Dallas Mavericks: More Than Just Mark Cuban's Money

How how how could I have neglected this thing for so long when we are right smack dab in the middle of Playoff season?!  I am truly ashamed.

With so much time lost, how do I even proceed?  I think I will just leave the first round of games out completely, considering they're all in the past.  If I tried to write about all of them, I would be sitting on my computer working on this post until Friday.  Instead, I'll look forward.  I am going to do the best I can to at least give this post a little bit of structure, though I am struggling to even organize all of my overflowing NBA/Playoff thoughts in my own head. 

I am going to go ahead and say something that I have debated on whether or not it will make me look like my basketball sense is weak and naive.  I decided to push forward because I tend to enjoy pushing the envelope from time to time all the time.  (Every one of my friends reading this are thinking, "Really, Catharine, we never noticed..." with heavy tones of sarcasm.  They might even be rolling their eyes too.)

Getting into this Laker/Mavs series, I am so sick of hearing all of this "Lakers Are the Cream of the Crop" talk.  Let me explain.

First of all, I would never sit here and try to even hint that the Lakers are not one of the best teams in the league.  They are.  They have impressive depth on their roster with Kobe Bryant, Ron Artest, Pau Gasol, Shannon Brown, Matt Barnes, Andrew Bynam... need I keep going?  Any head coach would envy their great magnitude of players.  That's why they are the defending, back-to-back NBA champions.  That's why they wear the ring.  They're truly a remarkable team, and I am not going to take anything away from their talent or steal the thunder that they had coming into these Playoffs.  Instead, I am going to try and give some to their opponents.

I should probably start off by saying I am a huge Mavs fan.  I don't think that is a secret to anyone (or at least anyone who follows me on Twitter).  I've got my two favorite teams—the Dallas Mavericks and the Chicago Bulls.  One from the West, one from the East.  But it hasn't always been this way.  I didn't grow up in Dallas spending my entire childhood buying Mavs jerseys or hopelessly waiting for the Mavs to get to a playoff final or watching Mavs games at bars in college as a die-hard fan (in fact, I thought Dallas-bred Mav fans were kind of annoying in college... [hopefully] no offense to my many friends who were exactly that...).  I wasn't even on their tail when they made the NBA Finals in 2006.  No, my affection and love for the Mavs has grown abundantly over the years.  Despite their often heartbreaking tendencies to blow it (for a lack of better words), I have, in fact, become that annoying Mavs fan myself—the kind that I thought was annoying in college.  Now, with that out of the way, and with my plain admittance that I obviously want the Mavs to take this series, I am going to try to analyze this and explain my point as neutrally as I can.  (You're going to have to cut me some slack, I'm just warning you.) 

As I have already stated, I think, know, and understand that the Lakers are a brilliant basketball team.  They know what it takes to win, and that's what they do.  But I just can't bring myself to agree with some of these basketball analysts who say that even when both the Lakers and the Mavs are playing at their best level, the Lakers will take the series—the Mavs' best just isn't "good enough," and it can't match up to the Lakers' best.  (This is probably why these "basketball analysts" get paid to do this, and I don't.)  Here's what I have to propose instead.  I think when the Mavs are playing at their very best, they have the ability to hold their opponent to a game that is far from their best.  Are you still with me?  This is getting spotty, I know.  In other words, I think this Mavs team playing at their highest level has the ability to power through their opponents with their offense, knock them off their flow, and eventually win the game.  And I think the Mavs can do this with the Lakers.  It's not going to be an easy task to kick the Lakers' feet out from under them, and the Mavs will undoubtedly have to be on their best game every single night from here on, but I really do think it can be done.  But I also like to say that really anything can be done when you hit the post-season.

