Some Spurs Perspective Down the Stretch

With five games left and the Mavericks impersonating Sybil, the Spurs are quietly playing some good basketball at the perfect time of year.  They're only two and a half games behind Dallas in the Southwest division.  San Antonio is 7-3 over its last 10 games with impressive road wins over Boston and the Lakers and home wins against Cleveland and Orlando.  Interestingly, they do have a stinker loss against New Jersey serving as the only blemish during a 5-1 stretch.

The DMN's Brad Townsend breaks it down here.  Long story short, if the Mavs tank and the Spurs win the regular season finale, by virtue of a few tiebreaks, San Antonio could win the division.

The Spurs had just a 4-4 record when they came to Dallas on November 14th.  They actually dropped to 4-6 and back to 9-9 in November.  I asked Tim Duncan about that .500 mark and about their general approach on the season.  He told me that they don't get too concerned with the first few months of the regular season.  "We want to be playing our best basketball going into the playoffs," he deadpanned, looking over to his PR guy hoping that he would end the interview after just the third question.  (The PR guy didn't)

Duncan's bunch doesn't seem to have that identity crisis that's plaguing the Mavericks.  Will it get them any a first-round series win?  Who knows but theirs is certainly a good philosophy to have.

Mavs Knock Nuggets Down and More.

After Dallas' win over Denver, coupled with Utah's win over New York, the Nuggets fall to 5th in the Western conference.  They entered Monday's game tied for 2nd in the West with the Mavericks.  How crazy is that?

Detes on that, Dirk's triple double and more after the Mavericks 109-93 win over the Nuggets on Monday night here in YouTube video blog.

One thing I didn't touch on: Rodrigue Beaubois.  The hot topic this morning was just how much Roddy B would play vs the Nuggets.  The pre-game media throng that included, the Dallas Morning News' Jean-Jacques Taylor, the Star-Telegram's Jen Floyd-Engel and Dallasmavs.com's Earl K Sneed set the over/under at 14 minutes.  A number of people, including Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and yours truly, took the over.  Turns out we were right just by a hair.  Beaubois' line: 14 minutes 56 seconds, five points, three steals, one assist and two fouls.  This prompted my partner in pre- and post-game crime Derek Harper to remind everyone who had just punched Beaubois' ticket to the basketball hall of fame that "40 is hard to follow-up" and that it "doesn't happen every night".  True that but I think we can all agree there's a lot to look forward to with the 22-year old Guadelope native.

Mindless Trivia Time:
Now from the dumb question department: without checking Google, do you know what a Guadeloupe native is called?  Guadelopian? Not sure.

What I am sure of, though, is that those indigenous to the US territory Guam are called Chamorro.  How do I know?  Because for six months I lived right on the Phillipine Sea on that tiny little island. 

And with that, I bid you a good night!

10 Games To Go And What Do You Know?

Two things I've noticed:

1) Taking a break from blogging blows.  I missed it.  I had a very entertaining stretch that included a FABULOUS 80th birthday party for stepdad, Ed Hipps.  A Marilyn Monroe impersonator made his night. 

2) During the Mavericks 2-4 stretch, they haven't been pushing the ball enough.

Dallas has only two wins in its last six games with those wins coming over the Clippers and Bulls.  In that span, the Mavericks have been putting up just 13 fast break points a game.  You could argue they hit rock bottom against Portland when they laid a goose egg.  ZERO fast break points compared to the Blazers' 16.  Ouch.

During their 13-game win streak, Dallas put up 20.15 fast break points a game.  Fast break points are just one element but it's definitely a strong contributing factor to this six-game span.  Add to that, Dallas has taken less free throws lately with no more than 20 in the last four games heading into the Warriors game and there are some points lefts on the court that they were getting during the win-streak. 

So what the hell is going on? 

The Mavericks, the most veteran team in the NBA, are struggling at one of the most important times of the season. This is when their experience should be paying off yet it seems to have disappeared.

My Mavs Game Night partner, Derek Harper, is adamant that successful veteran teams team should place emphasis on closing a season strongly.  No doubt the coach is placing an emphasis on this but are the players?  The timing of this stumble is concerning.   Where will the Mavs be at the end of this 10 game stretch?  I don't know.  And I am not sure if anyone knows which version of the Mavs team will show up once the playoffs begin.

