Mavericks Can’t Help But Root For Lovable Golden State Warriors

[ElNono]

OAKLAND--The underdog Golden State Warriors have captured the hearts of America this spring with their adventurous style of play and fearless, never-say-die attitude. Their home games are raucous celebrations, driven by 20,000 screaming fans trying to will their team to victory. The enthusiasm has become so infectious that even their opponents, the Dallas Mavericks, have jumped on the bandwagon.

“It’s real hard not to root for these guys,” Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki said after Sunday’s loss.
”They play with such joy and abandon, and the atmosphere here is so electric, that you can’t help but get swept up in it. When this series started I was totally rooting for us, but then, slowly but surely, I was transformed. Now all we have to do is make sure to win Game 5 in Dallas so we can give the Warriors a chance to finish the series in front of their home crowd.”

The Mavericks were heavy favorites coming into the series, but seem to have been blind sided by Golden State’s fast paced, chaotic style of play and surprisingly effective defense.

“Who knew these guys could play like this?” said point guard Jason Terry, who has the unenviable task of defending Baron Davis. “We thought we were going to take this series in 5 games, or possibly 6, but he we are down 3-1. I tell ya, these guys are a joy to behold. From Baron Davis’ slashing drives to Stephen Jackson’s fearless jump shooting to Jason Richardson’s acrobatics, I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun getting beat. 2007 truly is the year of the Warriors.”

Following Sunday’s loss, the Mavericks gathered at their practice facility to watch tape of the game and marvel at the Warriors’ high flying, relentless attack. Laughter and applause echoed through the room as the players and coaches cheered on their new favorite team.

“Now I want to slow the tape down here and I want you to focus on Baron Davis,” said coach Avery Johnson. “As you can see, he has the ball at the top of the key, he’s dribbling away, he’s looking around, and then – wham! – he drives into the lane like a bolt of lightning and nails an uncontested lay-up. Totally uncontested. Where’s the defense? It’s nowhere to be found. Here, let me rewind that again. Check out the look on Dirk’s face as Baron is whizzing past him. It’s priceless.”

But the play that drew the biggest applause from the Mavs was Davis’ half-court buzzer beater to close out the second quarter.

“Look, he’s dribbling up the court, then he let’s go a prayer,” Johnson said. “The ball is in the air, the crowd is frozen with anticipation, and then…it’s good! It’s good! The crowd is going nuts! It’s like everything these guys throw up in the air goes in. I’ve never seen anything like it - except for every time we played them during the regular season. I guess we could try and play a little better defense, but that would ruin the fun wouldn’t it?”

There may be just one person in the Mavericks organization who is not swept up in the Golden State Warriors love-fest, and that person is Mark Cuban. The Mavs owner appreciates the Warriors’ talent and execution, but still believes he has the better team.

“We’re going to come out on top in this series. I truly believe that,” said Cuban. “Golden State has done a great job exposing some of our weaknesses, but I think we can turn things around once we get our composure back. You just watch. Our home crowd is going to be nuts tonight. They’re going to be screaming at the tops of their lungs. They’re going to blow the roof off the joint. I just pray, with every fiber of my being, that they are not wearing yellow t-shirts.”

The Brushback (http://www.thebrushback.com/warriors_full.htm)

[DarrinS]

This is hilarious.

:lol :rollin

[zero signal]

Our home crowd is going to be nuts tonight. They’re going to be screaming at the tops of their lungs. They’re going to blow the roof off the joint. I just pray, with every fiber of my being, that they are not wearing yellow t-shirts.
:lmao

[DarrinS]

“Now I want to slow the tape down here and I want you to focus on Baron Davis,” said coach Avery Johnson. “As you can see, he has the ball at the top of the key, he’s dribbling away, he’s looking around, and then – wham! – he drives into the lane like a bolt of lightning and nails an uncontested lay-up. Totally uncontested. Where’s the defense? It’s nowhere to be found. Here, let me rewind that again. Check out the look on Dirk’s face as Baron is whizzing past him. It’s priceless.”




