Chapter 11: The Miracle of the Black Eight

On May 1, 2007, the fifth game of the first round of the Western Conference playoffs, the Warriors played away against the Dallas Mavericks, the previous four games, the Mavericks fell behind 1:3, this game, or the next game decided the life and death of the Mavericks, before the start of this series, no one imagined that the Warriors, who were barely even in the playoffs, would cause so much trouble to the Mavericks, at that time the Mavericks had been taking the Spurs and the Heat as their imaginary enemies, who knew that a Warrior would be killed sideways!

At the beginning of the fifth game, the Mavericks burst out with strong combat power, catching the Warriors by surprise, and in the entire first quarter, the Mavericks hit 15 field goals, and the Warriors were beaten 28:38 in the first quarter. In the second quarter of the game, the Warriors stabilized their position, Stephen Jackson scored 9 points on 3-of-3 shooting, and Richardson scored 7 points on 3-of-4 shooting to lead the Warriors to chase the score to 55:62 at halftime.

In the third quarter of the game, Jerry Stackhouse and Baron Davis competed, the former scored 11 points, the latter scored 13 points on 5-of-5 shooting, and the Warriors recovered four more points in a single quarter, and only trailed by 3 points before the start of the fourth quarter at 87:90!

At the beginning of the fourth quarter of the game, both teams did not shoot high, and there were still nine and a half minutes left until the end of the game, Matt Barnes hit two consecutive shots to score 4 points, and the Mavericks scored 2 points in the ninth minute by Devin Harris forced to score 2 points, but then the Warriors' three points were like a tide, Jason Richardson hit three points, Baron Davis hit three points, and Stephen Jackson hit three points again! And the Mavericks' side has completely become Devin Harris's play time! He hit two free throws in a row and hit all four of them, and then Harris hit another two-pointer, and that wasn't it, as he assisted Austin Klohill for a three-pointer on offense! This posture is completely single-handedly against the Golden State Three-Point Brigade!

With six and a half minutes left before the end of the game, Baron Davis hit the basket and caused a foul on Klohill, and the former made both free throws to lead the Warriors to 103:102 again! In the next three minutes, the Mavericks were once again hit by black time, and the rhythm of the game became all kinds of iron, all kinds of turnovers, all kinds of fouls, during which only one free throw by Desaguena Diop, and the Warriors did not relent, Jason Richardson hit a 2-point pass from Baron Davis, and then received a pass from Matt Barnes and hit a three-pointer! Baron Davis hit another three-pointer! Three and a half minutes before the end of the game, the Warriors had a large lead of 112:103! Could it be that the Warriors are going to advance because of this? Could it be that the tragedy of the last game for the Mavericks is going to be played out again?

No! There was one person who wouldn't say yes, and that was Dirk Nowitzki, the leader of the Mavericks, who performed the greatest comeback in NBA history for the next three and a half minutes!

3 minutes before the end of the game, Nowitzki received an assist from Harris and hit a three-pointer, and the Warriors still held a 6-point lead at 112:106, and then Matt Barnes hit a three-point iron, and the impact basket was also blocked by Nowitzki. In less than a minute, the Warriors let the Mavericks chase the score to 112:109!

With a minute and a half left before the end of the game, Devin Harris faced Baron Davis decisively attacked the basket, scored, and added free throws! Unfortunately, the free throws were not scored, and the Warriors only led by 1 point at 112:111! With the last 30 seconds left in the game, Michael Petrus's Nowitzki fouled and Noowitzki hit both free throws, and the Warriors trailed by one point at 112-113! Then Petrus missed a three-point shot, Matt Barnes grabbed the rebound in the frontcourt, Jason Richardson's three-point shot was missed, Baron Davis, who had already committed five fouls, could only foul Josh Howard, and he was full of fouls, Josh Howard made one of http://www.jd.com/ two free throws, and in the final moments, Nowitzki made four of five free throws to secure the victory, and the Warriors did not score a point until the end of the game in the last three and a half minutes of the game.

