Crazy numbers from Tuesday night

After a game like Tuesday's, when the Mavericks beat Houston by 18, there's a string of numbers that are pretty eye-popping. First of all, here's the Rockets' field goals by quarter: First, 14-22, .636 Second, 10-24, .417 Third, 5-22, .227 Fourth, 6-14, .429 The third quarter continues to be money for the Mavs. Next, we have Maverick turnovers. They had eight in the first quarter. They had seven the rest of the way, including none in the second quarter. And in the second half, Houston had 17 rebounds. Erick Dampier had 14 by himself and the Mavericks had 28 total. Perhaps the funniest fallout from the game, however, was when Rick Carlisle closed his postgame news conference with the following exchange with reporters about five games coming in seven days: "Games are coming almost every 24 hours. Probably every 37 hours. How many hours in seven days? Quick. Anybody.'' Informed it was 168 hours, he wanted to know how five games would average out. One quick-minded reporter quickly said: "One every 33.6 hours.'' Amazingly, he was right. --Eddie Sefko