A fighting chance?

Tonight the Mavericks and Warriors will fight it out, for the fifth time. Dallas, the top team in the NBA in the regular season, has been knocked on its butt in 3 out of 4 games. It might have been a clean sweep had Stephen Jackson and Baron Davis not lost control of themselves. But this is it, can the Warriors close it out and complete the biggest upset in NBA history?

Not so fast my friend. Dallas has had some serious off the court issues in the last couple of days, but don't let that fool you. They are prepared for this game. Before Sunday night's game 4 Dirk Nowitski said "If we lose tonight it is pretty much over."

He has received a ton of crap for that, but who wouldn't say that? He was trying to motivate himself to win that game. He did not mean that he would quit if they lost the game, he was just trying to pump himself up, something many guys have done in the past. Dirk is going to come out and score 30+ in game 5, and the Mavericks are going to send it back to Golden State with the Warriors feeling pressured. Some may say that the Warriors have nothing to lose, but that is completely wrong. They had nothing to lose coming into the series, but now they are one game away from knocking out the number 1 seed. Nobody is giving Dallas a chance, so the Mavericks are really the ones with nothing to lose.

All of the shows on ESPN and TNT have been saying the same thing, "Where did the Warriors come from?" But I don't see what the big surprise is. This is a good team. The only reason they finished 41-41 in the regular season was because they were without Jason Richardson and Baron Davis for most of the season. Once they got those guys back and added the athleticism of Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington, they became a dangerous team. Don Nelson allows his team to play loose and run it all they want. They have become the next coming of the Phoenix Suns, but they play some defense too. And Baron Davis is a more lethal scorer then is Steve Nash. Had Davis been healthy all year I think you could make the argument that he deserves the MVP.

I expect Golden State to win this series, but let's not kid ourselves. The Warriors are not going to win the West, no question asked. They would not be able to handle the Suns who would run them right off the court. And San Antonio is much better too. Golden State has made the headlines, but it won't be for too long.