Wizards point guard Gilbert Arenas showed no ill affects after missing the majority of the last two seasons due to injury. Arenas had 29 points to go along with 9 assists in the victory. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)The Dallas Mavericks were hoping to start out the 2009-2010 season with a bang but ended up with a fizzle. On the offensive end, the only player to show up was Dirk Nowitzki who had a spectacular game with 34 points and 9 rebounds but only shot 40% from the floor (10-25). Shawn Marion was second in scoring with 16 points and also added 7 rebounds but was mostly a non-factor the majority of the game.
On the defensive end, however, no one showed up and Washington capitalized making over 46% of their shots. Along with Gilbert Arenas' 29, four other Wizards scored double figures including 20 from backup power forward Andray Blatche.
"Our team defense stunk," said Jason Kidd who had four points, six rebounds, and six assists. "We didn't rebound the ball well. Everything we're supposed to do well was a no-show tonight."
The Mavericks body language coming off the court showed they were extremely disappointing with the loss. The Washington Wizards are predicted to be a pretty good team this year, but they are missing their second best player in Antawn Jamison. On the other hand, Dallas is missing arguably their second best player in Josh Howard Not all is lost though, Dallas plays 81 more games after tonight and the Mavericks' are notoriously slow starters.
"It seemed like one moment we had something going, the next moment we couldn't get over the hump," said small forward Shawn Marion after his first career game in Mavericks uniform. "Its just a learning curve."
Dallas plays its next game against the Los Angeles Lakers in LA, Friday Oct 30 at 9:30 p.m.
(Portions of this article were taken from The Associated Press)
No comments:
Post a Comment