Game 15, Dallas Mavericks visit Los Angeles Lakers

Theme: Metallica, "Motorbreath"
Game Info: Don't stop for nothing

I wasn't expecting a win, until we were up at the half. Ah Basketball Gods, thou continues to use the Lakers to break spirits and shatter hearts.

You bastards.

- Encouraging. We were doing okay even when the bad guys were pigpiling on Dirk and he wasn't getting shots.

- Less so; Pau Gasol's quit playing like he's my cousin on her No Touchee days. Shit.

- Playing at the two in the second quarter, JJ got some shots he should have framed. The really nifty one was a shot I hope some ambitious physics/calculus teacher uses as a Real Life Example; it went almost straight up and straight down through the hoop. Smile.

- Maybe I'm being hypercritical. Maybe there was some other reason Coach went with Devean George in the second half when it came to fucking Kobe's shit up. And to be fair, George hit a couple of nice threes. But . . . goddamn it, Wright was hanging on.

- I can't help but wonder if the game would've swung the other way had J-Ho been available. But he wasn't.

- Who the fuck is Trevor Ariza?

- Did the refs forget to breathe in the second half? Seriously, no fouls? But that's not a tanget I want to go on, really. It's tempting to blame the refs when the game doesn't go the way you want; it's lazy thinking and (usually) not true.

- That said, our Rick is usually an even-tempered fellow, not at all into the courtside theatrics that made me mutter, "Simmer down Coach," half a dozen times last year. When Rick Carlisle gets slapped with a T, something's up. I don't want to, but I need to take a closer look at that one. He's too smart to give the bad guys free points.

- What's with the cutting the lights? Isn't that pushing it just a little bit? What next, a cheering section that fires blanks into the air? There are limits, dammit.

- Give the Mavs credit; the colors weren't struck until the situation became totally unsalvageable. Kidd and Terry tried their damndest to keep it alive with some clutch threes, but aforementioned Who The Fuck answered right back.

In The Wash: I'm with Coach on not being into moral victories. View the vids and say okay what did we learn from this. This was a winnable game, period-end-of-sentence.

And there's something else. With the way the Lakers have been playing, it's a given that they're going to the playoffs. Which means that in order to get out of the West alive and have a shot at the title the Mavs have got to come up with a way to answer them. As beautifully serindipidous as it would be, I just don't believe we're going to get so lucky as to watch the Lakers suffer a first-round collapse.

Final: 114-107, (sob) Lakers

Postscript:
Dear NBA,
We are all in Deep Shit.
Love,
-BJ

Game 7, Dallas Mavericks host Los Angeles Lakers

Theme: Metallica's cover, "Crash Course In Brain Surgery"
Game Info: Uz da interwebs

I was not looking forward to this game. In amongst paying $43 dollars for seats that should've cost ten bucks together, an usher being rude when I asked if there were seats available in the handicap section (my mom was with me and she has problems with stairs), and the Lakers rolling into town undefeated and surrounded by their usual radiant aura of bullshit . . . I was expecting a public flogging.

Well, we lost. But we didn't just roll over and fucking die. And yes, that does count for something.

- Triple Double 101!!!

- I stand by my opinion of Gerald Green as sixth man. He's by far too valuable to bury. His turnover rate and judgement under fire need work, so not a go-to starter . . . yet.

- As usual, the Morning News is trouncing all over Dirk for a fairly smelly showing last night. Honestly, why does the man get cut no slack?!? He got shut down, plain and simple.

- Dampier double-double. There's something faintly filthy about that concept . . . but I'll take it.

- I was prepared to love 'Gana Diop to death . . . dude, tossing bricks disguised as free throws is not a loving thing to do to me.

- Seventeen points? Okay Stack, I take back half the bad things I said about you last week.

- Four-String had an off night. Dangerously close to a one-trillion (play at least one minute and put up no stats whatsoever).

- Just for the record, Pau Gasol is a seven-foot marshmallow, Andrew Bynum is not the Second Coming, and Kobe Bryant won his rings by being Shaq's ball boy. Whether or not all that will hold true this year remains to be seen. You kind of have to, y'know, win a Finals series before you can be champion. Basketball fans everywhere -- casual, passionate, and outright fucking insane alike -- Calm. The Hell. Down.

In The Wash: All things considered, I'm not as upset over this as I was over the Cavs game. The Lakers won by shutting down The Man. It's how they've been winning. The rest of the team hung tough until the very end. This tells me that they're working on a viable Plan B to win games even when Dirk isn't producing, and that's a good thing.

But losing sucks. Losing to the Lakers sucks black holes.

Oh well, according to my handy-dandy pocket schedule, this is LAs only trip to Dallas this year. The Faker-fans can crawl back under their rocks now. Mama don't let your babies grow up to be Lakers fans.

Final: 106-99, Lakers
-BJ

Pau Gasol = Weenie

Have you guys seen the picture Team Spain took for an ad in a Spanish newspaper? The one where they're holding their eyelids in a slant?

Okay, how is that not racist, how could the Spanish Olympic Committe/Team Spain/the sponsors/Marca the newspaper/any of the players be that fucking stupid, and why hasn't FIBA or the NBA publicly condemned Team Spain?

