Tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET on TNT the San Antonio Spurs, the NBA's best team over the regular season, will look to avoid falling into a 3-1 hole against the eighth-seeded Dallas Mavericks at the American Airlines Center in Game 4 action that can be live streamed free by clicking this link. Spurs fans can hear the game on 1200 WOAI, while Mavs fans may tune in to the radio broadcast on 103.3 ESPN.
The hero of Game 3 was veteran Vince Carter, who responded to a go-ahead bucked with a little over two seconds left by Spurs sixth man Manu Ginobili with a swished corner 3-pointer as time expired.
"You take something away, you give something up," San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said. "You can't stop everything. You've just got to stop it more than the other team does." Pop's scheming has "taken away" Dirk Nowitzki, who has averaged 15 points and 6.7 rebounds per game in the Round 1 series.
Luckiily for the Mavs, he has had the supporting cast contribute and thrive while he's hindered. "We stole one," Nowitzki said. "We didn't execute quite as well as we did in the first two, especially the defensive game plan. I think Monta (Ellis) and Vince bailed us out a little bit the last couple of minutes with some great plays."
One would figure that holding Dirk to such low output is a good thing long term though, as an opponent of his Mavs. Ginobili said he expects the Spurs to rely on their experience, specifically with buzzer-beating shots (Derek Fisher 10 years ago) to allow them to shake the Game 3 loss off.
"On a tough blow like this one, having been there, having suffered way worse than this, can help," Ginobili said. "Nothing is going to help if we don't make it help. Things are not going to just change because we were one, they were eight or things like that. We've got to go for it and play better."
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