It certainly wasn’t easy, but the Oklahoma City Thunder managed to eke out a 1-0 series lead over the Dallas Mavericks after a back-and-forth final period that ended with Kevin Durant nailing a game-winner with 1.5 seconds left to play.
The Mavericks had plenty of chances to win -- Shawn Marion did a great job on Durant all night, holding him to just 10-27 shooting from the floor, and actually played perfect defense on Durant when he hit his game-winner, which took a major “shooter’s bounce” before going in. Jason Terry was red-hot for most of the game, and finished with 20 points in 24 minutes on 8-10 shooting from the floor. Some late turnovers aside, Dirk Nowitzki was on his game, and hit two clutch free throws to put the Mavericks up by one before the game’s final possession.
The Mavericks clearly gave the Thunder all they could handle on Saturday night, and had more than their share of chances to take the game. They led by four points after the third quarter, and had what appeared to be a commanding 7-point lead with just over three minutes remaining, but none of that mattered when the reigning scoring champion rolled home an impossible-looking off-balance jumper to put his team up 1-0. After a great performance, the Mavericks now find themselves in the exact same position as the Knicks do -- even though one team lost by 1 point and the other by 33, both teams are down 1-0 with a chance to steal a game on the road before coming back to their buildings.
The question for both teams is how they will carry this game -- will the Mavericks be deflated after giving the Thunder their best shot and coming up one play short, or gain confidence from how well they matched up against the Thunder and come out confident in Game 2? Will the Thunder freak out when they realize they have to win 11 more of these games just to get to the NBA Finals, or be able to wipe the slate clean and play like a 47-19 team in Game 2? That’s what we’ll find out later, but for now it looks like this is the best first-round series going.