NBA Playoffs Thread

[ThomasPHoolery]

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The 03' Dirk injury broke my heart.


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People not from Dallas forget about this injury way too much, but Dallas was (statistically) the best team in the NBA that year, and still believe a healthy Dallas beats a healthy SA that year most of the time. I remember watching game 6 w/ my brother and he almost started crying when Kerr came in because he knew it was over. Pain. Just pain.

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I'm a huge Mavs fan, and we had a great team that year, but I never felt like we were the better team. We blew a decent division lead that year, and then came close to blowing a 3-0 lead to Portland in the first round. We might not have gotten out of the 2nd round against Sacto had Webber not gone down, and it still took us 7 games. (Probably my favorite series of all time until last year's Mavs-Spurs.)

Against the Spurs, we needed to go 49-50 from the free throw line (not embellished) to win Game 1, had the officiating pendulum swing the other way for Game 2, and were getting drummed in Game 3 well before Dirk went down. Don't know what would have happened if Dirk hadn't gotten injured, but I was never confident. If Dallas had gotten past the Spurs though, beating the Nets would have been doable even w/o Dirk.

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Bob,
1. There are reams and reams and reams of paper that show the Kings around the turn of the century were a much better team without Webber on the floor. He's a great player, but his offensive efficiency curve wrecked that team.
2. To this day, every time I see Najera, I'm mad at him for missing the first FT of that game to prevent the Mavs from going 50-50 in that game (though, being Mexican, I can't hate him too much). It was very close that year between Dallas and SA, and with home court SA may have been the favorite, but Dallas offense was so good that year (their 110+ offensive efficiency in that era is VERY strong), it's hard to make them that big of dogs, if at all for that series.