Despite Mavs’ Loss to Pacers, Dirk Gives Fans Hope that He’s Not Done Yet
It’s no secret that Charles Barkley isn’t afraid to say what he means, and he did just that on ESPN Dallas radio this week. When asked about Dirk Nowitzki and his struggles this season, Barkley, as usual, didn’t mince words.
“Dirk’s getting old, bro. Dirk’s getting old,” he stated. ”Dirk’s been a great, great player for a long time. At some time, he’s been in the playoffs pretty much every year. Father time, bro. Father time is catching up with him. That’s all it is.”
Dirk’s performances so far this season have many Mavs fans wondering if it’s just a temporary slump, or if indeed Barkley may be right.
In Friday’s game against the Pacers, the reigning NBA Finals’ MVP showed that he had a little something to say in response to Sir Charles and all the fans that have reluctantly allowed worry to creep into their minds.
Despite the Mav’s 98-87 loss to the Indiana Pacers, Dirk had his best game of the season so far, demonstrating that perhaps he is in fact finding his way back to becoming the Dirk who drew praise from fans across the country last season in the playoffs.
At half time, Nowitzki had already scored 20 points on 9 of 11 shooting. He finished the game with a season-high 30 points, shooting 70% from the floor.
To put that into perspective, since Dirk’s return from his four-game hiatus to rest his sore knee, he has scored a total of 28 points in his last 4 games combined, shooting just 28%.
Despite Dirk’s stellar performance early in the game, both he and Jason Terry claimed afterward that they, especially Dirk, missed Jason Kidd, who was sidelined again with a calf injury. Dirk, who had proven all game that he had the hot hand and was finally in a rhythm, only had 2 field goal attempts in the third quarter because Roddy Beubois and Delonte West, both filling in for Kidd, were unable to get him the ball.
As Terry told the media after the game, “Without Jason Kidd, who is good at picking out who’s hot and who’s not, we’re going to have to figure out what we need to do to make sure people stay in rhythm. I just think there was a stretch where we could have taken advantage of Dirk while he was on the floor, and we didn’t do it tonight _ and that hurts.”
In fact, Dirk didn’t score a second-half field goal until there were just under 6 minutes remaining in the game. At that point, he stated his the post-game press conference, “I just ran to the ball, wherever it was; just basically (said), ‘Give it to me.’ I just decided to run to the ball every time down.”
Unfortunately for Dirk and his teammates, it was too late at that point.
While it’s still too early to determine whether or not Barkley was right about Dirk, Dallas Mavs fans can at least take some hope from last night’s loss that Dirk may not be done just yet.
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