Mavs Beat Bulls and A Bull Almost Beats Harp!

Does Dallas lack a killer instinct? Dirk says kinda sorta. Why was Jason Terry all stopped up? PLUS, which Bulls player shot Derek the devil eyes?

Check out my latest video blog for the answers to all those questions and more!


One Addendum:

Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said after the game that Jason Kidd asked to sit out at the start of the fourth quarter because his knees were sore.  Kidd after the game that it wasn't an issue,  the game was in hand and that he wanted to "let the other guys play".  The Bulls did get to within seven, so the game wasn't quite that in control.

 Ok, there's a disconnect. 

Simple miscommunication?  Perhaps.  The real story might lie somewhere in between.  Right now, I'm not losing sleep over it.

OH!  One more from the RANDOM department: 
Former Nets coach Lawrence Frank was at the game.  He came up to Harp after the game to say hello.   Remember New Jersey fired him in November?  He said life is great right now.  He's being paid to hang.  Nice.

I happened to see him sit down in the stands during the pregame show and I was like "is that Lawrence Frank?!?!?".  He's all of 5'7 so he's kind of hard to pick out of a crowd.

Why in the hell I kind of know him is because he was an assistant coach at the University of Tennessee under Kevin O'Neill when I covered the Vols.  MAN, could I tell you some stories (about O'Neill, not Frank).  They would all involved some serious curse words and questionable behavior.

Anyway, Frank doesn't remember me at all and has no clue who I am because I was as low-level and spare as they come.  That being said I never, ever felt comfortable around that Tennessee coaching staff.  Just saying.

And To End on a Positive Note: 
Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro couldn't have been nicer.   He came up to say hello to Derek (which almost everyone does - players & coaches LOVE him).  Del Negro has had a tough few months and admitted as much.  He was so nice to introduce himself to me and say hello.  Just saying.

Chewing the Straw with Caron Butler

I didn't really know what to expect when I sat down for an interview with Caron Butler.  Aside from a brief introductory "hello", teaming upwith him to play ping pong, and a few media scrum interviews, we hadn't chatted much. 

So when we took over the AAC's main media room, delaying the poor production folks who were trying to set up for Tuesday night's Stars/Sharks game, I came away from our 10-minute interview impressed and intrigued with the just-turned-30-year old's perspective on a number of things.

Here are some highlights:
-He doesn't think that Kobe Bryant was blowing smoke when he told me during All-Star weekend that the Mavs/Wizards trade puts Dallas up there with the NBA's elite.  He said that Kobe isn't in the business of saying things he doesn't mean.  In fact, Kobe texted Caron as soon as the trade happened. Tune in tonight to find out what Kobe said.
-He explains why this trade has worked so quickly for Dallas and how much it's reinvigorated him as a player.
-When the trade happened, Mark Cuban wanted to Butler to fly to Dallas immediately and hang out with him during All-Star weekend.
-He outlines the parameters of "strawgate", when he can and can't chew straws and how he started the whole straw-chewing business in the first place.
-And, I know you Tony Romo fans will hate this, he says Romo is a phenomenal athlete and killed his team one time in a basketball game.  His Racine high school team used to play Romo about 3 times a year in high school.

You can hear the rest of Butler's interview on Mavericks Game Night with Derek Harper and me tonight at 7pm on TXA21.

JET Back on the Runway, PT II

Sefko has Rick Carlisle talking about it here.

I talked to Jason Terry on Sunday at Carlisle's ping pong tournament.  He told me point blank he's shooting for a Wednesday return against the Bulls.  Detes of that conversation here. What was interesting is that Terry offered up his return plans.  I didn't have to ask.

Derek Harper and I return from an extended Mavericks Game Night layoff and offer up pre- and post-game coverage of Mavs/Bulls on Wednesday night starting at 7:00pm.

JET Back on the Runway???

A very fragile-looking Jason Terry made an appearance at Rick Carlisle's ping pong tournament on Sunday.  I say fragile because I was almost scared to give him a hello hug.  His face was a tad swollen after having facial surgery on March 5th.  A smidge puffy, would best the way to describe it.

He told me he expects to be back in uniform against the Bulls on Wednesday.  He and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones are the most optimistic people I know. 

"You sure?" I asked.  "Yep." he assured me.  "Wednesday."

I like the effort.  We'll see.