It's funny as hell imagining Avery saying this.

[johnut32]

Funny

[SpursDynasty]

Is that a real article? Nice cover-up for getting your asses beat, Dallas by making it all a joke, cheering for GS, or applauding while watching the video. At the end of the day, you guys won 67-15 and about to get knocked out of the first round. I expected it though. I for one did not expect Dallas to win this series and feel they've been overrated all season.

Trade Terry, Stackhouse, and Diop if you guys want to go far in the playoffs after this year, Dallas.

[monosylab1k]

Is that a real article? Nice cover-up for getting your asses beat, Dallas. I for one did not expect Dallas to win this series and feel they've been overrated all season.

Trade Terry, Stackhouse, and Diop if you guys want to go far in the playoffs after this year, Dallas.

you're an idiot.

[Islymore]

you're an idiot.

i concur.

[johnut32]

I agree

[ElNono]

ditto

[Cry Havoc]

Is that a real article? Nice cover-up for getting your asses beat, Dallas by making it all a joke, cheering for GS, or applauding while watching the video. At the end of the day, you guys won 67-15 and about to get knocked out of the first round. I expected it though. I for one did not expect Dallas to win this series and feel they've been overrated all season.

Trade Terry, Stackhouse, and Diop if you guys want to go far in the playoffs after this year, Dallas.

:lmao

How this went over your head is absolutely mind-blowing.

[Duncanoypi]

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s158/matzhee/AWWWW.jpg

[mavsfan1000]

I can't help but root for Spursdynasty's great posting knowledge.

[degenerate_gambler]

you're an idiot.


that goes without saying..


but it's always good to be reminded.

[SpursDynasty]

:lmao

How this went over your head is absolutely mind-blowing.

Do you mean that it's fake? That's why I asked at the beginning "Is this real?" If it's fake, that article is directed at who wrote the fake article. At the end of the day, your team is done :ihit

[monosylab1k]

Do you mean that it's fake? That's why I asked at the beginning "Is this real?" If it's fake, that article is directed at who wrote the fake article. At the end of the day, your team is done :ihit

so you're admitting that you weren't exactly sure that this was fake?

[Sec24Row7]

Awesome Onionesque article!! :tu

[SpursDynasty]

so you're admitting that you weren't exactly sure that this was fake?

It sounded like a usual Dallas Mav postgame coverup to me. So yeah.

[hater]

Rumor has it, Diop will come into the court tonight with a warriors uniform on.

[ElNono]

While we're with the Brushback...

Heat Still Not Pushing Panic Button

MIAMI--The Miami Heat were eliminated from the postseason by the Chicago Bulls on Sunday, becoming the first NBA champions to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs in 50 years. Despite the humiliating defeat, the veteran club is refusing to push the panic button.

“We’re still confident,” said center Shaquille O’Neal. “We just let a few slip away that we shouldn’t have. Having been swept out of the playoffs, our backs are against the wall. But we’re not pushing the panic button. We’re just going to turn up our intensity level and hope we can turn this thing around. Are the odds against us? Sure, but like I said, it’s not time to panic. If we lose five straight, then we can panic, because that’s not even physically possible.”

During the course of the season, the Heat have displayed a remarkable ability to turn it on and off at will and seldom lose their composure in the face of a challenge. Where other teams might see a season ending sweep, the Heat see an opportunity.

“We know what this team is capable of,” said guard Dwyane Wade. “We just need to dictate the tempo and make the Bulls play our style of basketball. It’s going to be incredibly difficult to do that now that we've lost four straight, but this team has no quit in it. We’ll just continue to let everyone doubt us, fly under the radar, and then – wham! – we’ll sneak up on everybody and…well, we haven’t figured that out yet. I’ll let you know after our players-only meeting.”

Wade and Shaq called a meeting after Sunday’s back breaking 92-79 loss in order to “set things right” and get everyone back on the same page.

