MVP

- He's not the MVP this year, and he may never win another one. His stats from his MVP season are down. He was at or below career lows in FG% and 3 point FG% for the year before Jason Kidd. But I don't care. Last night you saw Dirk's true value to this team. He inspires. He leads. He's the single toughest dude in the NBA. And I have no problem saying that.

- Toughness isn't just because you're 350 pounds and you can knock people around. Toughness isn't because you're a thug who scares people. Toughness is refusing to let 2 major sprains in your knee and ankle send your team's season down the drain. Toughness is trotting out there within 10 days of a horrific injury. Toughness is spraining your ankle every year since you've been in the league and yet still playing 76 games or more every season for 10 seasons. Toughness is getting your front teeth knocked out, sitting out for a timeout, and coming back to lead your team to a playoff victory.

- I don't want to hear it anymore from anyone. I've been saying Dirk's one of the toughest dudes in the league for 5 years now. The guy doesn't let pain slow him down.

- He saw his team playing its worst ball of the year. He saw the season going down the drain. He saw a must win game, and he responded. He put this team and this franchise on his back for the umpteenth time when they needed him the most. And this hasn't been the first time......

- Dirk after Game 7 against San Antonio in 2006 - "I saw everything slipping away, the great season we had," Nowitzki said. "If there's a drive to the lane, just take it in there."

- Dirk after his 50 point game 5 in the 2006 Western Finals - "When we were down seven, I just saw the whole season swimming away," Nowitzki said, repeating a sentiment he trotted out for the first time when the Spurs erased a 20-point deficit in Game 7.

- Dirk after last night - "If it would have been November, there's no way I would have been out there," Nowitzki said. "But we've got to get this playoff spot. We've been fighting all season long, so I tried to be out there and helped the team as much as I could. If we'd lost, it wouldn't have looked too good."

- He had a pedestrian game for a healthy Dirk. But this was a guy running up and down the court, doing some spin moves, finishing fast breaks. And all of this within 10 days of him basically twisting his knee and ankle up like a pretzel. He did more than score points and fill up the box score last night, he showed a level of leadership and toughness that no one gives him proper credit for.

- This wasn't a jump shooting team that had everything fall for them for one night. Anyone can do that. They were getting steals, controlling the boards, driving to the basket, and getting production from bench players. This was a hungry, inspired, energetic, dive for every loose ball team. They showed a fire that I hadn't seen all year. And I have to believe it was all from the inspiration and toughness that Dirk brings to the table.

- I'm not even sure where the non-clutch, non-leader things come from. There's lots of good players who have failed in the spotlight. There's lots of good players who haven't won titles. But yet, Dirk seems to be the biggest lightning rod for things like this.

- Do people forget him upping his regular season averages to 25 and 11 in the playoffs? His 50 point game in a pivotal game 5 of the 2006 Western Finals? His potential game winning shot over Shaq in Game 4 of the NBA Finals? (Miami was then bailed out by Wade getting to the free throw line on the next possession). His 37 and 13 in game 7 on the road to beat San Antonio in 2006? Dallas's failures as a team are not an indication of Dirk's ability to be clutch or lead. He's done all he can do with a severely average cast around him.

- I don't know where they go from here, this may just be the calm before the shitstorm of losses that may be coming. This may mean nothing when they're beat out in the 1st round (should they make the playoffs). But I don't care, for one night, the nation saw what Dirk is. He put on the Superman cape and willed his team to victory. Not by points and big shots, but by toughness and leadership.

- Hopefully some of those nationally who are misinformed and base judgement on the 5 or so Mavs games they see a year, were educated last night. And for that faction locally that run their mouth on Dirk, go F yourself.

Nowitzki's Return Inspires Mavericks

By Marc Stein
ESPN.com

DALLAS -- We could not be calling it Resurrection Wednesday in the NBA if we didn't see multiple resurrections. You had Gilbert Arenas, Pau Gasol and Elton Brand making headline-grabbing comebacks, too.

Yet surely you can judge who made Wednesday's grandest, newsiest return.

Maybe this 111-86 rout of the Golden State Warriors won't be remembered as Dirk Nowitzki's grittiest game. It'll be tough for him to ever top the dramatic comeback he made as a playoff rookie back in 2001, when Nowitzki got a tooth knocked out in the Dallas Mavericks' second-round hookup with San Antonio and kept playing after a brief break to soak up the blood, eventually carrying the Mavs in crunch time in their only victory of the series.

This was close, though.