I would be lying if I said Dirk Nowitzki was not one of the reasons I am such a Mavs fan.  His game never fails to entertain, and there's so much respect to be paid to the seven foot German who has quietly and humbly carried the entire Mavericks franchise on his back for the past ten years.  In Monday night's game in Los Angeles, he just threw up a double-double like it was easy... second nature.  In fact, he often makes many things look easy, like his fade away jumpers that I sit at my desk and YouTube pretty much daily.  (They never. get. old.  The drive.  The pause.  The one foot.  The lean back that not even the 6'10" Lamar Odom can reach over and touch as Dirk is shooting.  Oh, right... back to the point of this post.)  But the Mavs are not just Dirk.  Tyson Chandler, Shawn Marion, Caron Butler (who, unfortunately, isn't playing right now), Jason Kidd, Brendan Haywood, Jason Terry—the Mavs have depth.  But the best person to prove this right now is Corey Brewer.  Though he is relatively new to Dallas, he has had a huge impact off the bench.  His impact was evident on Monday night when he played only eight minutes, but scored 5 points, was 2 of 4 from the field, and threw in a rebound.  Brewer came out with sizzling energy and valiantly showcased his determination and effort to turn the game around.  By the time Brewer headed back to the bench, the Mavs had tightened the score from 60-44 to 71-66.  And then they just kept rolling.  I won't go on and recap the rest of the game, talking about how agonizing it must feel when you're a team playing against Dirk and you have to foul him knowing he'll sink his free-throws ninety percent of the time, or about how frustrated Kobe probably felt having such a great look and missing a shot he's made hundreds of times, or about how the Lakers felt with those late turnovers in the game.  Instead, I'll just keep it short: the Mavs could not and would not have been able to close a 16-point gap against the Lakers on Laker territory if they weren't a great team with a great chance to win, even against the defending champs.  They didn't close a 16-point lead because they're just an average team who got lucky against a mis-stepping Lakers team.  After all, the Mavs don't have some of the best road winning stats for no reason.  And granted, the Lakers didn't play at their best Monday night, but neither did the Mavs.  Looking forward, Dallas has got to step up their defense in this series.  It often isn't a strong point for my beloved Mavs.  They can't just let Kobe throw up uncontested jumpers all night long. But on Monday night, they played hard and clawed their way back into the game to seal it by only 2 points, and proved that their best is yet to come in this series.

For anyone who thinks the Mavs are just a franchise pumped full of money by Mark Cuban, you're a little right.  They are a franchise pumped full of money by Mark Cuban, but they're not just that.  They have so much raw, gritty talent, and when they're playing at their best, they can power their way to the top.  And in this case, they can power their way past the Lakers in this series.  I don't think the Mavs actually silenced some of their critics on Monday night by hanging on, but I definitely think they brought them down to a whisper.  This is not four straight games all given to the Lakers.  It's going to be a battle, and even if the Lakers take it, it is sure going to be fun as hell to watch.  And speaking of watching basketball, I'm heading out now to go do just that.

Just What the Clippers Ordered

I'm still trying really hard to remember the opening paragraph of that first post I wrote.  I'm highlighting the keywords in my head—improve, carefree, inhibition-less, who cares about imperfections—and trying to remind myself it is okay to post most of the content that comes to my mind, regardless of its ability to actually wow an audience.  Writing a blog and getting into that mode can be challenging.  All of the sudden during the day when you see something interesting, read something worthwhile, or randomly think of a great idea, you're caught in a daze for a couple of minutes plotting and thinking of how to put that into a paragraph with complete sentences and a fluid idea.  If you think as randomly and as bullet point-esque as I do, it can be a task.  That being said, the following might be unoriginal, mundane, and things you have already heard, read, and seen before, but I just gotta say it.

Blake Griffin.  I can already see you at your desk rolling your eyes.  "Catharine, seriously?  Who hasn't said something about Blake Griffin?"  My response to you: he is that good.  He is good enough to garner all the hype.  He is good enough for everyone and their dad to write about.  He is good enough to garner Rookie of the Year speculation.  And he is good enough for me to write yet another something else about him. 

Let me just say, I remember watching Blake Griffin at OU two years ago.  When they played UT, I was just simply like, "Who the hell is this guy?"  I mean, he was just good.  Like raw, natural, gritty talent.  When he walks on a court, he demands presence be it in the NCAA or the NBA.  He plays basketball, he gets done what needs to be done, and most importantly [for the Clippers], he puts on a show. 

