Mavs playoff preview

This will be my thoughts of the Mavs going into the playoffs this year. I will, time permitting, do another post regarding the rest of the league, or possibly 2 with 1 for each conference.




This Mavs team is more prepared to make a run at the title than any in Mavs history, including those of the '80's. They have a superstar that NO ONE in the league can stop. Dirk is the ONLY player in the league in the top 10 in both points(4th) and rebounds(9th). They are the deepest team in the league, with 2 guys coming off the bench that would start for many of the other playoff teams(Stackhouse and Van Horn). The have a viable big man in the middle(Dampier). A well balanced offense and good defense that has showed real stopping power at times late in the season.

There defense is much improved over previous seasons. And was so even before Avery Johnson took over. I love AJ but I do think he is getting just a little too much credit for the way this team is playing. I think it has as much to do with the players as him. The Mavs have never had a center even close to Dampier before and he is making a difference. Josh Howard's ability on defense showed last year but he has gotten even better this year. Jason Terry is defensively an improvement over Nash at the point. Dirk has really stepped up his game in this area. I do think AJ has made an impact but I just think the local media is going crazy with it. There defense has been improved all season. They have blocked 10+ shots in a game 8 times. They are 4th in steals and 7th in blocks. The Mavs are 4th in point differential, scoring 102.5 while giving up 96.8. Another interesting stat they have the best record in the NBA (41-15) since Jason Terry took over as the starting PG on 12/18.

All that being said they do have some problem areas. The biggest of which is that they still really don't have a defensive stopper at the SG/SF position. Josh is improving in this area, but he still gets burned for 40+ too often by the likes of McGrady, Bryant, Lebron, etc.. This could really come to haunt this year. With McGrady in the first round, and if they move on Q. Richardson and Shawn Marion in the second, Ginobli(Don't sleep in him, he is a VERY good player, all-star caliber) in the West finals and in the NBA final probably Wade or Rip Hamilton. In other words every team they will face has a great 2 guard or SF.

They also lack playoff experience. I know that sounds weird for a team that has been in the playoffs for 5 straight years but they do. Terry and Damp have never even sniffed they playoffs. Josh Howard is a second year man, and Stack, Van Horn, and Harris have little to no playoff experience. Avery Johnson has never coached a playoff game, and has only coached 18 games since he became head coach, and had never coached before that.

I'm not really sure how far they can go. I'm confident that they can and should make it to the Western Conf. Finals and could make it to the NBA Finals. The Spurs will be a real test but I think they can beat them. Not sure if they will, but they can. I think that this year will be an experience year. I think they will lose to the Spurs in 7 in the Western Conf. Finals and next year be ready to win it all.

Napoleon everywhere!

Saw this on BobandDan.net and thought it was a giggle.

Cowboys Schedule

The NFL schedule came out the other day and after reviewing it I thought I would dole out my thoughts on how the Cowboys fared.
The season starts with 3 out of the first 4 on the road. Not exactly the nicest way to start a season, but the teams aren't that good, with 1 exception. That would be the first game @ San Diego. Starting off the season against LT, Brees and Gates can't bring a smile to the defense. Especially after how bad they were last year. But I guess one way to look at it is that it will be a good test for the new guys. Lets hope they get a Safety or LB that can hang with Gates.

After that it's at home against Washington. You can never tell who will win a game between the Boys and the Skins but it is a home game so I will hope they can pull it out. The game will either be an exciting game between to old rivals with great coaches or a crapfest game between two bad teams with coaches that have lost it.

Then it's out to San Fran and Oakland. Need I say more. Even with Moss Oakland is a bad team. The schedule then evens out with 3 of the next four at home then the bye.

For the out of division games I thought the Boys caught a break. They got the NFC West and the AFC West. The NFC West was the worst division in the NFL last year with a record of 25-39. None of the teams(Seattle, St. Lou, Arizona, or San Fran) are that hard to beat. The AFC west was better at 34-30 but only San Diego scares me. Denver and KC are good teams but the Boys should win at least one of those. And Oakland's Oakland even with Moss.
NFC West

AFC West

2 for the wallet

The add on games are winnable with Detroit here and @ Carolina. Both teams could be much improved from last year, but so should the Boys.

