With an outstanding collaboration from the bench and 48 points from Dirk Nowitzki the Mavs outplayed the Thunder 121-112 to take the lead in the series.

The NBA Playoffs Western Conference Finals began this past Tuesday at the American Airlines Center with a victory for the Dallas Mavericks over the Oklahoma City Thunder by 121-112, in a game were an unusual amount of trips to the free throw line were made. What caused that excessive amount of trips? The officials leaded by Joey Crawford that were not willing to see a physical game, and in their effort to avoid this, they made a lot of bad calls that were suffered on both sides.

Just Dirk Noviztki alone had 24 free throws, and guess what? He didn’t miss any. That’s correct, any. Half of his 48 points from the night came from the free throw line and set a NBA playoff-record for free throws. And he wasn’t too far from perfect on field goals, as he only missed 3 of his 15 attempts.

On the Thunder side Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook also made multiple trips from the free throw line, where despite not being as effective as Nowitzki, they were pretty close. Durant had 19 attempts, missing only one of them, and Westbrook 18, missing jut four of them.

If it wouldn’t have been for those free throws Westbrook would have had an awful night, because he had a terrible game on the paint, missing 12 of his 15 attempts. Called to be Durant’s best partner Westbrook keeps on failing to explode all his potential in big games, like on Tuesday night.

With this we are not trying to blame Westbrook for the defeat, because let’s face it, Nowitzki was on fire and so were two of his teammates that came in from the bench: Jason Terry and Jose Juan Barea that together accounted for 37% of the squad’s points. All we are trying to say is that Westbrook needs more confidence in his game because Durant can’t do everything by himself, especially when there is no response from their bench either.

And this was what happened to the Thunder, they didn’t have a response in their bench like the Mavericks did. 22 points was all the help Oklahoma City received from its bench. That’s two points less than the 24 scored by one single Mav: Jason Terry. Dallas’ bench was outplayed the Thunder’s by a 31-point difference.

These are the Playoffs, these are the Conference Finals, and the champion will be the best team. That’s right, the best team, meaning the starters, the bench and coach as one. If these three components don’t align together, the chances of clinching the title will rapidly fade away.

This is exactly what the Thunder experienced in game one: they faced a team with all the pieces aligned in the same direction, where one night a starter can be one of the top performers and in the next game if he is struggling, the team won’t recent for one of his teammates in bench will stand up for him.

Now the question is, will the rest of the Thunder stand up along Durant to win the final, of will he continue to fight the battle as a one man army?