The Dallas Mavericks bring the NBA’s fifth-highest scoring offense to the Pepsi Center on Saturday night to face the Nuggets in the first of a home-and-home series between the teams.
“They like to swing the ball around freely, they play unselfish,” Nuggets coach Brian Shaw said. “They are a high-assist team. And they have two very potent offensive players that are playing at a high level right now in Monta Ellis … as well as Dirk Nowitzki.”
And yet, though the Ellis-Nowitzki duo comes in averaging 43.9 points, 9.3 rebounds and 8.2 assists combined, they aren’t Shaw’s main concern.
“I’m not so much worried about them having big games,” Shaw said. “They handle the ball in such volume that they’ll get theirs, or at least get their attempts at it. What I’m more concerned about is making sure that we don’t allow Shawn Marion and (Samuel) Dalembert and DeJuan Blair and (Jose) Calderon, (Shane) Larkin, those guys to get more than what they are accustomed to getting.”
Game two in this home-and-home comes in Dallas on Monday night. Saturday night’s game is the second of a back-to-back for Dallas, which beat Utah last night.
“We’re aware of the fact that they played last night,” Shaw said. “They had to fly in here, and we always want to take advantage of the fact that a team is coming in here on the second night of a back-to-back.”
The Nuggets extended their home winning streak to four games with .
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or
