Gordon should better be rested and healed against this Dallas defense. I know he's a soldier but falling and *really* hurting himself will surely be in the back of his mind if he isn't at 100%. If he can't drive like he does usually and like he drove against the Golden State defense in his last game, he won't be nearly as effective.
The reason I lost the Warriors +5.5 wager today is that their primary penetrator Monta Ellis was still somewhat banged up, consequently having to settle for too many jumpers. Yes, 25 points but on 26 shots. A-la Kobe Bryant at his worst. Also, when you don't drive, you make it easy for defense. GSW couldn't get an offensive rebound or an open three to save their life. The domino effect.
Gordon-Griffin one-two punch won't be as effective the next 1-2 games, since there was really a lot of bruising on both guys in the last few games.
That said... Monta Ellis doesn't have Blake Griffin by his side... and defense of the Mavs isn't as good as that of the Spurs. But surely having your primary ballhandler at 100% helps a lot.
All good points...but what I'm looking at is the fact that Baron Davis initially had this role until Gordon stepped up and showed that he is a future star in this league. Baron Davis has had a rivalry with the Mavericks for a long time, back from probably the 2005 season or so when the Mavs and Warriors had those great playoff battles.
The problem the Clippers will run into is the fact that they are not a very deep team. They play their 7 or 8 guys, and that's it. So when one of those guys goes down, it's a bad situation. I think that they will feed off the usual energy they have early in the game, and then in the 2nd quarter get run out of the building as they tend to do.