Tonight, San Antonio Spurs guard George Hill will make headlines for reasons that he won’t have to be embarrassed about.

Hill led the Spurs to a  92-89 victory over the Dallas Mavericks in Game 4 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

The second-year player from IUPUI put in 29 points (11-16 FG, 5-6 three’s).  The Spurs had 4 other players in double figures including Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Antonio McDyess and Richard Jefferson.  Spurs forward Tim Duncan scored only four points on 1-9 shooting, but did contribute 11 boards.

George Hill put the Spurs on his shoulders on Sunday night.

Dirk Nowitzki scored 17 points, but he was not efficient in this game.  He only had 10 field goal attempts, thanks to an alert rotating defense employed by the Spurs.  Similar to Game 3, Dallas is struggling to diversify its playbook.  The Mavs need to find ways to get Dirk the ball in rhythm, and not make him a sitting target for defenses.  A mastermind like Greg Poppovich can easily design schemes to stifle Nowitzki’s effectiveness, particularly when the other Dallas players are firing blanks.  During the game-changing 29-11 third quarter (in favor of S.A.), the Mavs couldn’t find the basket and looked shaken on the offensive end. 

Game 5 will shift back to the American Airlines Center in Dallas.  There’s no question about it – Mark Cuban will need a big game out of Nowitzki, along with good support from Caron Butler and Jason Terry (they only combined to average 30 ppg in the first three games) to keep themselves alive in this series.

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