boutons_deux
01-01-2011, 06:37 AM
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/01/01/sports/MAVS/MAVS-articleLarge.jpg
DALLAS — Over the last few seasons, the Dallas Mavericks have changed their point guard, their coach and a sizable chunk of their roster as they tried to keep the window to a championship propped open.
The San Antonio Spurs have been disregarded so many times that they can now be included among the living dead, even though they still possess their three big mainstays: Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.
On Thursday night, these two longtime Texas rivals, both playing better than expected this season, intersected again. The Spurs won, 99-93, but with an asterisk, since the Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki was out with a sprained right knee. And while the victory gave the 28-4 Spurs a three-and-a-half-game lead over the 24-7 Mavericks in the Southwest Division, the overall feeling is that this season’s battle between the teams has only begun.
The Spurs have the best record in the N.B.A.; the Mavericks are second, tied with Boston. More significant, San Antonio and Dallas are making the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers appear vulnerable in the Western Conference for the first time since they obtained Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies in 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/01/sports/basketball/01mavs.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
DALLAS — Over the last few seasons, the Dallas Mavericks have changed their point guard, their coach and a sizable chunk of their roster as they tried to keep the window to a championship propped open.
The San Antonio Spurs have been disregarded so many times that they can now be included among the living dead, even though they still possess their three big mainstays: Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.
On Thursday night, these two longtime Texas rivals, both playing better than expected this season, intersected again. The Spurs won, 99-93, but with an asterisk, since the Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki was out with a sprained right knee. And while the victory gave the 28-4 Spurs a three-and-a-half-game lead over the 24-7 Mavericks in the Southwest Division, the overall feeling is that this season’s battle between the teams has only begun.
The Spurs have the best record in the N.B.A.; the Mavericks are second, tied with Boston. More significant, San Antonio and Dallas are making the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers appear vulnerable in the Western Conference for the first time since they obtained Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies in 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/01/sports/basketball/01mavs.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print