(Pau Gasol's defense is he was pressured into taking the picture. Hence the title of today's post.)

Think I'm being oversensitive? Let me put it this way; imagine if Team USA pulled something like that (a dance mime to Smack My Bitch Up, perhaps). My imaginings include a torch waving mob, suspensions from playing in the regular season, massive fines, and a lot of extra time spent with NBA Cares. Political correctness gets taken to absurd, logic-bending lengths -- but is it really such an evil idea to think before you do something and consider whether or not it'll make you look like a bigoted asshole?

I'm with Basketbawful. It's a little weird to get news of low-class racist fuckery and realize it doesn't involve Americans.
-BJ

2008 NBA Champions, the Boston Celtics

Wow.

Amazing happened.

Both coasts are waking up with headaches this morning, for very different reasons. 131-92. That wasn't a game; it was a gang-rape.

God it was fun!

- Paul Pierce is The Truth, and anyone who denies it should have their head examined.

- Leave Kobe out of it for a minute -- we'll get to him shortly. The Lakers should be absolutely disgusted by their defense last night. I saw at least two clear opportunities for defensive heroics and the Lakers totally whiffed them both. I'll leave it to wiser eyes to determine exactly when in the game the Lakers struck their colors. That last quarter looked like a bad dream.

- If Dirk is soft, what does that make Pau Gasol? Dairy Queen kiddie cone? A doggie bag from El Bulli? Those supercomfy mattresses NASA uses on the space shuttles? I'm going with the El Bulli thing, myself -- Chef Adri's known as the Foam Guy in certain circles.

- Inconsistancy, thy name is Odom.

- Rajon Rondo. A thing of beauty is a joy forever. He nicked better than a midway pickpocket. I'm thinking about buying the game video from NBA.com just to watch those steals.

- Ray Allen's shot wasn't dead, it was just resting.

- Dallas isn't going to live down either the Finals Disaster or the Golden State series until we're hoisting our own banner next year. But as Pride Salve goes, this isn't bad. Western Conference Champions, helmed by the MVP and the best player on the planet -- as the announcers reminded us every ten minutes -- and they got their butts kicked so hard they're going to be walking funny until Christmas 2013.

- Now we get to Kobe. I want you to bear in mind the public flogging Dirk's manfully endured the last couple years. #24's stats for last night's game; 7-22 shooting, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 4 turnovers. When does the crucifixion commence?

- ESPNs obsession with sound bites is beginning to annoy me. Little reporter trying to get quotes out of Kevin Garnett by asking him cliche questions when he's the most blissed-out basket case in the solar system. The happy tears moment was beautiful on its own. Let the man be.

- The Lakers will be back. And so will the Celtics. And so will the Spurs/Hornets/Pistons/Jazz/Nuggets et al.

And so will the Mavericks.

- MasterCard Moment.
Cooler with Tap: $70
Eight gallons Gatorade: $15
Summerweight Suit: $5000

Winning It All: Motherfucking Priceless



No, funny would be if Coach Rivers sends The Truth his dry-cleaning bill.

Congratulations, Boston Celtics! Somebody FedEx everyone in Boston Irish breakfasts and a shitload of aspirin. Those have got to be the happiest hangovers on earth.
-BJ

The Boss Speaks, Field Trips, and Other News

From the homefront:

- Mark Cuban spoke on Randy Galloway's radio program earlier today, giving an extended interview. Among the subjects covered, reputation-rehab for Josh Howard, failures in leadership over the past season, failed trade scenarios (among them one where we gave up Dirk and J-Ho for Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol, the idea of which has Mr. Fish over at DallasBasektball.com crying into his beer), votes of confidence in Coach Carlisle, and the work between him Jerry Jones to get the NBA All-Star game to the new Cowboys stadium in Arlington (which would be mega-awesome with cheese). Podcast here.

- Coach Carlisle's in Orlando at "predraft camp," checking out the stuff. The Mavs have a second-round pick, 51st overall. There's plans to go to Italy, where the European draftees will be gathered -- because of financial issues, that's most likely where the FNGs are coming from this year. Little help from the Basketball Gods would be good there, neh?

- A remark from Mr. Cuban's interview clarifies a lot to me -- "Guys were breaking plays a lot. They didn’t trust the play-calling . . ." No wonder Avery Johnson was damn near throwing a coniption fit over by the bench, and no wonder the folks on the floor had this bad habit of standing around looking confused. He's also saying that Dirk's the one who broke rank there originally. Good in that the Organization's been screaming for him to take up a leadership role for the last five or six years; bad because such behavior could be construed as childish and counter-productive. I'm erring on the side of goodness, mostly in light of Johnson's actions since he was fired (revisionist and egotistical would about cover it). It could also be inferred that the disconnect between the coach and the players tainted Jason Kidd's adaptation to the team, which made all the other chemistry problems worse.

- The NBA has decided to impose fines on players for "flopping" -- exaggerating impact when one is fouled. Sort of like screaming bloody murder when your sister gets a good lick in during a pillowfight. Discouraging melodrama that doesn't come from the game itself is a good thing. Several years of following figure skating has me good and sick of manufactured melodrama.

- And finally, Dirk landed in Germany last week, prepping with the national team. And get this, the inconsiderate bastard got a girlfriend. Wah!
-BJ