This was Nowitzki coming back from a high ankle sprain -- and thus the worst ankle injury in a career filled with them -- to possibly save the Mavs' season after missing just four games and nine days. As weary and weak as the Warriors uncharacteristically looked, playing for the fourth time in five nights, there's no denying that Nowitzki's 18 points and much larger presence at American Airlines Center totally changed a game that puts Golden State at a decisive disadvantage for what remains of the greatest conference race in league history.

"It's quite an inspiration to their ballclub," Warriors coach Don Nelson said of Nowitzki's return, recognizing that sort of impact after coaching the reigning MVP in the aforementioned tooth episode.

"They just went to a different level than we've seen this year. And if they can keep that level going, they're as good as anybody in the West."

The famously hyperbolic Nelson was the only one here willing to go that far with his tribute, since this was only Dallas' first win against a team with a winning record since the big trade it made in mid-February to bring back Jason Kidd. First in 11 tries, no less.

Yet there was no way for either side to downplay how much was riding on the outcome, with the Warriors (45-30) effectively dropping two games behind No. 8 Denver (46-29) and three games behind No. 7 Dallas (47-28) with the defeat because they'll lose out on any tiebreakers with either team.

"The playoffs started early this year," Nowitzki said after logging nearly 27 minutes, slightly exceeding his 24-minute limit as established by the Mavs' medical staff. "I knew if I was going to wait until I was 100 percent, our season was going to be over.

"If we go down tonight, things really didn't look good at all."

So Nowitzki played at maybe 80 percent and after he and Avery Johnson spent much of the day spewing pessimism in an attempt to try to convince the media (and Golden State) that the comeback was still on hold. "Nellie taught me that," Johnson joked.

The problem with holding off any longer in the name of safety was that Dallas' next two games are roadies against the Lakers and Suns, neither of which is especially welcoming even with Nowitzki in the lineup. So Nowitzki and his coach knew they really couldn't wait, given that no game left on the schedule could impact the standings like the Warriors' visit. The plan, then, called for Johnson to restrict Nowitzki to bursts of four-to-six minutes.

Not that there would be any actual bursting from the 7-footer. Nowitzki was largely reduced to a spot-up shooter, still lacking the lift he needs to attack the basket or rise up for jumpers off the dribble or even chase rebounds. Example: In the final minute of the opening quarter, Nowitzki got the ball just beyond the free-throw line late in the shot clock and promptly handed it off to Devean George without even looking for his shot.

Nowitzki was also grateful that the Warriors had nothing going offensively beyond Monta Ellis and Baron Davis to tax him at the other end, when you figured Nelson would go right at him and the bulky brace protecting his left ankle.

"Didn't move well at all," Nowitzki said.

Yet what he clearly did do, after a pregame hug from Nelson, is energize a group that has been steadily losing confidence. The Mavs have lost starting shooting guard Jerry Stackhouse (groin) for at least one more week in addition to their Nowitzki issues, but Jason Terry broke out of a recent malaise by pumping in 31 points in Stackhouse's place. Josh Howard (28 points) was another stalwart and Kidd almost made you forget his mere five points on 1-for-6 shooting by controlling the game in so many other places, amassing 17 assists and 11 rebounds in his ongoing quest for triple-double No. 100.

The Mavs wound up pushing the lead into double-digits with Nowitzki and Kidd on the bench, sparked by a resurgent Eddie Jones, who emerged from his season of injury frustration at 36 to deliver 12 points, five rebounds and one alley-oop finish that sent the Mavs' bench into delirium in 20 minutes. The Mavs also rung up a stunning 35 assists and 44 fast-break points to Golden State's 10 and 16 in the same categories, after days of growing concern locally about the lack of ball and player movement in their offense since the trade.

The sorry state of the Warriors on this night -- "How many times can you say that we got outrun?" Davis lamented -- made it difficult to embrace Terry's suggestion that this outcome could be what "flips the switch on" for a Mavs team that has been floundering for more than a month. It's way too soon to say that.

What we can say is that Nowitzki's well-chronicled reputation as a freakishly fast healer has to be raised another notch, especially since it came against Stephen Jackson and the rest of his playoff tormentors from Oakland. Don't forget, furthermore, that Cleveland's Daniel Gibson -- just to make one comparison -- missed more than 30 days with a similar high ankle sprain earlier this season.

"Hopefully by me playing it didn't make it worse," Nowitzki said.

Nah. You figure karma was with him on Resurrection Wednesday.



- That's all I have today. I'm ready to rock and roll this weekend at Phoenix and LA. I hope this gives this team renewed hope that they can beat these types of teams.



- Scott Weiland is done with Velvet Revolver. We officially have no more true rock and roll bands. A tragedy.