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
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.
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