Mess with the Buck, you get the Horns

By Mo Diaby

That Breakfast Club inspired line, played so much on the events that took place at the AAC, as the Mavs watched their 12 game winning streak come to a halt against a team that had as many losses, as the Mavs had wins coming into Monday night.

The Mavs started this one of with a great defensive intensity that saw them holding the Bucks FG shooting percentage to 33% after the first quarter and a 25 to 10 advantage.

This disparity in talent and perhaps swagger, saw the lead increase to as much as 20 points in the second quarter. The Mavs impressive showing might have led you to think this one was over before the half, but as this team has shown in the past few contests, they have a tendency to get complacent and allow teams to crawl back in the game.  They allowed a Nets team to come back from double digits, and saw a 25 point lead on the Jazz disappear.

This tendency to let teams crawl back into games, has been discussed before by Coach Carlisle and was addressed recently by Owner, Mark Cuban who stated that his concerns about this team, was that they tried to “Win games rather than just execute for 48 minutes”.

The Mavs went into the half with a 52-43 lead, but minutes into the third quarter saw that lead diminish into a one possession game, with the Bucks coming out aggressive. Behind the play of Brandon Jennings, Kenyon Dooling and Andrew Bogut, the Bucks outscored the Mavs 32-22 in the 3^rd Quarter and took a 1 point lead into the fourth.

An interesting strategy applied by Scott Skiles, coach of the Bucks was the Hack-a-Haywood who is now 9-38 from the Ft line, this season. This strategy paid off as Brendan clanked 4 straight free throws at the line.

Dirk again with some late game heroics drained 2 shots from the 3pt line to keep the Mavs in the game. The Defensive intensity seemed to come to life with 3:32 to go and the Mavs down by 9. Kidd swished in a 3pt shot that made the game 99-93 with 2:49 to go. Another 3 by Jason Terry made it a 99-96 game to go.

But behind the stylish play of Brandon Jennings, the Bucks drained a stepback long 2 point shot that made it a 101-96 game with 1:06 to go. Another trip to the line by Dirk made it a 101-99 game with a few ticks and the Mavs needing a stop, which they got by a miss from Jennings.

With all signs pointing to late game heroics, Nowitzki missed a short runner to tie the game, and with that, the Mavs streak came to a halt.

The good: The Mavs know the type of team that they have. They have a core group of veterans that know they are capable of beating any squad in the league on any given night. When they come out with intensity and all cylinders clicking, they are capable of blowing anyone out as we have seen time and time again, including their first quarter against the Jazz, and tonight.

The Bad: The Mavs know the type of team that they have. And this can be a bad thing, because they seem to go into coast mode after taking a huge lead and seem to just be doing barely enough to sustain that lead, rather than go for the kill.

Conclusion: Though much will be made about this loss and the Winning streak coming to an end against a team of such caliber, the Mavs were still just one or two shots from coming back into this game after seeing themselves down 9 with 3:32 to go.

About the streak: A streak must end for another to start

Familiar face of the night: The Mavs faced former Mav Drew Gooden

Interesting fact: Since joining the Starting lineup, tonight was the first night that Deshawn Stevenson didn’t attempt a 3pt shot.

Odd Stats of the night: Three of the five starters for the Bucks combined for 5 points for the night. Mbah a Moute (0 points), Sanders (0 points), Salmons (5 points).