In this game, Nowitzki played at his peak, he scored 30 points, 12 rebounds and 3 assists on 7-of-15 shooting, becoming the cornerstone of the team's victory, Josh Howard's performance was also excellent, he scored 23 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 steals on 10-of-16 shooting, Devin Harris also performed very well in this game, and gave Nowitzki two key three-point assists in the final moment to directly turn the game around, and he played 32 minutes to score 16 points and 7 assists, Jason Terry had 11 points, three assists and three rebounds on 5-of-11 shooting, Desaguena Diop had 11 points and seven rebounds on 5-of-5 shooting, Jerry Starhouse played a huge role in the second half, scoring 11 of 15 points, and role player Austin Kroshier played 12 minutes to score nine points.

On the other hand, Baron Davis made 10 of 16 shots, 5 of 5 three-pointers, 3 of 4 free throws, scored 27 points, 4 rebounds, 9 assists, 1 steal and 1 block, and his performance was as stable and comprehensive as ever, substitute Michael Petrus scored 11 points and 10 rebounds on 3 of 10 shots, and in the self-detonating foul in the last 30 seconds of the game, the two players left the court with six fouls, Jason Richardson scored 23 points and 7 rebounds on 9-of-106 shooting, and Stephen Jackson scored 16 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 steals. But he made a whopping 5 turnovers, and the shooting percentage of 4 of 14 shooting was not high, Biedrins started for the second game in a row, scored 8 points and 2 rebounds on 2-of-3 shooting, Matt Barnes performed very well, scored 16 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 5 fouls on 7-of-15 shooting, Al Harrington, who has not been able to find a feeling in the series, played 15 minutes in this game and scored 7 points and 3 rebounds on 3-of-4 shooting, and Monta Ellis's play was the worst player on the team, In the 26 minutes he came off the bench, he scored just four points on 1-of-5 shooting.

After this battle, the Warriors were chased back by the bull 3:2, whether to advance or be tied, all the suspense was revealed in the next game.

Two days later, the Warriors sat at home to face the Dallas Mavericks, and the two teams played sparks at the beginning of the game, Jerry Starkhouse exploded, scoring 14 points on 4-of-5 three-point shooting and 2-of-2 free throws in a single quarter! However, the Warriors relied on the collective play of the whole team to lead by 3 points at 28:25 at the end of the first quarter! The limelight in the second quarter was completely reversed, Baron Davis scored 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting in a single quarter, but the Mavericks played extremely united, and everyone in the last six scored on the court, and the Warriors were chased back by the Mavericks in the second quarter, and after halftime, the Warriors led the Mavericks by two points at 50:48.

I thought that the game would be played to the last second like the previous game, but who would have thought that the third quarter would become a watershed for the two teams, to be precise, in the first half of the third quarter, Stephen Jackson dominated the game! Just one minute into the fourth quarter, Jackson assisted Matt Barnes to hit a shot, 9 minutes and 11 seconds Stephen Jackson hit a three-pointer, 8 minutes and 31 seconds, Jackson hit another three-pointer! At 7 minutes and 09 seconds, Jackson hit the third three-pointer in a single quarter! At 6 minutes and 41 seconds, Jackson received a pass from Matt Barnes and hit a three-pointer again! In just six minutes, Jackson hit all 4 three-point shots, and finally he scored 15 points in a single quarter, Baron Davis and Matt Barnes combined to score 15 points in this quarter, but the Mavericks were extremely sluggish in this quarter, and the Warriors played a wave of 36:15 super attack waves, winning the game in one fell swoop!

In this game, Josh Howard scored 20 points and 6 rebounds on 8-of-19 shooting, Terry scored 13 points and 4 assists on 6-of-14 shooting, Devin Harris scored 13 points and 9 assists on 5-of-11 shooting, Jerry Stackhouse scored 20 points on 7-of-15 shooting, and only scored 8 points on 2-of-13 shooting and grabbed 10 rebounds in the last game.

