Non-Call (After 61 Calls) Leads to Mavericks Demise: 106-105

Whistles blew all night with both teams combining to shoot 89 free throws.

The Dallas Mavericks lost a heart-breaker Saturday night in Dallas after officials (including 2006 Finals nemesis Bennett Salvatore) refused to blow the whistle on an obvious Antoine Wright foul on Carmelo Anthony with 3 seconds remaining. With 5.5 seconds left Denver in-bounded the ball down 105-103 to the Mavericks. Carmelo received the pass, bobbled the ball and was obviously fouled twice (as the Mavericks had a foul to give) without any of the three officials blowing the whistle. Carmelo put the ball back down on the floor after the foul and faded to his right behind the three point line near the Mavericks bench and drained a 3-pointer with 1 second left; putting the Nuggets ahead 106-105. The league officially admitted they were wrong in not calling the foul on the play, unfortunately for the Mavericks this was 2 hours after the game was over.

It all began Jason Terry hit a 3-pointer with 31 seconds remaining to put Dallas ahead 105-101. Terry had 17 points for the Mavericks off the bench including 2-4 from behind the arc. Denver followed 3 seconds later with a Carmelo Anthony dunk that made it 105-103. Dirk Nowitzki led the Mavs with 33 points and 16 rebounds but it wasn't enough at the end and Dirk missed 4 good looks at the basket in the last 2 minutes of the game; including a crucial miss with 7 seconds left which gave Denver the opportunity they eventually capitalized on. Brandon Bass had 16 off the bench and was a monster in the paint as he shot 14 free throws and made 12.

Chauncey Billups led the Nuggets with 32 points and Carmelo Anthony scored 31 points and had 8 rebounds in Denver's winning effort. It was not an especially stellar shooting night for either team as the Nuggets shot 42% from the field and Dallas shot 40%. The majority of scoring for the game was at the free throw line. Dallas went 40-49 and Denver went 32-40 to account for 72 of the games' 213 total points.

No Three Keys are needed for this game, only one.

Key To a Mavs Devastating Loss:
Many Mavericks fans will point at the last play of the game and the non-call as the reason Dallas is now down 0-3 in this 7 game series. I will agree (and so has the league) that obviously the officials for the game missed one here, but the Mavericks had every opportunity to distance themselves from the Nuggets late in this game and didn't capitalize. Dallas allowed an easy dunk to Carmelo and their MVP player settled for contested shots at the end that allowed Denver a shot at winning that they should not have had to begin with. If the Mavericks were truly ready to advance to the Western Conference finals they wouldn't have had to rely on a foul call to win a game. A few thoughts:

• Antoine Wright should have wrapped Carmelo Anthony up immediately after he bobbled the ball to get the call. Many times referees will let physical play slide at the end of games. Except for when D-Wade has the ball...
  
• I thought there was no way in hell that fade away 3-pointer from Melo was going to go in, give Anthony all the credit in the world for an incredible shot to win it.
  
• Even if Dallas had gotten the foul, Denver would have still had 2 seconds to in-bound the ball and they have the shooters (Billups, J.R. Smith, Carmelo) that could have hit that 3.

All in all, Mavericks fans are used to getting screwed out of games; was anyone really that surprised Salvatore would screw them again? The Dallas Mavericks need to cut down on their excuses and realize that they had this game and they alone lost it, they gave Denver that chance and it cost them. The good news for Mavs fans is that the Mavericks have never been swept in a 7 game series, so history tells us Dallas will take one on their home floor before bowing out.