Out Of The Frying Pan And Into The Smelting Furnace

The Imps of Injury aren't done with us yet.

Game against Houston on Friday night. Whilst contesting a shot, Carl Landry and Dirk Nowitzki collided. Dirk's arm slammed into Landry's mouth. The impact punched Landry's incisors through his mouth guard and broke them off in Dirk's arm just below the elbow. Landry lost five teeth and went to the hospital to have his mouth rebuilt. Dirk dashed back to the locker room after splitting free throws. He sat out on Saturday's game versus Cleveland.

Tim Thomas got the call to start at power forward. You show me anybody who seriously though Dallas would win this one, I'll show you a good liar. Everybody wrote this one off. Tactical retreat -- Cleveland's not in our division, nobody's going to blame the guys for losing to LeBron and Company without Dirk.

Um . . . yeah. LeBron might be the best player in the league, heir apparent to His Holiness The Jordan, and well on the road to becoming A Global Brand (his words, not mine). On Sunday night, he wasn't good enough -- 25 points, 9-23 shooting. And he couldn't make his team good enough -- three rebounds, six assists, two turnovers, zero clutch plays.

I couldn't watch this game because I had to be in McKinney. All I caught was the last ninety seconds. The enduring image is Shawn Marion driving to the basket, and Anderson Varejao hitting the deck at Marion's feet doing his best impersonation of a speed bump. Marion hopped up and over Varejao's body, put the ball in the basket, and landed neatly on the floor on Varejao's other side. Love it.

Mavericks, with cunning, cuteness, slump-busting (team should throw a Welcome Back party for Jason Terry's jump shot), good team defense, and a little bit of luck, kicked the shit out of the Cleveland Cavaliers. And we did it without our big guy.

Basketbawful's taking his usual potshots at Dirk's physical toughness. I enjoy his blog and I value his opinions . . . but BTFU. A bite wound is not the same as cutting yourself while peeling an apple in bed, particularly when the doctor spends half an hour fishing around making sure there aren't any other toothy bits embedded in the tissue. The biggest concern isn't the actual trauma; it's infection.

If he had to, Dirk would play through anything. His will over pain is beyond question. The Mavericks do not want, and cannot afford, having the big guy in the hospital dealing with a case of septic shock. Remember NYPD Blue? Bobby Simone dying because of an infection he got from a knife cut? That's not bullshit, and bites are dirtier.

Right now Dirk's on painkillers and a shitload of antibiotics and has probably been instructed not to move his arm around much. If he fucks with it it won't heal right, and that's his shooting arm.

The Cloudy Crystal Ball says he'll probably sit out Tuesday's game against Portland and be back (knock on wood) on Saturday.

Not saying it yet. Still too much we don't know.

But--

How can a Mavs fan be anything but optimistic after last night?

Check back with me the morning of January 4th. That's after an Away game at Denver on December 27th, another game in Houston, and an Away game against the (presumably) Gasol-centered Lakers.
-BJ

Crickets, A Ribbit Here And There

I was watching the game against the Heat last night. Know what struck me most? Wasn't Dampier playing like some sort of deep sea fangly fish, wasn't D-Wade straining his back trying to carry his team (okay, fair cop, Dirk always strikes me).

What struck me was how empty American Airlines Arena was. The box lists attendence at 18,703. That, my friends, is a damn lie. If actual asses-in-chairs attendence was over twelve thousand, I will eat my nightie.

There are things I don't like about Mark Cuban. He's an arrogant, melodramatic, loudmouthed schnook -- just can't trust a man who likes pro wrestling. What his organization has done, though, for going on ten years, is put butts in the seats. Even with a promotion-shy star, even existing in the same catch-basin as the Dallas Cowboys, the Mavericks do a good job of filling the house. Mr. Cuban's said that if he had to, he'd drive through town hollering on a megaphone if that's what it took to sell tickets.

By contrast, Miami -- and Jake's told me the situation's similar in Orlando -- has two of the most famous players in pro sports in Dewayne Wade and Dwight Howard. They're both entertaining from a layperson's standpoint; plenty of panache and slamming around. So why hasn't their individual celebrity translated into sold-out arenas? I mean, don't those fans know how bloody lucky they are?

