Dirk Nowitzki
Dirk Nowitzki
Dirk Werner Nowitzkiis a German professional basketball player for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association. An alumnus of Röntgen Gymnasium and the DJK Würzburg basketball club, Nowitzki was chosen as the ninth pick in the 1998 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks and immediately traded to the Mavericks, where he has played since. Listed at 7 ft 0 in, Nowitzki is considered one of the greatest power forwards in basketball history...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionAthlete
Date of Birth19 June 1978
CountryGermany
It's kind of hard not to get caught up in the race. You're half a game up, half a game down. There's pressure on every game now.
It's going to be a big game, a fun game. That's about all it is. But there's a big difference in being the first seed and the fourth seed. All we can do is go for it. Even if we should lose, there's a lot of basketball to be played.
They're going to play with a chip on their shoulder. They got the best record in the league, and they're going to come out firing. They're so balanced, you can't really concentrate on one guy. It should be a great defensive battle.
It's hard not to get caught up in this race, but obviously, it doesn't matter if you're a one or a four seed if you don't play at a high level. You've got to make sure you're clicking on all cylinders and have everybody healthy. That's really more of a concern than the one or the four seed.
Their zone was really effective, I thought, in the third quarter. They continued it in the fourth and we finally started making some. I got open a couple times and made some big shots.
Right now the best part of my game is my defense. I'm always guarding players who are bigger and stronger so I try to use my quickness.
I may not be the most physically tough player, but I think mentally I'm right up there.
When he picks off an offensive rebound for us and gets it out, we can set up again and get another chance to score. And it makes the other team continue to work that much harder on defense.
We were up five and I had the rebound. I don't know what I was thinking. I tried to dribble the ball out of the pack. Then they got a three-point play. Everything kind of went wrong, that could have gone wrong in that last minute.
We've been down before. With the shooters we have, anything is possible.
I'm not big on material things, but I like my cars. They are German-made and custom-made.
We weren't good enough in the fourth quarter. You have to play for 48 minutes against a team like Phoenix. They made shots off of our mistakes. We turned the ball over and you can't do that.
Getting Josh back really helps us on both ends of the floor. We missed his perimeter defense and on offense he's just so relentless getting to the basket. He's so good at slashing in there. He set the tone for us tonight.
I almost blocked it in. That would have been a heartbreaker.