2/5 FG. 5 points, 6 rebounds in 28 minutes. I think that pretty much does a good job of summing up Game 2.If you don't know, those happen to be Shaq's numbers. Yes, the most dominating big man of his era, the most quotacious player in the League, being shut down in an NBA Finals game.
Let me put it this way - when Erick Dampier is outscoring The Diesel, that's usually going to be trouble for the Heat.
How did the Mavs do it? Well, constant double teams helped. Add on another poor performance by Shaq from the FT line (1/7), not much help in the way of role players, and this game wasn't even as close as the 14-point margin would indicate.
Dirk was Dirk, scoring 26 points and grabbing 16 rebounds for the Mavs. Jason Terry didn't have quite the impact that he did in Game 1, but he didn't need to. He still ended up with a nice, efficient game to go with his 16 points and 9 assists.
Dirk scored 26, Stackhouse scored 19, Terry scored 16, Howard had 15, and Harris had 11 points for the Mavs. And this really illustrates the difference in these teams. In Game 2, Shaq scored 5 points, Wade was 6/19 from the field, and the Heat got creamed. In Game 1, Dirk and Howard struggled for Dallas, and they still won by 10.
Before the series I predicted Dallas in 6 because of their speed and depth, and for the most part, I think I was right. The only wrong part was that it doesn't look like it's going to take these Mavs 6 games to finish Miami off, not the way they're playing.
Because as Maverick Moneyball says, they're making this look easy. Shaq may transform into his old self for a game or two in this series, but the fact remains, Dallas is just too deep, too fast, and too balanced to lose to Miami.
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