Worth It All

The lost glasses -- currently on the old pair and have a nice tension headache -- the sore feet -- stuck in standing room only -- and the lost voice.

Technically, the Mavs clinched a playoff spot on Monday night as Memphis officially slid under the waves. But that wasn't what it felt like. Much depended on last night. The second seed. The chance of someone else taking care of the Lakers (please please let Portland get the eighth seed!). Getting some pride back after getting owned when the Mavs hit Denver last. Writing a new page after getting knocked out of the playoffs. The tiebreaker, just in case.

I was terrified. In an eighty-two game season, there are exclaimation points. The home game against Boston and the game in Portland were two of the most recent, and the Mavericks dropped them both for bad reasons. Surely not this night. But suppose . . . suppose . . .

It is my delighted pleasure to report that the Mavericks did not let that happen. Play down to an opponent missing their best defender and their head coach, playing their second night of a back-to-back? Nope. Let Carmelo do what he does? Nada. Let Chauncey put the team on his back? Niente. Let themselves get outphysicaled by a team whose defensive raison d'etre is to beat you up without seeming to? Nein. Let the bad/lack of calls mess with their heads? Hell no!

Pick your cliche -- the Mavs stepped on their necks, broke their backs, sent them home to their mommies, beat them up and stole their lunch money, reduced them to piles of bones and shredded blue cloth, nuked them back to the Dark Ages. It all boils down to a sixteen point win, in fine style. In amongst that, we get fine play from the bigs, a freed Roddy B, Jet shifting into overdrive in the fourth, and oh yeah, that Dirk guy -- TRIPLE DOUBLE!!!

I'm tempted to call it a throwback game -- since when does Dirk take more than one or two threes per game anymore? -- except it's not. MVP? Try Hall of Fame.

Props must also go to Shawn Marion and Caron Butler, who held Carmelo Anthony eighteen points (!!!) below his season average. It's easy to harbor a little bit of resentment towards Shawn, because his shot just looks so bloody awkward; you expect it to miss and overlook when it hits. But opponent megastars tend to have bad nights against Dallas, and Marion's the reason why.

So after last night, we're in second place (with Utah breathing down our necks, that's a problem) and in case of Dallas and Denver finishing neck-and-neck, we got the tiebreaker. That's something; it is, in fact, a great deal.

Denver Nuggets, this song's for you:


-BJ

Uh-Oh

There are a lot of possible storylines that could grow out of a matchup between the Dallas Mavericks and the Golden State Warriors -- the Great Meltdown of 2007, the Warriors' steep downward trajectory from those days, the game earlier when the Mavs outnumbered the Warriors two to one and still lost, the Organization and fanbase's strange and enduring fascination with Golden State coach Don Nelson . . .

And, with 3:18 left in the first, every single one of them was rendered irrelevant.

Choosing to go small after Haywood jammed a finger, Coach put in Rodrigue. And Rodrigue--

I saw it and I still don't believe it.

40 points, 15-of-22 including 9-of-11 on 3’s, eight rebounds, three assists, and three blocked shots.

Coach is going to have some hard explaining to do if we don't see Roddy B on the floor in every game we have left. And I don't mean garbage time either. Jet's face is still puzzling itself together; there really isn't any reason for JJ to spell Jet as a shooting guard. Particularly in light of . . . well you know he . . .

(giggle)
-BJ

Gotta Give Portland's Defense Credit?

Bullshit I do.

We're down eighttenthirteen, and we're going to lose this game.

I'm not being a pessimist. The time hasn't run out yet. Something could happen.

A hard thing to learn -- miracles are treasured because they are rare. It will take one -- a small one, but even so -- to win this game. All the Mavericks are doing right now is treading water. My guys have solved many teams so far this year, picked many locks, battered down many gates, stormed and conquered, crushed our enemies and left their women and children sobbing over what's left. We have not solved Portland.

Doesn't help the refs are wearing their Mavericks colored glasses. That T against Caron was bogus.

In my layperson's opinion, the Mavs fell back in love with the jump shot, the panic threes are not falling, we're over-relying on Dirk when it's clear he's having an off night, Dampier's malfunction needs to get fixed right fucking NOW, and why did Coach not put Rodrigue in when it was clear JJ was in over his head (literally).

Fuck it. I'll squeeze what I can for the quoteboard and hit the hay.

I will admit my hopes for this team are not as high as they once were.
-BJ

Kicking Out The Mirror

Ever seen the second Conan movie? The one where Wilt Chamberlain rocks the leathers? If you haven't-- seriously, what kind of pop culture junkie are you anyway? Go rent them both immediately. Watch the first one because it's a good movie in spite of itself, and the second one so you'll get what I'm about to discuss.

