Both Teams Played Hard

It was a good game, both teams played hard. Both teams played hard, my man. Both teams played hard. Both teams played hard, God bless and good night.

-Rasheed Wallace

I like post game press conferences. I like trying to name the reporters asking questions while at the same time convincing myself that I don't have a sports problem. For anyone wondering, I'm about 50% this post season. I need to spend the off season working on my local newspapers.

But sometimes I wish all press conferences were like Rasheed's because then we could just move on to playing the next game. Instead, we get canned responses and overreactions. We had Dirk saying that this was a huge momentum swing for the Mavs. Of course he would say that. He has to. They have to believe that as a team to try and get a leg up. Of course LeBron blames the defense. He wouldn't dare say he bailed out the Mavs defense by taking 26 footers for the last 5 minutes of the game. Of course the Mavs said that Wade's pose after his three pointer in front fo their bench motivated them. Of course coach Spoelstra says his team will respond. None of this should come as a surprise to anyone.

Nor should this series being tied at 1 game a piece going back to Dallas. There was a moment when I was expecting Miami to sweep somewhere between 9 minutes left in the game and Wade's 3 pointer. I even had a Dwyane F. Wade tweet loaded up to send before deciding to take a more even tempered approach. But we all knew this would end up being a back and forth series.

After Game 1 we were planning parade routes in Miami. After Game 2 we were on the phone with the engravers spelling Nowitzki. I think they hand out the MVP after Game 3, so be sure to stick around for the post game.

Dragon Slaying

The Lakers, Spurs, Blazers, Nuggets, Jazz, Suns and Mavs have all been staples of the Western Conference playoffs the last decade or so. This lack of diversity in the Playoff gene pool has led to some great playoff games, great meltdowns and a great set up for this year. The late 90's proved to be the same kind of scenario in the Eastern Conference with the Knicks, Bulls, Pacers, and Heat. Coming from those series were a number of great Jordan moments, Reggie's theatrics and heroics versus the Knicks, and the Playoffs best announcer, Jeff Van Gundy, clinging to Alonzo Mourning's leg. It seemed that every year a Heat/Knicks matchup was inevitable, because it was. From 1997-2000, they met every year in the Playoffs and played the maximum number of games each series, with the clinching game of the series being decided in the closing moments of the game. Miami only beat the Knicks in one of those four series, the first one in 1997. After that, the Knicks became Miami's dragon; the naturally sworn enemy and inevitable matchup for the Heat, a matchup they could never overcome.

The Heat went through another stretch, although much shorter and less dramatic, when a matchup with the Detroit Pistons seemed destined every year. This may have had more to do with the Pistons versus Shaquille O'Neal (dating back to their upset of the Shaq/Malone/Kobe Lakers), but it was the Heat's dragon to slay if they wanted to win a championship. This year, the west is full of such destined matchups. Mavs/Spurs. Jazz/Nuggets. Suns/Spurs. Jazz/Lakers (potential). Suns/Lakers (potential). Lakers/Spurs (potential). Jazz/Spurs (potential). Its almost a paper/rock/scissors set up. Spurs own the Suns, Lakers own the Jazz, Spurs own the Lakers, Lakers own the Suns, and for the sake of the analogy lets just say the Jazz own the Suns. Each team seems to have a date with destiny, a passage though fire, or any other cliched hero/dating reference. Somebody is going to have to slay their team's figurative dragon.

Who wins in all this melee? We do. The way the first round has gone, we can almost assume that round two will be turned up to 11. I'm still hoping that Kevin Durant walks on water for the next two games of the Lakers/Thunder series, but if not it doesn't mean that the best basketball is behind us. Rather, its yet to come.

All-Star Weekend 2010 Roundup

Remember when there were 108,000+ people were watching basketball on the same tv in the same room?

Remember when Gerald Wallace actually cared during All-Star Weekend?

Remember when Deron Williams exacted his revenge on the Nuggets and kept Carmelo from winning the MVP?

Remember when Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Dwight Howard had a dunk contest?

Official TBC Results from that contest: 1.Wade 2. LeBron (could have won but had a couple too many layups) 3. Howard (though he might have had the dunk of the game)

Mister Congeniality

Some people here at TBC seem to think Miss Congeniality is better than Miss Congeniality 2. That is because they are Jazz fans and Dirk did his best Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous impression tonight.

How do you say "Thrown Under The Bus" in German?

See Dirk talk (on 5ivemag.com).

See Dirk talk candidly.

See Dirk candidly throw several folks under der Autobus.

Throw who?

Say hello to the bottom of the bus or at least the back of Dirk's German slap....

Shawn Bradley, such an easy (and easy to hit) target. Pick on someone your own size, Dirk. Oh. Wait.

But, sure it’s bitter sometimes when a teammate doesn’t invest the necessary time. The best example was Shawn Bradley. He would some times come to training camp and not had a ball in his hands for four months. But what can you do? There is no rule.

Coach Avery Johnson, gone but not forgotten.

... hoped that Coach would let (Jason Kidd) play (Kidd's) way, that we would play quicker and have more fun. But just the opposite happened. Avery pushed his style on Jason. It was tough throwing a guy like him into a system which he didn't really like.

Dwyane Wade, almost complimented

(In the Finals) Dwayne Wade just played out of his mind, hit threes and got every whistle.

Karl Malone, if Dirk doesn't win a championship he PRAYS to be put in the same sentence as you, Stockton, and Barkley.

What Karl Malone did back then - heading to L.A. after all those years in Utah - yeah it was a little questionable. But when you want the championship so bad, then you can’t rule out a move like that.