Then you have the NFC East. Philly will be the dominant force in the NFC East while both the Giants and Skins should be better. But the Cowboys should split the series against both the Giants and Skins and hopefully pull one out against the Eagles.


My predicton at this point is 9-7, but that could change before the season starts. I will give my official predication after the preseason games.

Overall I think it is a pretty good schedule, but the NFL is such a crapshoot now all of this is really crap. who knows the Niners could win it all. That's todays NFL.

Finally to ensure this season will be an unparalleled success, the Cowboys have made the biggest signing yet. Here is the press release straight from DallasCowboys.com

The Dallas Cowboys signed free agent punter Clinton Greathouse on Tuesday.
Greathouse is a 5-10, 221-pound punter from Texas Tech. He originally signed
with Baltimore as a rookie free agent in 2004 but was released prior to the
start of the season. In three seasons as the Red Raiders punter, Greathouse
averaged 39.7 yards-per-punt on 131 career kicks. Greathouse joins Mat McBriar
as the two punters currently on the Cowboys roster.

Who?

50 Again!

On April 5th the Mavs passed the 50 win mark for the 5th straight year. In the 20 years before that the Mavs had only broke that barrier twice('86 and '87 seasons). They are also 1 of only 2 teams that currently have 5 years of 50+ win seasons. The other is the Spurs and this year makes 6 for them. The Kings have a good chance at making it to 50 for the 5th year in a row. They currently have 48 wins with 4 games to go(@LAL, @PHI, @UTA, and PHX).

That is an amazing amount of consistency for a team that reworks it's lineup at least once, and usually twice a year. Up until this year the only consistency had been in the big 3(Dirk, Finley, and Nash) with all the others rotating every offseason and/or trade deadline. This year Cuban and the Nellie's(Don and Donnie) even broke that group up. Letting Nash go to Phoenix and relegating Finley to role player status. The one constant in the situation has been Dirk Nowitzki. He is now the unquestioned leader of the team and that is a good thing. The departure of his buddy Nash spurred him from being just very good player to a great player.


Dirks the reason

A lot of credit also has to be given to the front office (Cuban and the Nellie's) for being willing to change things, despite success, in order to make it to the next level as a team. They won't settle for just winning 50+ games, making into the playoffs and winning a series or two. They want to win it all and will do whatever it takes to do it. I have no doubt with those guys running things there will be many more 50+ win seasons to come.

Missing the Puck

No skating the Cup this year....

Well today would be the start of the NHL Playoffs, if they had bothered to have a season. I will be honest, I had not missed hockey at all until today. But today I do feel a little sadness knowing that hockey is not only going to lose a season but a lot of fans. From the people I talk with, articles I read, and sports radio I listen to it seems as if most really haven't missed the NHL all that much. The hockey season is cluttered with other sports for fans to involve themselves in, NBA, College hoops, Arena football. Lets hope that the 2 sides can get there crap together in time for next season and not let this carry on any longer. Lets also hope that they make some much needed changes in the game to open it up some more so we can watch the great players do their thing and not watch guys huggin' each other all the way across the ice. That way maybe they can get the majority of the fans back quickly.

A Hero

.
This is a Hero, not some athlete. Read more here, or here.
SFC. Paul Ray Smith was posthumously awarded the Medal Of Honor for his actions on April 4, 2003.

Opening Day?

Running Baseball into the ground for 13 years!

Welcome to Major League Baseball's Opening Day. But yesterday was Major League Baseball's Opening Game. So the opening game was the day before the opening day. The opening game on a day when there were 7 exhibition games. Makes sense. Well I guess it is better than last year when they had an opening series in Japan 2 weeks before the season. Where the teams played real games then came back and played more exhibition games. Makes sense. Few things to me are more pleasurable than going to the ballpark and enjoying a dog, a beer, and a game, but it is really hard to get involved when the league keeps running itself into the ground. The Opening Game fiasco is just a laughable symptom of a rotted system. The strikes/lockouts, the ignoring of steroids for so long, the refusal of the league to go to a revenue sharing program, etc., etc. I just have a really hard time getting emptionally involved in a league that is always shooting itself in then foot while holding up it's middle finger to it's fans.

And for tonights big game all I have to say is
.

Next Mav?

In an interesting post script to my last post, here is a preview of a possible future Mav.

