after hitting nearly every shot he took, the San Antonio Spurs still weren't sending defenders to double team or triple team him. So he kept shooting. And kept scoring. Nowitzki made 12 of 14 shots and all 12 of his free throws, coming up with 36 points to carry the Dallas Mavericks to a 100-94 victory over the in-state rival Spurs on Sunday night in Game 1 of their first-round series. The Spurs slowed Nowitzki in the first round last year by swarming him with two and sometimes three defenders but did not employ the same game plan this time around.
Caron Butler scored 22 points and Brendan Haywood added 10 in their playoff debuts for Dallas. Both were part of a major trade in February that turned a good Mavericks team into a title contender. The Mavs rolled into the playoffs having won eight of 10 and five straight. Jason Kidd added 13 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds for the Mavericks, and Erick Dampier had five points and 12 rebounds. San Antonio got plenty from its stars Duncan, Ginobili and Tony Parker. But that was about it. While Duncan had 27 points and eight rebounds, Ginobili scored 26 and Parker had 18 points and four assists. The rest of the club made only 10 of 26 shots. Antonio McDyess was the only other player to crack double digits, scoring 10.
The poor distribution of points was only part of the Spurs' problem. They were outrebounded by eight and gave up 13 offensive rebounds. They had 17 turnovers, leading to 20 Dallas points. They also took just 14 free throws; Nowitzki and Dampier each took 12. The game was tight the first 2 1/2 quarters, with Dallas leading most of the time. Then San Antonio edged ahead and the lead swapped hands a few times but near the end Nowitzki and Dallas pulled away. The Spurs tightened their defense on Nowitzki, but he simply turned into a distributor, moving the ball into areas vacated by the extra guys who came after him. The Spurs took a short flight home to sleep in their own beds and get to work on a new game plan at their headquarters. They have some time to figure things out as Game 2 isn't until Wednesday night in Dallas.
Peace and Much Love to Ya :)
*note: I apologize for not posting these two posts last night but I did not have internet access as my service provider f@!*ed it up.
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