Game Previews

Game 4 Preview: Mavs @ Spurs

By CapHill Apr 25, 2010, 3:00am CDT

Happy Birthday, Timmeh!

For those of you who don't know, today is Timmeh's birthday. I became a Spurs fan solely because of this man. As a fan of the game of basketball, I was drawn to his play at Wake Forest and in the Tourney. Since I didn't have an NBA team, I followed Timmeh to the Spurs, and the rest is history.

While this great event should be duly noted and celebrated, I'm a bit brain damaged and couldn't think of anything good enough to post. So I'm leaving it to you, the PtRockers. Share your favorite memories, videos, etc. of The Big Fundamental in the comments.

Now for the preview:

Dallas Mavericks @ San Antonio Spurs [Game 4]
Where: AT&T Center - San Antonio, TX
When: April 25, 2010; 6:00 PM Spurs time
Watch: TNT

How They Stack Up


29-12	Home	28-13
21-20	Road	27-14
101.4	Offense	102.0
96.3	Defense	99.3
47.3	FG%	46.5
35.8	3-pt%	37.2
74.0	FT%	81.6
42.8	Rebounds	41.7
13.6	TOs	12.9
6-4	Last 10	8-2
Lost 1	Streak	Won 5
2nd, Southwest	Position	1st, Southwest


Country/Time Zone	Game Time
Argentina	8:00 PM
West Coast	4:00 PM
Philippines	7:00 AM
Central Europe	1:00 AM
Palestine/Egypt	2:00 AM
East Coast	7:00 PM
Mountains	5:00 PM
Perth, AUS	7:00 AM
Tokyo, JP	7:00 AM
Sydney, AUS	9:00 AM

Spurs (2-1)	Matchups	Mavericks (1-2)
George Hill	Point Guard Hey, I was right about Cubits. He played a great game on both ends of the court. His ability to slide over to the two while Parker is on the floor is a bigger key to our success than most of us realized. Kidd looked worse in Game 3 than Game 3. The Mavs need him to score to help take some of the pressure off of Dirk. Advantage: Spurs	Jason Kidd

Manu Ginobili	Shooting Guard Butler barely played. I have no idea what's up with that. Manu is one of the toughest players I've ever seen. I have no words for his 4th quarter. Help me out and put your own superlatives in the comments for the Man with The Mask. Advantage: Spurs	Caron Butler

Richard Jefferson	Small Forward I was not impressed with Marion's game AT ALL. He did not help the Mavs in any facet of the game. RJ, you're playing good defense and brining the hustle, but you have got to take more shots. Bring back the aggressive RAGE! Advantage: None	Shawn Marion

Tim Duncan	Power Forward I've got to give Dirk credit - he's an offensive machine. He came up huge when his team needed it. Too bad for the Mavs that the rest of the starters stunk. Nothing new to say about Timmeh. He's been the best player for either team in the series. However, it would be nice if the big guy could make a few more of his free throws. Advantage: Tied	Dirk Nowitzki

Antonio McDyess	Center Dice really is Horry 2.0. Too bad the boxscore doesn't count tipouts to team members, because SAM has really excelled at that. I guess the FO knew what they were doing after all. Once again, "DampWood" did not play well. This seems to be one of the constants of the series. Advantage: Spurs	Brendan Haywood

Tony Parker	Bench & Role Players Tony was brillian once again, but he needs some help from the other bench players. Terry got his points, and somehow that little gnat Barea was able to torch our otherwise good defense. I just don't get it. Advantage: Mavs	Jason Terry

Gregg Popovich	Coach Well, Pop, you coached a heckuva game. And I don't think too many are complaining about your rotations now. Carlisle, why are you giving Damp more minutes than Haywood? Advantage: Spurs	Rick Carlisle
	images via yahoo.com

	Other Factors
Intangibles
The Mavs are down in the series and this game is on our home court. Advantage: Spurs
Mojo
Apparently the mojo is only mostly dead, which means it's slightly alive. Advantage: Spurs
Winner:
No reason to think this won't be another close one, but I think the Spurs pull off another win.

Keys To The Game

3 Point Shooting - We won the last game without hitting a single 3 ball. The Mavs went 8-20 from behind the arc. Even though we won Game 3, this is not an overall recipe for success.
Rebounding - We did a better job keeping them off the boards, especially the offensive end. We need to continue the URA.
Defense - We out hustled the Mavs the last game, especially on the defensive end. For once, I saw the Spurs defense of old with shot clock violations, great scrambling and physical play. No reason to not repeat the effort.

Strength of Schedule

Fourth game of the series after one day of rest. Again, schedule doesn't really matter in the playoffs, as there are no back-to-backs.

Last Time They Met

Highlights, recap and boxscore from our 94-90 victory can be found here.

Some Other Reading

Mavericks

Mavs Moneyball - The SBNation home of the Mavericks. They played nice with us last year during the playoffs, so go say hi, but please don't be trollish.
The Two Man Game - The TrueHoop blog for Dallas. 48MoH quotes and links them pretty often, so it can't be all that bad. Some good analysis can be found here.

Spurs

48 Minutes of Hell: The best TrueHoop team blog is still going strong, "pounding" out some of the best analysis there is on our beloved Spurs.
Project Spurs: Check out their regular podcasts. I think they love Manu as much as we do, if that's possible.

Where to Tune In

TV

This game will be aired nationwide on TNT. If you have cable or satellite, you'll have to look up your individual channel. And of course, there's always League Pass for the haves. For the have nots, read on.

Online

As always, NBA League Pass is recommended for those who are willing to pony up the cash. Most Spurs games will be broadcast there, which is especially helpful for those of us who aren't in the San Antonio area.

Please don't post links to illegal game feeds in the game thread. Links to illegal feeds are not permitted on SBNation, but you can probably find them out there on the internets if you're resourceful and desperate. In fact, nobody can stop you from googling "atdhe". You can also shoot an email to poundingtherockmail@yahoo.com for more assistance.

NBA League Pass audio is still free this year, so check it out.

Radio

If you're in the San Antonio area and aren't near a TV, tune in to WOAI (1200 AM).