The question-within-a-question, I guess, would be why aren't those organizations making their citizens aware of how lucky they are. And if they're trying, what's not working? We live in a capitalist society; everything's gotta generate profit for somebody.
-BJ

Reality Checks Are In

And they are bouncing.

Defensively, this edition of the Mavericks are an improvement over previous issues. Offensively . . . it's not gone well. In the last two games Dallas has not shot the ball over 40%. It's chiseled on the tombstone of almost every single Dallas team -- We Took Too Many Jumpshots. Especially the game against the Grizzlies, who are near the bottom of the league in defensive execution. And who, by the way, are in our division. Divisional record's a tiebreaker. That loss is gonna bite us twice.

What can we take away from our first bone fide losing streak?

Look. The reality of the situation hasn't changed. We need Josh back. Without him, and with Marion still on a sore leg, we go right back to where we were last year. I wish I knew more about what's going on with Howard (me and everybody else). The Organization's committed to him. We like him. And I'm fine with that, to a point. His production, however, is an absolute necessity and if he can't provide it, the Organization needs to find someone who can.

Are they in the process of doing so and just haven't told us? Your guess is as good as mine. The usual suspects haven't heard anything.
-BJ

Scientifc Wild-Ass Guess Incorrect

Erick Dampier did a quickie interview with Chuck Cooperstein and Brad Davis last night after the game. Coop asked him about his absence and Dampier said that it wasn't just faintness that came over him right before the Pistons game; he had numbness in one arm.

No details on what, if anything, the doctors found. But he's been cleared medically to play.

That explains a lot, about why he was scratched literally at the last second, and why he's been out for a while. Let me tell you a story. About fifteen years ago, a figure skating pairs team were rehearshing for an exhibition tour and the gentleman -- fella by the name of Sergei Grinkov, twenty-eight years old, perfect condition -- collapsed on the ice. An autopsy revealed two blocked arteries in his heart. He was probably dead before he hit the ground. Come to find out he'd been having angina attacks for weeks, but they were misdiagnosed as a backache.

Point is, when someone says they're experiencing something that might be a heart attack, you do not fuck around.

I'd still like to know what exactly was the matter. That's my starting center; I'd really rather he not, y'know, die on me or anything. But even the remotest possibility-- the team responded appropriately. Here's hoping everything's okay, and stays that way.
-BJ

The Mavs M*A*S*H Unit

The injury woes continue. Erick Dampier came down with something real sudden-like before the Pistons game a couple weeks ago and is just now coming back to play limited minutes.

If the opportunity came, I'd ask if he has a family history of adult onset diabetes. Sudden feelings of faintness are a symptom of hypoglycemia and adjusting to medication or a radical change in diet could account for his extended absence. If it were food poisioning or dehydration he wouldn't've been out for so long and the press was assured after a few days that the doctors had ruled out anything health or career threatening.

That's just a guess. H1N1 was ruled out immediately but that's not the only virus that can knock you on your ass and leave you there awhile.

J-Ho's been shelved . . . again. Once again, not enough information to make judgement calls. Fisher says it was a minor ankle repair; I'd like that confirmed. Saying it was an arthroscopic surgery doesn't tell me the extent of the repairs, nor the rehab needed, nor the recovery time. Turns out there's a lot that can go wrong with ankle joints.

I don't want to believe that Josh -- after rolling on two bad legs in the playoffs last year -- would do anything to jepordize his ability to get back on the floor and play. I really don't want to believe that.

The Matrix -- after a slow start to the season, frankly, I was hoping for more -- came down onto some moron's foot at the Milwaukee game and twisted an ankle. He's back in the lineup but hurting. Tim Thomas turned in an I Am Man And You Will Fear Me game against the Rockets, but tweaked his back and sat out yesterday. Quinton Ross, our Plan B starting two guard's been in and out with back problems. And Drew Gooden sat a few games with a chest muscle injury. When will the fun ever stop?

And with all that . . . 13-5 as of December 1. Actions speak louder, so here's some good stuff:

Kris Humphries's atom smasher:


Assist #10,335, along with some other awesomeness (that T was bogus, by the way):


And . . .:


I could watch that forever.
-BJ