In Game 6, Dirk Needs To Look Like Duncan

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">SAN ANTONIO ? In recognition of his best regular season, Dirk Nowitzki was named first-team all-NBA on Wednesday. For the first time in his career, San Antonio's Tim Duncan didn't make it.

But in this playoff series against Dallas, Duncan has been as good as he ever was in his two league MVP seasons. That continued in Game 5 when Duncan hit all 11 of his shots from the field in a 28-point first half before finishing with a game-high 36 in San Antonio's crazy 98-97 victory over the Mavericks.

That kept the champions alive at least until Friday. That's when Dallas will have its only chance in front of home fans to wrap up this series.

That's when Nowitzki, who was a worthy MVP candidate and finished third in the balloting, needs to have his playoff MVP game. He needs to have the impact on Game 6 that Duncan had on Game 5.

And that's not unrealistic because it's not as if he was badly outplayed Wednesday at the AT&T Center. With 31, Nowitzki had his first 30-point game of the series after scoring 30 or more in the first three games of the opening series with Memphis.

"Like I said before the game, we don't want the momentum to change in this series," Nowitzki said. "Now we've got to go home and win a big game."

Nowitzki nearly sent San Antonio home Wednesday night. After a bizarre ending produced two jump balls in the final 6.3 seconds, the Mavericks had the ball out of bounds with 2.4 seconds to go.

Jason Terry missed on a desperate heave from the corner, and Nowitzki had a shot at a tip-in before the buzzer but couldn't get a clean shot at it.

Nowitzki hit seven of his first eight shots in the first half when Duncan was trying to blow the Mavericks out of the arena. Nowitzki's 18 first-half points enabled Dallas to get to the locker room tied at 57 despite Duncan's perfection.

But Duncan had the bigger night, as he has throughout this series, though it's not an even matchup. Nowitzki spends long stretches each game working against Bruce Bowen, the Spurs' first-team all-defensive forward.

Bowen managed to block Nowitzki's last jump shot, which led to the back-to-back jump balls that drained precious time off the clock.

The presence of Bowen in his lineup doesn't mean coach Gregg Popovich thinks he has Nowitzki stopped.

"I stay up late at night, seeing his face," Popovich said. "How do you stop that guy? Bruce makes some unbelievable plays, but he's going against an MVP-type player."

Duncan doesn't meet the same kind of resistance. He goes against the Mavs' two-headed center of DaSagana Diop and Erick Dampier. Both are willing defenders but overmatched against Duncan. </div>

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