“It’s going to be a good way for us to clear the air,” said forward Antoine Walker, who applauded Shaq and Wade for their leadership abilities. “Obviously, with the position we’re in right now, a lot of guys are frustrated and looking to get some stuff off their chests. There’s no way we should be down 4-0. I think that will be the theme of the meeting. That, and ‘why are we here?’ and ‘can we go home now?’”

The sweep at the hands of the Bulls was a fitting end to a season of turmoil for the Heat. Beset by injuries and a lack of focus, the team looked unmotivated and tired. Even Pat Riley took time off in the middle of the year to have hip replacement surgery.

Sunday night, Riley reflected on a turbulent season and his future with the Miami Heat.

“It’s a terrible position we’re in right now, but we only have ourselves to blame,” Riley said. “Coming into the season, we were a little cocky. Did we get spoiled a little by our title? Yes, I think so. Did we somehow all get extremely fat and happy in the offseason? Yup. Is that my fault? Probably. I did tell them they were unbeatable and should spend their summer eating donuts and nailing groupies. In retrospect, that may have been the wrong message to send.”

The Heat may have been the best team in the NBA last year, but count the Bulls among those teams who were not impressed with this year's version. The Bulls routed the Heat by 42 points in the season opener, a game which would be a harbinger of things to come.

“From the second we kicked their asses in the opening game, we knew they weren’t so special,” said guard Kirk Hinrich who, against all logic, did a good job defending Dwyane Wade. “During that game they were practically sleepwalking. It’s like they expected us to just roll over and die. Ironically, that was probably the right approach for them, because even when they try their hardest, we still beat them. To paraphrase Bobby Knight: if a loss is inevitable, you might as well just sit back and enjoy it.”

LINK (http://www.thebrushback.com/heat_full.htm)

[SpursDynasty]

The Mavs can't beat the Heat in a 7 game series.

[mardigan]

The Mavs can't beat the Heat in a 7 game series.
Your knowledge of the sport of basketball never lets me down

[Sec24Row7]

http://www.lasraicesranch.com/images/misc/dirkwarrior.jpg

[monosylab1k]

Rumor has it, Diop will come into the court tonight with a warriors uniform on.

why would he do that? he's the only one showing up wearing a mavs uniform...

[Spurminator]

Do you mean that it's fake? That's why I asked at the beginning "Is this real?" If it's fake, that article is directed at who wrote the fake article. At the end of the day, your team is done :ihit


IF it's fake?????

There are not enough "wtf" emoticons to express how baffled I am by your confusion.

[hater]

why would he do that? he's the only one showing up wearing a mavs uniform...

that's exactly why I said it. He deserve to play for a real team :smokin

him and stackhouse even though I hate stackhouse

[jrod1986]

Here's an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal about he Mavs:


There's Bad Blood
When the Warriors
Play the Mavericks
Coach Nelson, Mark Cuban
Feuding Over $6.6 Million;
The Playoffs Get Personal
By PETER WALDMAN
May 1, 2007; Page A1

When basketball coach Don Nelson of the Golden State Warriors team threw a party two weeks ago for some friends associated with his former club, the Dallas Mavericks, he greeted an old protégé with a hug and a compliment.

"You're doing a much better job than I did at keeping him away from you," Mr. Nelson told Mavericks Coach Avery Johnson, according to guests at Mr. Nelson's Oakland, Calif., home. Mr. Johnson smiled.

The "him" Mr. Nelson was referring to is Mark Cuban, the mercurial owner of the top-seeded Mavericks team. It faces possible elimination tonight in the first round of the National Basketball Association playoffs, by a Warriors squad seeded eighth out of eight Western Conference playoff teams. A first-round Warrior triumph over a Mavericks team that won 67 of 82 games during the regular season would be a huge upset.

