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
I wanted to avoid service, because I was on the road to becoming a professional basketball player.
As a newcomer, I was often expected to carry the bags of the older players, or get them burgers. That can make you feel pretty miserable.
The best player I've ever played against is Kobe Bryant. I have seen him do some stuff that is just unbelievable.
I always wanted to be a basketball player. Nothing more, nothing less.
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.
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.
We were really aggressive and we got really good looks. We played pretty decent defense and when we rebounded, we ran. In transition we usually get pretty good looks. We were in attack mode all game long.
We have to do something about our bad starts because it's not the first time it's happened to us all year. Maybe we should get up at 6 o'clock and run around the block.
They adjusted and double-teamed me. I've got to do a better job finding the open man. More than anything, we know now we need a little more consistency for longer stretches.
There was a lot of hacking going on.
Winning 60 is a special season. Unfortunately, we've won 60 twice and been the fourth seed twice.
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 never make excuses with injures. We would love to have Josh out there. Same with Devin. (But) we should have won the game with the guys that we had.
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.