About halfway through the movie, Conan is trapped in a room lined with mirrored panels and attacked by a scaly lizardman monster. The SLmM is invulnerable, stronger than he is, and has big claws and sharp cruel fangs. After finding out the invulnerable part, Conan accidentaly breaks one of the mirrors. A long ugly gash appears on the SLmM's chest and it howls in pain. If this were a comic, Conan would have a '!' in the balloon over his head as he shatters another mirror with his sword and the SLmM is injured again.

Since the hero can't get let off that easy -- and really, who could ever get enough of Basil Poledouris's score? -- the SLmM gets under Conan's guard, picks him up, and drapes him over the SLmM's back, with Conan dropping his sword in the process. Conan manages to wiggle into position, draws back his feet, and slams them into the nearest mirror. The SLmM shrieks and drops Conan, the music shifts into The Hero Is Kicking Epic Monster Ass mode, Conan picks up his sword and thus begins an extended montage of Conan slo-mo'ing his sword into mirrors intercut with shots of the SLmM howling in agony at each new wound. Since Conan is the Hero of this picture (and we all know what happens to the villian), he prevails and the story moves on.

Flash back, if you will, to last night. Almost four minutes gone in the third, the Mavericks are in the process of surrendering yet another lead after playing quite prettily in the first half, and . . .

In terms of What're The Odds, it's on a par with snow in Miami. Former Maverick Drew Gooden pushed Dirk in the back. No whistle. Surprised at the lack of call Dirk went up to contest Gooden's shot and got him on the arm. Whistle. Foul on #41.

Dirk: "Bill that's a two-hand push!!!"
Blind and Possibly Brain Damaged Ref: "Bam! Right there!" (throws the T)

I don't know what Dirk said next -- the Painted Fan section's not quite that good. Either the BaPBDR was having a bad night, or Dirk said something reeeeaaaalllly objectionable. Second T and the BaPBDR made the universal ref gesture of Get The Fuck Off My Floor! Led by a blazer and bracketed by cops, Dirk marched to the locker room.

Thus began the total erasure of the lead and the Clippers going up by four. Anyone else want to argue about how crucial Dirk is to the Mavericks?

And then came the kick. Jason Kidd, who turned 37 yesterday, threw a lob pass and Rodrigue Beaubois leapt. He's about six-three; how the hell did he clear the basket by three feet? Catch, bam. Commence screaming. The Mavs went on to win it by ten.

So that would be kicking out the mirror. Not the turning point -- that would've been the trade -- but the part where the turn becomes impossible to ignore and impossible to stop. Scaly Lizardman Monster's going down.

So, is this it? They proved it against Los Angeles, against the Magic, ad infinitum against teams that don't matter. There's the sword, and in a pinch we can manage without. All we need is the will.

Guys?
-BJ

These Are The Celtics. They Are The Ruiners Of My Day.

Sensed it coming.

The visit from the Boston Celtics back in '08 was the second live game I attended. First of all, it was bright and sunny but viciously cold. Second, I got hung up at work. Third, I missed the bus and had to wait 45 minutes for another one (at the time I worked out at the butt-end of Irving, clear the hell to fuck and gone by DFW Airport). By the time I got to the arena, the first quarter was over. The Mavs losing 94-90 was the rancid pickle on a shit sandwich of a day. PS: I hate pickles.

Yesterday followed a similar pattern -- no measureable impact on the Daily Chore List (the Mavs Fan Shop doesn't carry sweatshirts/hoodies/jackets in sizes larger than 2X, the cell phone I want is out of stock everywhere), a communication breakdown between me and my ride, a Painted Fan section full of Painted Fan virgins (yes I know it sucks that half the section is standing room only, it wasn't my idea) and the Mavericks doing the resident Celtics fans a favor by getting a lot of it wrong at the worst possible time.

To be fair, this wasn't as bad as last year's Boston at Dallas -- the one where we blew a 20+ lead and Coach asked Dirk to be Jesus. But it was bad enough.

Being surrounded by Painted People when the game looks like a winner, when you've been genuinely thrilled, when things are going well, is a joy. And then it all went wrong. My brain, still happily drunk on dopamine and other THIS ROCKS! brain drugs, watched in horror as a seven point lead evaporated, as everything Boston threw up went down and through, as the panic shots missed, as every attempt at an offense led to Bad Things.

I'm not in the habit of second-guessing Coach, not really. But Rajon Rondo is exactly the kind of point guard the Mavericks have problems with, because he can think and move very very quickly. My specific second guess has to do with not putting Rodrigue in the game sometime in the first half whilst Rondo was in for Boston and seeing if that matchup was workable. And if it had been, serving Roddy some fourth-quarter minutes at the two or the point.

In any event, the Mavericks have dropped two of their last three making a lot of the same mistakes. I went outside in a bad state and stood there forever waiting for my ride. Wearing a T-shirt and a wrap. In twenty degrees.

Dear Mavericks et al; if I get pneumonia and die, it's you guys's fault.
-BJ