For the 66-year-old Mr. Nelson, it would also mean victory over Mr. Cuban, 48, in one of the nastiest personal feuds in professional sports. Mr. Nelson says Mr. Cuban still owes him $6.6 million in deferred compensation from his eight years as Mavericks coach. Mr. Cuban refuses to pay, because, he says, the NBA's second-winningest coach of all time walked out on him.

"It's like 'Desperate Housewives' in the NBA," says Wayne Winston, an Indiana University math professor who, as a private consultant, does statistical modeling for Mr. Cuban to predict which players, and referees, offer the best chance of success for his Dallas team.

Hired as Mavericks coach in 1997 by the team's previous owner, Ross Perot Jr., Mr. Nelson was mocked by Sports Illustrated as a "mad scientist" for trading away the team's top draft choices for a couple of unheralded prospects named Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash. Under Mr. Cuban, the dot-com billionaire who bought the team in 2000, Messrs. Nowitzki and Nash became the core of one of the most dramatic turnarounds in NBA history.

The Mavericks, playing an exhilarating, up-tempo game similar to the Warriors' playing style today, became perennial 50-game winners under Mr. Nelson. Though the veteran coach occasionally chafed at Mr. Cuban's kibitzing in the locker room, and the owner's infatuation with player statistics, the two generally got along in the early years, say people who worked with them.

Mr. Nelson hired one of his oldest and closest friends, Del Harris, as his top assistant coach. Mr. Nelson's son Donnie was hired to handle player moves in the Mavericks' front office. Both men still work for the Mavericks.

But just as the Nelson-Cuban revival was peaking -- in the NBA's 2003 Western Conference finals -- it started to fall apart. With the Mavericks facing elimination by the San Antonio Spurs, the coach and owner exploded at each other over Mr. Nelson's refusal to fulfill his boss's wish to play an injured Mr. Nowitzki, according to Mavericks officials close to the team's owner.

Mr. Nowitzki had suffered sprained ligaments in his left knee in the third game of the best-of-seven series, but, with the Mavericks trailing three games to one, was cleared by team doctors to play again. Mr. Cuban confronted Mr. Nelson in the coach's office and demanded the star forward return to the court, Mavericks officials say.

Mr. Nelson refused, insisting that playing the young German with the ligament injury would jeopardize his career. The coach also confided in friends that he had promised Mr. Nowitzki's parents, when the Mavericks signed the young man at age 19, that he would look after the seven-footer in Texas like a son.

"You're just looking for excuses to lose," fumed Mr. Cuban, according to two people who heard the blowup. Mr. Nelson threw the Mavs' owner out of his office, these people say.

The acrimony worsened after the team lost the series to San Antonio. Mr. Cuban, in negotiations to extend Mr. Nelson's contract in the summer of 2003, offered the coach what Mr. Nelson regarded as a pay cut, say people who were privy to the negotiations. As with today, their contract dispute centered on millions of dollars of compensation that Mr. Nelson had agreed to defer back in the Perot years -- money Mr. Cuban wanted to slash.

With Mr. Nelson openly threatening to quit coaching, they reached a last-minute compromise: Mr. Nelson got a three-year contract extension as the Mavericks' coach and general manager -- at $5.1 million a year -- but no pay raise, despite the team's success.

"Nellie went ahead and signed that contract but the trust was broken," says a close friend who helped broker the deal.

After that, Mr. Nelson became increasingly cut out of the Mavericks' draft and trade decisions, to the point where Mr. Cuban refused to cover the cost of the Mavericks' general manager to scout predraft workouts by the college prospects, say associates of the coach. Mr. Nelson's alienation culminated in 2004 with the Mavericks' loss of Mr. Nash to the Phoenix Suns. Steve Nash was one of Mr. Nelson's favorite players and closest friends on the team. The coach regarded Mr. Cuban's refusal to keep the superstar guard as a personal betrayal that destroyed the Mavericks' championship prospects.

