Preseason Game 2: Dallas Mavericks visit Chicago Bulls

Theme: Ren and Stimpy, "Happy Happy Joy Joy"
Game Information: Courtesy of NBA.com

One of the reasons I hate the circumstances that prevent me from having modern television resources is not being able to watch road games. But that oft-forgotten, no-cost gem of broadcast media saves my ass -- radio. One problem; because of something in my apartment building -- can roaches cause signal interference? It would explain not being able to get Channel 5 -- the radio doesn't come in clearly.

So the Mavs are on the road up the west side of my favorite Great Lake, and I'm on the road up to Keller's for a supper of ooey-delicious hamburger and the car radio tuned to ESPN 103.3 FM. I missed most of the first quarter. Naturally, that's when the "OH MY GOD!!!" stuff happened. Oh well. I did catch Brandon Bass's dunk. I think Coop broke a vocal cord on that one.

- The starters didn't play very much at all after the first quarter. Unit 1 -- Dirk, Kidd, J-Ho, Wright, and Dampier -- opened it up and brought it to 36-22 Mavs. Unit 2 -- Jet Terry, Bass, JJ, Devean George, and 'Gana Diop -- played most of the second and the score at the half stood at 62-44.

- After the half, it was pretty much garbage time for the Mavs. The deep, deep benchers were playing serious minutes. Which is good. At least three of these guys will not make the team come regular season and they need every second of playing time they can get.

- Gerald Greene's justifying some of the hope placed in him by us fans; 18 points. That's reassuring. Some of The Boards are taking bets on when Jerry Stackhouse will start missing games because of injury.

- Speaking of, Stack missed the game due to family obligations. He'll be back tonight.

- JJ Barea scored ten? And he hit a three? And he had tasty assists? Can he do that against a good team? Please God?

- In the last minutes, the game must've looked pretty ugly. I didn't count, but there must've been at least five fouls called in the last minute of play time.

- I'll give the Bulls this; they tried to rally. They really tried. The Bulls actually outscored the Mavs by ten in the second half. But the last quarter the Mavs fought with one hand tied behind them. Five minutes from the starters and the Bulls would've been blown halfway to the moon.

- Everybody got play time last night, and of those sixteen, fifteen scored points. Yummy.

In The Wash: Last night marked the NBA debut of this year's #1 draft pick, Derrick Rose. 10 points in 27 minutes and he had problems getting his feet under him. As the Morning News points out, though, point guards tend to have long learning curves. Give it a couple years, no major injuries and no emotional meltdowns; we're going to be seeing his name a lot. For their sake, the Bulls would be wise to bend over all directions to make his maturing process as complete as possible.

Coach must be blissed about this; in the game against the Wizards the Mavs turned the ball over 24 times. Against the Bulls, 14. And 12 of those came in the second half. In other words, from players who are not likely to play much during the regular season. Happy happy joy joy.

Final: 110-102, Mavs
-BJ

PS: Dirk as a personal favor to me could you put your tongue away? It makes you look silly. And it makes me have bad thoughts.