No way, impossible. Well, teammate and friend Dirk Nowitzki has something of a different take.
"He's changed already a little bit," Nowitzki said after practice. "He went up to the bouncer on Saturday and said, 'Don't you know who I am?'"
Hey, J.J.'s got a point. He scored a season-high 22 points in the win and matched the Hawks' scoring, 16-16, in the decisive third quarter. In the past three games, Barea's averaged 18.3 points, which led coach Rick Carlisle Saturday night to say the unthinkable, that the Mavs were actually relying too heavily on Barea to make things happen.
Weird, wild stuff.
-- Jeff Caplan
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