Meet Luke Schenscher

Bradley Jr. or just a cousin of Napoleon Dynamite?


7'1"
250 lbs.
Hometown: Hope Forest, South Australia

Season Averages
YR PTS REB AST BLK PF FG% FT%
'05 10.2 7.5 1.3 1.9 2.3 .541 .635
'04 9.2 6.6 0.8 1.4 2.9 .565 .687
'03 3.7 3.1 0.3 0.8 1.8 .472 .526
'02 4.8 3.2 0.8 1.1 2.1 .587 .514

Career Highs
Points: 22, Alabama A&M, 12-17-03
Field Goals: 10, Alabama A&M (10-14), 12-17-03
Field Goal Attempts: 14, Alabama A&M (10-14), 12-17-03
Free Throws: 5, Tennessee State (5-5), 12-6-03; Clemson (5-6), 2-28-04); North Carolina (5-6), 3-12-04; Northern Iowa (5-6); Kansas (5-6), 3-28-04
Free Throw Attempts: 7, Florida State (4-7), 3-2-02
Rebounds: 17, North Carolina, 3-12-04
Assists: 4, Virginia, 1-15-04
Blocked Shots: 5, North Carolina, 2-10-04
Steals: 4, Duke, 2-9-02

WOW a 7'1" Australian with a career high 22 points and 5 blocks.
How can Nellie pass on this?

Guess which he is

Draft Dreams

Hey remember that great 2000 draft when the Mavs had three 1st round picks(#'s 12, 13, and 22). Remember how happy everyone was when they drafted Etan Thomas, Courtney Alexander, and Donnell Harvey. I know I was, and I know the media was. Turns out wasn't that great of a draft after all.

Etan Thomas - Drafted #12 - Career stats PPG 6.5, RPG 5.2, AST 0.4, BLK 1.1
Courtney Alexander - Drafted #13 - Career stats PPG 9.0, RPG 2.2, AST 1.2
Donnell Harvey - Drafted #22 - Career stats PPG 5.6, RPG 4.0, AST 0.8, BLK 0.39

Wow, overwhelming, huh. Now like I said before I was happy with this draft. Not as happy as most of the local media was. I thought they would be really nice bench guys. I thought Alexander would provide scoring while Thomas and Harvey would give us defense and boards. Guess we were all wrong.

Just for a giggle lets look at some guys they could have taken.

Drafted Team
16 SAC Hidayet Turkoglu
17 SEA Desmond Mason
18 LAC Quentin Richardson
19 CHA Jamaal Magloire
21 TOR Morris Peterson
30 LAC Marko Jaric
43 MIL Michael Redd (passed on him 4 times!! Eddie Najera was drafted 38)
44 DET Brian Cardinal

My point isn't to rip the Mavs too much, but I do think that with all those picks they should have been able to get somebody who could play. At the time I really thought that they should take Quentin Richardson instead of Alexander.


Etan Thomas grabbing a rare rebound

To start with

To start with this is gonna be my little forum to vent on mainly sports, but anything else I feel like venting on. Feel free to respond with differing or concurring opinions. But if you are going to disagree make sure you have a something to back it up. Not just you suck or Quincey Carter was too a good QB. I live in Dallas so most of sports thoughts will be about Dallas teams. I will leave you to delineate my political leanings on your own. Although I have a feeling half of the people who read this thing will think I'm a liberal while the other half will think I'm conservative. I guess I just assumed a lot with that little sentence. That would mean that at least 2 people would have to read this thing. Somehow I doubt that is gonna happen.

Well I guess being in Dallas I better start off with some Cowboy talk. Everyone here is, or was, going crazy about the Drew Bledsoe signing. They are acting like it is worse than the Chan Ho signing. Yet there seems to be no major issue with the signing of Anthony Henry! That is more egregious of the two. To pay that much money to a just above average CB. I mean they need help but for that kind of money they could have got Fred Smoot, or Ty Law, or 5 other guys that are better than him.

Oh, and just as an FYI, I don't read blogs, except on the rare occasions when I check out Bob Sturm's or Mark Cuban's, so I have no idea how blogs are supposed to work or what anyone else does. So don't bother telling me. I'm treating this thing as more of an online editorial page. Well that's all for today more to come.