Carlisle wants all the blame for Game 1 loss

Up by 7 with less than 2 minutes left on the road in game 1 of a playoff series against the most athletic team in the NBA sounds like a steal for the oldest team in the league, but no. On a last second shot by Kevin Durant, NBA scoring champion for a third straight year, the Thunder get the win. The shot was well contested by Shawn Marion, but got a lucky bounce. Dirk Nowitzki turned the ball over in the last minute to give the Thunder a break-away slam to give them a 1 point lead before Dirk hit two clutch free throws. In short, a lot of different story lines to the game and it's outcome, but head coach Rick Carlisle wants all the blame.

During the post game press conference, Carlisle did not shy away from the criticism and even put more on himself. "We should have double teamed [Durant] and got the ball out his hands...blame me", he stated. He is probably right, but hard to argue the defense Shawn Marion played on Durant making the shot as difficult as it was. More of the blame should go the coach for not having a timeout left after he made the shot. There was 1.5 seconds on the clock which in basketball is enough time get a good shot off after advancing the ball. Knowing that he did not have a timeout left, maybe there should have been a set play to run to get the ball in hands of a better shooter than Shawn Marion. The Thunder assumed that Dallas would take a timeout and did not react to the inbound pass until mid-court.

After taking the blame, Carlisle reminded us of the one thing that his Maverick team has over every team in the playoffs this year; age. The Mavericks are the most veteran team in the league, even more than San Antonio and Boston. He says his guys will battle back and "keep coming...guns blazing every game". They have been threw these type of situations before in 12 start years in the playoffs.