Game 16, Dallas Mavericks visit Sacramento Kings

Theme: Metallica, "Motorbreath"
Game Info: Full speed or nothing

The NBA equivalent of two Advil and a piece of chocolate cake. Well, kinda.

- Oh fuck. Antoine Wright, who's made a decent rise in the pecking order, is out with a groin strain.

- No J-Ho. Again. He's day-to-day, but he's been D-to-D since he rolled that ankle. One of three things happening; his foot was hurt worse than the team let on and he's physically incapable of playing, his foot is better but the Mavs are being gentle with it, or he's being kept out for other nondisclosed reasons. Option one is possible, option three less so. Option two is most likely. In any event, I'm doubting him for the Clips game.

- Hack-a-Shaq only works when the hackee is crap from the line. Since none of our guys are crap from the line (with the problematic exception of Diop and please dear God Coach is working with him on that), hacking is not a real good defensive strategy against the Mavericks.

- Dirk! Jabbed the ball away, raced John Salmons for it, flipped it back to Devean George who slammed it home.

- Jet had 24 points, which puts his season-so-far average at 20.1 points per. Sixth Man of the Year, anyone?

- Okay, that downchecks Gerald Green somewhat. Coach is keeping him on a short leash. Coach Ortegel on the Mavs commentating team is at pains to point out the rationale behind that; it's a matter of the kid's poor decision-making under fire (he's more than two years younger than me, I get to call him kid). Red Bull's brain has got to catch up with the rest of him if he's going to make a difference on this team or any other.

- I hope for the sake of the Sactown fanbase the Kings're in rebuild mode. God forbid they have to watch this as a Plan A.

- Define shit job; photographer just past the baseline in a NBA game. JJ was going in for a layup, went out of bounds, and landed butt-first on one of the camera guys. And JJ's a little guy by NBA standards. I mean, you're there, doing the work, not bothering nobody, and BANG! two-hundred plus pounds of power forward lands on you.

- Garbage time; JJ tosses it to Shawne Williams, Bobby Brown knocks it off-path, James Singleton grabs it back and takes it in.

In The Wash: So we split the roadie and the boys're back in town for the next couple weeks. Best case scenario calls for a sweep before we're back out in the world. We could use one. We're at ninth place as things sit right now, and that shit just won't do. We've also got a fanbase that's in need of some serious firing up.

I would go ahead and pencil the Clips game as an automatic Win . . . but the last time I did that the Mavs got their heinies paddled.

Musical Shooting Guard continues. The players seem to be okay with it, for the time being. No rumblings from the locker room, no loaded comments to the sports guys, and if there are any dissenters they're being very careful to keep their sulking private. I wish I could get into the locker room and behind the cliches . . . never happen, of course.

Final: 101-78, Mavericks
-BJ