Whoever Decided To Make Basketball A Team Sport, who totally ruined it for Dirk. Wah wah wah. So, Dirk, if basketball were an individual sport, you think you'd be winning championships over whom? Kobe? Wade? LeBron? Sure, pal. Sure.

I know I’m not in an individual sport. If I were in track and field maybe I would have won something big by now.

The Fair Police, who apparently took some days off. Further wah. Your team, by the way, got a Hall of Famer for Devin Harris. For the record, Kidd has only been in the league one more year than KG.

But the other teams have gotten so strong, also through some unfair trades -- Pau Gasol to Los Angeles and Kevin Garnett to Boston.

Dirkn't We Almost Have It All

I've been a real Dirk Doubter this season. Sure, the numbers were fine. But I wasn't a believer. "The guy is Mailmanally un-clutch." "His stats aren't meaningful." "That mouthguard is disgusting." When he made the All-Star Team, my first thought was that it was a legacy pick rather than a merit pick.

So I watched Dallas/Boston last night and began to believe.

He was a scoring machine. Making circus shots. Hitting tough shots. All against one of the toughest, most notorious defenses in the league and a highly motivated, very physical reigning Defensive Player of the Year in Kevin Garnett.

But Dirk didn't back down. KG got in his face, tried to intimidate, did the (tired, oops did I say that out loud?) KG thing, but Dirk was cool. Unflappable. He refused to be flapped.

They were leading. They were staying tough. Dirk was putting the Mavericks on his shoulders and taking them home.

And then they lost.

Dream Team-Up, Pt. 5

BFF

Dirk: Hey! hows it goin
Steve: good man u
Dirk: good u hear about the 2 on 2
Steve: u mean the all * thing
Dirk: yeah
Steve: yeah shaq told me
Dirk: oh

(twenty minutes pass)

Dirk: u wanna do it

(two hours pass)

Dirk: did u get my txt
Steve: oh yeah srry
Dirk: its cool

(ten minutes pass)

Steve: u c valkyrie? prty good.
Dirk: not yet guys went last nite

(next day...Dirk shoots 2-19 that night)

Dirk: hey! how was ur game
Steve: good we won
Dirk: cool
Dirk: u dcide about the 2 on 2
Steve: oh yeah srry
Dirk: its cool

(thirty minutes pass)

Steve: my fntsy soccer team is struggling
Dirk: srry man

(next day)

Dirk: i saw valkyrie
Steve: cool
Dirk: yeah tom is guten
Steve: gluten?
Dirk: good
Steve: oh
Dirk: so the 2 on 2
Steve:
Dirk: what was that got an empty msg

(4 hours later)

Dirk: hey the 2 on 2 thing
Steve: oh yeah
Dirk: wanna do it
Steve: sure shaqs doin it
Dirk: cool i turned r thing in

THE STERN BRACKET: A (ROUND ONE)

Let's kick off our OJ Hypothetical 2008 NBA Playoffs with the first round of Stern Bracket, A.

#2 DETROIT vs #15 TORONTO

To no one’s surprise, the Pistons strut, swagger, and circle dance their way to a 3-0 series lead. The plot thickens, however, when Rasheed Wallace, Rip Hamilton, and Chauncey Billups fail to show up for Game 4. Depending on which press release you believe, they either a) couldn’t find the arena due to a mixup involving “Centre” and “Center”, or b) took their usual, Piston-patented bout of complacency to an all-new, all-too-literal level. The Raptors squeeze out a quadruple OT win when, just as the third overtime is about to begin, one of the games Vince Carter mailed in years ago (but apparently got lost in the Canadian post) miraculously appears at Air Canada Centre/Center to nudge them over the top. Sheed, Rip, and Chauncey have little trouble finding their homecourt and kill Toronto’s cute little underdog puppy of a season in Game 5, once again re-asserting that Kid Rock is just a little less douchey than Bryan Adams and that America Junior only wins sports you can play on ice.

#7 PHOENIX vs #10 DALLAS
This matchup (clunkily entitled The Battle Of The Hugely Risky Trades That’ll Probably Result In Some Rolling Heads, or Subplots That David Stern Couldn’t Have Rigged Better, or Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock) is tight. The series knotted 2-2, Mark Cuban and Steve Kerr get bold, making history with the only trade ever completed during the playoffs: two shoo-in Hall of Famers straight across, Shaq for Kidd. With Shaq in the middle and Dirk finally playing Giant Power Forward like the Germans engineered him to, the Mavs ruin Kidd’s homecoming and steal homecourt.
Master (Kidd) and pupil (Nash) fail to coexist when it becomes apparent to the trained eye that one of them still has it and one of them doesn’t, and that the titles don’t exactly fit anymore. So, down 2-3, the Suns beg for a tradeback. Cuban hates to mess with success, but only slightly less than he hates missing the chance to get front page headlines. Green light!
Dallas fans know it’s a bad omen when they show up at Reunion Arena for Game 6 and it’s Chuck Palahniuk Night. The first 1,500 fans get copies of Choke. Palahniuk is disappointed when there’s no Fight Club-esque twist at the end and the Mavs simply choke. “So expected,” he derisively declares when asked.

In a panic, the teams trade yet again. Years later, this series will be considered The Series That Most Resembled Fantasy Sports.

Game 7, gives us our obligatory NBA/Scarface parallel when Nash kills his best friend. Not just winning the game, either. In a tragic accident, during one of the 674 times per game that Dirk takes his mouthpiece out, a lock of Nash’s flowing Canadian mane gets in there and chokes Nowitzki to death. “Better,” says Palahniuk. Shaq can’t resist: “I’m the Big Tiger. Steve’s the Little Hairball.”