In March of 2005, Mr. Nelson, moping and depressed, relinquished his coaching job to Mr. Johnson, whom he had been grooming as his assistant. Mr. Cuban agreed to keep paying Mr. Nelson, now a Dallas hero, through the end of his contract in June of 2006.

"By then, neither one of those guys could stand to be in the same room," says Frank Zaccanelli, a Dallas real-estate developer who was a minority partner and president of the Mavericks in the 1990s.

Messrs. Nelson and Cuban declined to answer specific questions for this article. In a general response, Mr. Cuban wrote in an email yesterday that he has "no interest in talking about Don Nelson anymore than any other former employee." In an email on Sunday, he wrote, "If you take what Nellie says as fact, you will be wrong. To say he conjures up folk tales would be an understatement. The contract is the contract and the rest is up to the lawyers."

Mr. Nelson's lawyer, John O'Connor of San Francisco -- who worked with "Deep Throat" Mark Felt of Watergate fame in his unveiling in 2005 -- said Mr. Nelson "truly feels very proud that he and Mark built a great franchise in Dallas together." Mr. O'Connor said Mr. Nelson "personally likes" Mr. Cuban and hopes they can settle their financial dispute "amicably."

Mr. O'Connor says Mr. Nelson is in the process of making an arbitration claim against the Mavericks for the $6.6 million in deferred salary the coach believes he is owed. Mr. Cuban has never publicly said why, legally, he believes he doesn't owe Mr. Nelson any back pay. But he recently expressed disgust with the way Mr. Nelson resigned as coach in 2005.

"I'm not a fan of someone who quits on his team, but will leave only if he gets paid," Mr. Cuban wrote in an email last week to reporters. The owner also wrote that Mr. Nelson influenced his decision in 2004 not to re-sign Mr. Nash, by indicating the point guard would get less playing time because of the risks of injury. And he wrote that Mr. Nelson sent him an email after the team lost Mr. Nash "confirming we did the right thing."

Mr. Zaccanelli, the former Mavericks executive who negotiated Mr. Nelson's original contract, says the deferred salary "is not an issue. He earned that money. He only stretched out the payment as a favor to us to help our cash flow." Mr. Nelson took a pay cut to sign with the Warriors last August, friends say. But if they beat Dallas, he'll earn close to what he did with the Mavericks after a hefty incentive bonus.

"Can you imagine, now, if Don Nelson comes back to Dallas and knocks Mark out of the playoffs?" says Mr. Zaccanelli. "It's unbelievable."

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB1%20...%20DEwWj.html

[FromWayDowntown]

The Mavs can't beat the Heat in a 7 game series.

That is, in fact true, because the Mavs can't conceivably play the Heat in a 7 game series this season.

At least you got one thing right in this thread.

[mabber]

Is that a real article? Nice cover-up for getting your asses beat, Dallas by making it all a joke, cheering for GS, or applauding while watching the video. At the end of the day, you guys won 67-15 and about to get knocked out of the first round. I expected it though. I for one did not expect Dallas to win this series and feel they've been overrated all season.

Trade Terry, Stackhouse, and Diop if you guys want to go far in the playoffs after this year, Dallas.

You're a complete idiot!

[gtownspur]

Your knowledge of the sport of basketball never lets me down


You're an ass clown.

HE's correct, they cant beat THe Heat in a seven game series, where were you last playoffs?

[mardigan]

You're an ass clown.

HE's correct, they cant beat THe Heat in a seven game series, where were you last playoffs?
Hes talking about this year dumbshit. How exactly are those two teams going to play each other? Stupid pendejo

[SAtown]

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s158/matzhee/AWWWW.jpg

:lmao

[ManuTim_best of Fwiendz]

:lmao

I can't belileve SpursDynasty stole the spotlight from that hlarious joke article.

I read his comment, I was like "Shit, is he for real???"

and then he tries to cover up his ass, by backtracking, yet still says "I wasn't sure"

and then reaffirms that he really believed it to be a real article, as a way of "saving face" by the Dallas media???

Who thinks like this??