Toronto Raptors @ Dallas Mavericks
Tuesday, November 20, 2007 – American Airlines Center

Recap | Photos | Box Score | Quotes | Eric Smith's Pre-Game Blog | Pre | Game in 6 | Post

Mitchell

SAM MITCHELL

Comments on Nowitzki and the game
He stepped and played better. That third quarter just did us in. We knew they were going to come out. We did a lot of good things, but we just couldn’t hold it together. They got it going, Dirk got it going, and we had some defensive breakdowns. We didn’t do clear out assignments like we had practiced yesterday and went over in shoot around. That’s the thing – some of our young guys, in a game like this the crowd was into the game and you’ve only got so many time outs. You’ve got to remember your assignments. But we did a lot of good things. C.B. [Bosh] was much better tonight, and Andrea [Bargnani] was better and we had some positive things so we’ve just got to build on them for tomorrow

What do you do when a guy like Nowitzki starts feeling it?
Some of the shots he hit were tough, but you’ve got to try to not let him catch the ball. And a couple of times at then end of that [third] quarter on some of the shots he hit we just didn’t do what we were supposed to do. The thing that broke our back was they [Dallas] penetrated from the three point line and we were hanging out guys on the weak side. Somebody has to come off and that’s got to be a charge. So we just had defensive breakdowns like that.”

Ford

T.J. FORD

On the play which led to his injury
“I got caught in a situation with Josh Howard on a charge and I don’t think I was able to protect myself so I had to take the full hit and it caused a little pain. I think he really exploded into me to make sure he got that foul. But hey, he made a smart play, nothing that serious. Basically the same thing as in the playoffs [last season], just a stinger.”

Bosh

CHRIS BOSH

Second time in three years you guys have had a 24 point lead disappear
“Yea, I’ve seen it before. The Mavericks are a good team, they don’t quit. They just jumped on Devin Harris’ back. He set the tone and sparked that run and really kept them in that game in the second quarter.”

About missed assignments on the pick-and-roll.
“We were supposed to do a better job of trapping Jason Terry and making that kick-back pass a little tougher to Dirk. But against good teams like that, if you don’t execute the right way every time they’re going to make you pay and he [Nowitzki] had a couple of wide open looks and he got hot.”

Johnson

On the halftime adjustments…
“We got it back down to 14 there at the half and we made a couple of adjustments defensively and offensively and just talked about some things that we emphasized this morning that we weren’t able to execute in the first half and we needed to execute. We had to get them going and get them fired up and boy they came out smoking. What a great third quarter.”

On Dirk’s threes when Toronto went zone…
“We loved it, boy, that was great. I was standing right there next to two of them, so I had a really close seat. Don’t be jealous. It was really good to see him shooting the shots with confidence. He wasn’t really thinking about it, he was just having a lot of fun. That is what I saw. Just relaxation and having fun and just enjoying being out there with his teammates and being in front of our crowd. He was just letting it fly and guys were finding him and getting him the ball.”

On the play of Trenton Hassell…
“We needed him tonight both defensively and offensively. He was playing the ones, twos and threes. Josh was playing everybody. We went bigger on their point guards to help us in some of our switching situations The way Josh and Has got at it defensively with their size, we thought it really made a big different. This was just a really good team win tonight.”

On Devin Harris’ second quarter play…
“We just ran some isolations for him. A lot of the stuff we were running wasn’t working and we weren’t getting the ball where it needed to be. Dirk was out of the game at that time, so we just wanted to run our offense through Devin. He made some really good decisions, breaking the defense down and getting to the basket. Just making the defense pay. We want to utilize him a little bit more like that. Breaking down the defense and having plays that are specifically directed for him. A few teams are doing that with their quick point guards and we want to start doing that with Devin.”