On the other hand, the Warriors are everyone fighting bravely, Stephen Jackson scored 33 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals on 10-of-19 shooting and 8-of-8 three-point shooting, with only one turnover, becoming the biggest contributor to the team's victory, Baron Davis scored 20 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists on 7-of-17 shooting, Matt Barnes completely played his value in this round of the series, he scored 16 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists on 5-of-12 shooting in this game, Jerry Richardson scored 15 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists on 6-of-13 shooting, Andris Biedlings had the best game of the series, finishing with 12 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks on 4-of-6 shooting, while Michael Petrus had eight points and eight rebounds on 2-of-6 shooting.

After six games, the Warriors defeated the Dallas Mavericks, the first in the regular season, 4-2, creating the first Black Eight history since the first-round series was changed to a best-of-seven system. Looking at the six games that have made people excited, Baron Davis is undoubtedly the one with the most winning points in the Warriors, with Days averaging 25.0 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.7 assists, 1.8 money and 54.0% shooting from the field, and 45.5% three-point shooting all show that he has blown the physically weak Devin Harris into slag, and Stephen Jackson and Jason Richardson have also contributed to it, both of which have become the team's offensive arrows. The former averaged 22.8 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 2.0 steals per game, shooting 45.2% from the field and 47.5% from three-point range, the highest on the team, while the latter averaged 19.5 points, 6.8 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.3 steals, shooting 51.1% from the field, and 34.1% from three-point range.

Matt Barnes became the team's biggest discovery, his greatest contribution to the team is that he not only provided a tough and effective defense, but also became the team's breakthrough on the offensive end, connecting the inside and outside lines, and was also very good at moving the ball, he averaged 28.8 minutes per game, ranked fourth on the team, averaged 10.2 points, 5.5 rebounds and 3.0 resignation assists per game, shooting 45.1% from the field and 40.0% from three-point range, Michael Petrus also deserves praise for his performance, Averaging 7.0 points and 5.3 assists per game, and while he doesn't shoot well from the field at 30.6 percent, he always helps the team in other ways, and Biedlings has taken his chances after an initial disappointment, playing well in the last two games, compared to the team's Monta Ellis and Al Harrington. Ellis was originally the team's first choice to attack the opponent's interior with the ball, but it was obvious that Ellis did not do this task well, he could only score 8.2 points in 26 minutes of playing time per game, shooting less than 40%, Al Harrington averaged 17.0 points per game in regular time, but in the playoffs Harrington couldn't find the feeling of the game at all due to injuries, and ended up averaging only 4.5 points and 5.2 rebounds per game, shooting only 25.8% from the field

The Warriors' second-round opponent was the Utah Jazz, the Jazz fought the Rockets in the first round for seven games, and advanced with difficulty after losing two games, and it was also a very strong team at that time, the team's star was Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer, known as the "Utah Twins", Delon was strong, and his passing ability and ability to lead the team were on par with Baron Davis, Carlos Boozer was still one of the league's biggest killers at the time, and his basket skills were very solid and thick, Strength enough, meet a center with insufficient strength can push singles, meet a center like Yao Ming, Xiao Si can pull out of the penalty area to shoot, Boozer's only drawback is that he is short in height and has limited contribution on the defensive end, these two players perfectly inherited Stockton and Malone's blocking and dismantling system, a simple blocking and dismantling, playing thousands of tricks under Sloan's **.

In this round of the game, the old spicy Sloan saw through the weakness of the Warriors, he took a fancy to the Warriors' disadvantages of interior defense, and frequently used Boozer's singles to create shooting opportunities, Boozer's back skills are much more stable than Nowitzki, and the offense is also very efficient, and once other players miss, Boozer and Oku can rush to grab rebounds and fight for a lot of shooting opportunities for the team.