So let me just bulldoze right past all the stats to my point here.  Blake Griffin, great ability and superb stats aside, is exactly what the Clippers needed as an organization.  After all, a few years back during the draft, Charles Barkley threw out his infamous "turrible" label in reference to the Clippers as an organization.  And who couldn't agree with him?  The Clippers?  Oh right, that other Los Angeles team.  That no one cares about.  And then, with a 17.7% chance of being awarded the first pick in the 2009 NBA draft lottery, the Clippers got that first pick, and in comes Blake Griffin.  After sitting out during the 2009-2010 season due to a a kneecap injury, he has exploded and taken the NBA by storm this entire season.  His ability to capture the rowdy crowds of professional basketball is everything that you hope the draft you choose will possess (and utilize).  His transition from college ball to NBA hoops has been almost as seamless as any we have ever seen.  He consistently lives up to his "#1 Draft Pick" stigma.  In last night's game against the Thunder, he grabbed his 61st double-double of the season, scoring 35 points and pulling down 11 rebounds.  I don't think the guy is going to win any three-point shootout contests anytime soon, but he did win the 2011 Slam Dunk Contest for a reason (albeit, I wasn't that impressed with the car dunk, but more impressed with the half-of-my-arm-is-in-the-basket dunk...).  But the dunks are exactly what get Clippers fans on their feet.  Every time Griffin dunks, be it backwards like in last night's game or be it monstrously over the Knicks' Timofey Mozgov, the crowd goes wild.  And that's what the Clippers franchise truly needs right now—someone to put on a show.  They don't need someone to put up back-to-back triple-doubles (though Griffin recently did put up a sick triple-double against the Wizards with 33 points, 17 rebounds, and 10 assists).  The loyal Clippers fans (and those who come just to see Griffin play) need gritty, showy, DID-YOU-SEE-THAT!? basketball that makes them feel like they're at the movies instead of at Staples Center. 

Sometimes, teams just need players.  I talked extensively in my last post about how Butler needed Matt Howard.  In 1978, the Celtics needed Larry Bird.  And in a really terrible attempt to try and hide my love for Dennis Rodman, the entire game of basketball needed him in the nineties.  In 2010, the Clippers needed Blake Griffin—Griffin is a new era of basketball for the Clippers.  Despite the fact that they're obviously not going to win an NBA championship title this year, the Clippers are doing just fine.  They're on the road to re-building their franchise through a player who could not have come at a more perfect time.  Blake Griffin has put that "other team" right back in the heart of LA.

Off & Rolling: All [of] America's Team

I have decided to start a blog.  The only regret I have about starting this blog is that I wish I had done it earlier (when college hoops were in full-swing).  I have to blame my over-analyzing, unnecessarily-stressing self for this regret, because each time I had a great entry ready to go, I would shut down the browser without saving my work thinking, “It’s just not good enough.”  Finally, after wrestling my inner perfectionist, I decided to stop worrying about the imperfections of my entries.  I want to write in this blog for two reasons: 1) I love to write, and 2) I want to improve my writing.  I see this blog as a tool to improve my writing and to throw out my opinions with often-sarcastic commentary.  So if I want to improve, who cares if many entries are far from perfect, lacking in wit, or contain terribly wrong statistics?  I shouldn’t.  I want to get better.  So in my best attempt to throw my carefree, inhibition-less foot forward, I am off and rolling.

I am fairly certain it is no foreign matter to anyone who knows me that I simply have one true love above all other things in my life—basketball.  (I should really say that it is not foreign to anyone who actually even meets me, because there’s a very good chance I am talking about b-ball within the first 10 minutes of any meet-and-greet.)  I have a feeling a lot of my entries will be devoted to this time-consuming lover of mine; but I can’t say this blog will be exclusively sports, because when golf is the only sport out there to discuss, I likely won’t have anything to say.  (I did play golf in high school, and in one tournament, I shot a 148.  And yes, please feel free to judge me for that, because I do on a regular basis.)  I can’t claim to be an expert about sports—truly, I am far from it—but I do pride myself on knowing quite a bit about basketball.  No, I can’t play it, and I would, in fact, be embarrassed to even hold a basketball.  But I am fortunate to have two good eyes, and I can watch it and spectate like a pro.  Just to nicely wrap up my feelings for basketball, I, like any player of the sport, am always trying to get better on how I understand and analyze the players, the plays, the shots, the calls, and the list goes on.  So please understand this!  Don’t lambaste me when I say something stupid (I undoubtedly will) and shake your head thinking, “What a dumb, unfortunate girl.”  Trust me, I have thought the same thing about myself on far too many occasions—far more times than you will be able to think it yourself.    

