Jason and the Dallas Mavericks did so many things right Saturday afternoon, but they weren’t able to come up with one final stop to give them their first victory in the second round of the playoffs.


Jason battles Denver’s Nene during Saturday’s game (Getty Images).

Due mostly to an official’s non-call on an intentional Dallas foul — a non-call so noteworthy that the NBA apologized for it on Saturday after the game — Carmelo Anthony nailed a three-pointer at the end of the fourth quarter for a 106-105 Denver win, putting the Mavericks put the Mavs in a 3-0 hole in the series.

With the loss, the Mavs are now 17-2 since the All Star break at home, with both losses coming to the Denver Nuggets.

Jason (13 points, five assists, five rebounds) had helped put the Mavs in a position to win the game, giving Dallas a huge lift at the end of the third quarter with a three-pointer at the buzzer. Jason’s aggressiveness was mirrored by the rest of the Mavs as they went to the line 49 times — 42 more times than Dallas had in the first two games combined.

Still, Dallas walked away empty handed. J-Kidd though, refused to blame the loss on the ref’s non-call. Instead, the Mavs can look to the fact that in the final 3:50 they missed 6-of-7 shots, all of which were jump shots.

Jason talked with the Mavs Blog about the last play and how the Mavs could have done more in the final minutes to clinch the victory.

“The game didn’t come down to that last play. We tried to take a foul and didn’t get that. You’ve got to make plays down the stretch and we didn’t do that.”

“This history of this league is games are won or lost by the players coming down the stretch. The officials’ tendency is not to make a call and let the players decide the game.”

NEXT UP
The Mavs will try to be the first team to climb out of a 0-3 hole starting with a victory Monday night at 8:30 pm CST on TNT.

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Nuggets 106, Mavericks 105 (ESPN.com, May 9th, 2009)
http://espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=290509006
Jason Kidd: Blown Call didn’t cost Mavs the game (Mavs Blog, May 9th, 2009)
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All-Access: Unhappy Mother’s Day (Dallasbasketball.com, May 10th, 2009)
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Loss leaves Dallas Mavericks in a foul mood (Star-Telegram, May 10th, 2009)
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