Bowen bugs, hugs DirkBy Chris Sheridan, ESPN Insider
SAN ANTONIO -- Bruce Bowen didn't merely drape himself all over Dirk Nowitzki's body. He also crawled into his head.
Take a look at a sampling of Nowitzki's postgame comments Sunday after he made just one basket in the fourth quarter and nearly threw the ball away on Dallas' final possession in an 87-85 loss to San Antonio in Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal series:
"I'm not going to get any open looks in this series. I already know that."
Or this one:
"I know I'm not going to score 35 a game in this series."
Despite standing nearly a half-foot taller than the defensive specialist assigned to guard him, Nowitzki grew increasingly flummoxed as the afternoon wore on Sunday to the point where the look on his face went from normal to quizzical to queasy.
And on the final play, when Dallas got the ball into his hands near the top of the circle, he stumbled so quickly in the face of an onrushing second defender that he fired the ball to Jerry Stackhouse in the corner rather than waiting for Stackhouse to cut to the basket as coach Avery Johnson had intended the play to unfold. Manu Ginobili deflected the pass, and Stackhouse managed only a desperation heave from the corner that missed everything to end a compelling, competitive game between the two best teams in the West.
More of the same should be in store as we move through the next two weeks. Unless, of course, the doubts in Nowitzki's head continue to rattle around up there like one of Bowen's foul shots. And with a full dose of the same close coverage coming his way for the foreseeable future, that possibility cannot be dismissed.
"It's what you call 'bear-hug defense,'" Mavs coach Avery Johnson said afterward. "That's the new NBA rule. That's what's going on, and I've got to try to formulate or simulate a drill to help him. If a bear comes up to you and hugs you, what's he going to do?"
Johnson left his own question unanswered, but you don't need to be a Discovery Channel regular or a National Geographic Explorer aficionado to know what happens when a bear hugs a human.
The bear wins. And it ain't a pretty loss for the human.
But Bowen wasn't bear hugging Nowitzki so much as he was pestering him like an oversized insect. He was a gnat with his hands and arms, keeping one or the other on Nowitzki at all times, grabbing and clutching occasionally, and with enough discretion, that the refs never called him on it.
We've all seen him do the same to Kobe Bryant and every other scorer in the league, most recently against Bonzi Wells of Sacramento in the latter stages of the Kings-Spurs first-round series, and now it's the big blonde German's turn to try to find a way to repel him. Bowen has guarded Nowitzki before, but never with the stakes this high.
"This has the feel of an NBA Finals," said Bowen, who shrugged it off when Johnson's bear hug comment was relayed to him. "It used to bother me. You would think you try to earn the respect of other coaches, and you'd think they'd be happy with what you do because you give 110 percent. But it's something that's said a lot, so add him to the mini-list of others who want to say stuff."
The task for Johnson in the next two days will include not only inventing a drill to simulate Bowen's defense but also giving some serious thought to sending a few more double-teams at Tim Duncan.
The Mavs tried to stop the Big Fundamental with single coverage about 90 percent of the time -- using DeSagana Diop, Erick Dampier and DJ Mbenga -- and Duncan ate it up with a display of his offensive arsenal rarely seen during this regular season, when his scoring average was the lowest of his career.
"It was like it was in my rookie year when we were going through him all the time," Tony Parker said.
Dallas got away with leaving Parker (7-for-18) open on the perimeter, and they contained Ginobili enough (15 points on 5-for-14 shooting, five turnovers) to put themselves in position to win.
Bowen's 3-pointer from the corner with 2:14 remaining gave the Spurs their final points and broke an 84-84 tie.
Six missed shots later, the game came down to one final possession, and Nowitzki was too blanketed by Bowen to finish his job as the first option.
"I knew they were going to go to Dirk, and my thing was I'm going to make this as tough as possible for him -- tougher even than his other shots," Bowen said. "He started stumbling, and if he tries to shoot the ball stumbling it's going to be a bad shot."
But that wasn't even Nowitzki's final stumble. As he left the postgame interview podium after telling everyone how he wouldn't score 35 in the series or get any open looks, he nearly tripped over a chair while exiting stage right.
It shouldn't surprise anyone if it was Bowen who put that chair there.
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