So now that we have that out of the way, I just have to break down last night’s NCAA title game.  Frankly, I don’t have a lot of interest in actually talking about the game.  Let’s all face it: no matter how much we all love college basketball, this game can’t even be chalked up to either good or enjoyable.  Butler couldn’t make shots in the paint.  UConn was having just as much trouble getting shots past Butler’s defense in the first half.  There were very few times anyone got to shout “AND-1, BABY!”  Essentially, UConn did fewer things wrong than Butler did, making them the 2011 title-holder.  So it’s not the game itself I want to talk about—I just want to talk about Butler. 

It’s been said a million times in the media before now, but this match-up warrants another time asking, who in the world predicted this pairing?!  Experts from multiple outlets had Butler bowing out first round to one of the nation’s leading rebounding teams, Old Dominion.  There was no way that Matt Howard or Andrew Smith could be the necessary rebounding big guys needed to defeat ODU and muscle Butler past the first round this year.  But they did… on a clutch buzzer-beating shot by none other than Matt Howard himself.  Ah, so lucky.  They were then a sure bet to be out next round, playing a highly favored Pittsburgh team.  But they got that one done, too, in a game that every person was still reading blogs about and watching highlights of at work the entire following week.  Butler continued their roll through Wisconsin, Florida (a game I surely thought would go to the Gators with their outstanding senior line-up this season and Coach Billy Donovan at the wheel), and past VCU for a spot in the NCAA National Championship game for the second year in a row.  With a tournament showing like that, I might argue that anyone who has something negative to say about the Bulldogs, even after their disappointing 18.8% shooting performance in last night’s game, doesn’t have a soul.  No, I cannot sit here at my computer and say that Butler had an even remotely good performance in the title game last night.  To perform like that during arguably the most important game of your college basketball career has to be truly disheartening.  But Butler is America’s team.  When I think about Butler, I always thought about Brad Stevens and Gordon Hayward.  How can you not, with Stevens taking his Butler team to consecutive national title games and with Gordon Hayward shooting a half-court shot in last year’s title game that almost, almost won the game for the Bulldogs at the buzzer?  Two images truly indicative of how crazy and mad college basketball really is. 

But this season, my “Butler image” has changed.  When I think about Butler, I now, and will until someone just as tenacious and delightful to watch comes along, associate them with Matt Howard.  To me, so much of this NCAA tournament was about his love for the game and his evident attempt to selflessly help Butler win.  The guy is not a stat-stuffer.  (I don’t think stat stuffing is a bad thing.  Plenty of guys are supremely talented athletes who have an innate ability to play every aspect of the game.  But we all know there are some stat-stuffers who selfishly do it for the wrong reasons.  Think three letters: N, B, and A.)  Matt Howard had some great stats and some clutch moves throughout this tournament, but what shines through to me the most is his desire to win as a team.  I can’t quote him, because I will most certainly misfire here, but in an interview before Butler’s match-up with Florida, Howard said something to the tune of “you want the last game that you ever play to be a win.”  Charlie Sheen, take note.  This is the truest form of a winning attitude that an athlete can express through words.  I always remember past NCAA tournaments—where I was, whom I watched the games with, what players stood out the most during the important games.  This NCAA tournament won’t be plagued with Butler’s inability to shoot in the final game or my pondering during the game if the German UConn player, Niels Giffey, was a walk-on or not.  (I obviously now know that he was not.)  No, this tournament I will remember Matt Howard’s love of the game, which will then take me back to regular season when he stood on the court with a bloody face for such a long time that one might have thought he was trying to let photographers get his picture, but really actually just didn't want to leave the game… which will then take me back to his ability to put up a free-throw under major pressure to snag the win against Pitt... which will then take me back to... the list goes on. 

Matt Howard will likely go un-drafted come time to pull out the big guns for the NBA, but what he and the Butler Bulldogs did in this tournament alone will undoubtedly resonate.  In the press conference after Monday’s game, Brad Stevens was asked what Matt Howard as a player meant to him and the team: “That kid never took one day off…You know he’s the Academic All-American of the Year for a reason: because he works harder than everybody else…I told him in the locker room, ‘I don’t have time to talk about all that you mean to our school.’”  I can only add one thing to Stevens’ comments: I don’t have time to talk about all that Matt Howard and Butler mean to the brilliance and heart of college basketball.