baseline bum
05-04-2007, 12:55 PM
Davis, Nellie, Mullin among Warriors' heroes (http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/6774706)
Charley Rosen / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 46 minutes ago
How to satisfactorily explain Golden State's 111-86 thumping of Dallas?
Perhaps identifying the close-out game's heroes and goats would be useful.
http://msn.foxsports.com/id/6774628_36_2.jpg
Baron Davis played like an MVP, while Dirk Nowitzki didn't.
HEROES
Leading the list is Baron Davis, who returned to action after straining a hamstring and then proceeded to hamstring the Mavs' title hopes. Even though he was obviously still in pain, Davis bagged several triples and limped his way through the toothless Dallas defense for layup after layup after …
Indeed, it was a half-driving-half-hopping layup midway through the third quarter — boosting the Warriors' lead to 14 — that made the Mavs unofficially throw in the towel. That one shot let all the leftover air (or was it gas?) out of the Mavs' bloated self-esteem.
Andris Biedrins also gets to wear a hero's wreath, for giving a convincing — albeit brief — impersonation of Bill Russell. Biedrins' early shot-blocking, rebounding and dunking helped get the Warriors up, up and away.
Stephen Jackson demonstrated once again that he's most effective as a catch-and-shoot long-range bomber. His seven home runs helped knock the Mavs out of the box.
Still, Jackson continued to have difficulty dribbling when pressured, and he did miss a total of six layups. Also, his overreaction to getting accidentally bonked on his bean by Austin Croshere was strictly juvenile. So let's give Jackson a wreath and a single horn.
Chris Mullin's radical reconfiguring of his team in mid-stream was also heroic.
And, of course, there's Nellie, who lets his guys do what they do best. Run berserk. Shoot first and never ask questions. And play with perpetual chips on their shoulders.
The Mavericks also had a hero: Jerry Stackhouse, whose trio of triples early in the game kept his team in touch with the runaway Warriors, and at least delayed the inevitable humiliation.
Stackhouse also proved his courage at the beginning of the fourth quarter: There was Dirk Nowitzki, ensconced in the pivot with Jackson perfectly sealed and barely visible. There was Nowitzki, madly gesticulating for Stackhouse to pass him the ball. But there was Stackhouse, taking a long look at Nowitzki before calmly looking away and passing elsewhere. Credit Stackhouse for recognizing what was really what.
GOATS
In truth, the all-time goat of goats has to be Nowitzki. The No-man failed to hit a shot until the fading seconds (38.7 to be exact) of the first half — and his overall lack of production was pathetic. Of course Nowitzki was also passive on defense, but for him that constitutes Standard Operating Procedure and hardly mattered.
Okay, wherever he went Nowitzki was perpetually tracked by aggressive defenders. Poor guy. Whatever the defense, and whatever the circumstances, erstwhile MVPs are expected to find a way to assert themselves.
Meanwhile, Dwayne Wade has to be careful not to laugh so hard that he herniates himself.
Jason Terry is goatish because, in his own quiet way, he also choked. But that's strictly business as usual for him.
Avery Johnson gets a goat-hat for several reasons:
# For not making effective (any?) adjustments to counter either the Warriors' smothering man-to-man or zone defenses on Nowitzki.
# For not getting his players in the proper mind-set from the get-go. Until Stackhouse's 3-ball heroics and Davis's injury, the Mavericks were extremely tentative on both ends of the ball game. They played as though they were more interested in not losing than in winning.
# For his season-long arrogance.
# For "resting" his starters in a "meaningless" game in Golden State the day before the regular season ended — a game easily won by the desperate Warriors. It was a cowardly move by Johnson that went counter to his play-all-out-all-the-time game plan.
http://msn.foxsports.com/id/6774626_36_2.jpg
Another year without a championship for Mark Cuban.
Mark Cuban also gets to feast on rusty tin cans for trying to bully everybody he thinks is weaker, less wealthy and dumber than he thinks he is.
Despite his energetic performance, Matt Barnes is more of a goat than a hero because of the flagrant foul he committed on Maurice Ager late in the fourth quarter when the game was already won and done. Barnes was apparently demonstrating the sheer disdain with which the Warriors regarded their soft-hearted opponents. Still, endangering the well-being of an innocent rookie was incredibly stupid.
However, the largest herd of goats is populated by sportswriters (like me) who predicted nothing but doom and gloom for the Warriors all season long.
In any case, the circus moves on. And it will be incredibly interesting to observe how Golden State plays against a real team.
Charley Rosen is FOXSports.com's NBA analyst and author of 13 books about hoops, the current one being "The pivotal season — How the 1971-72 L.A. Lakers changed the NBA."
Charley Rosen / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 46 minutes ago
How to satisfactorily explain Golden State's 111-86 thumping of Dallas?
Perhaps identifying the close-out game's heroes and goats would be useful.
http://msn.foxsports.com/id/6774628_36_2.jpg
Baron Davis played like an MVP, while Dirk Nowitzki didn't.
HEROES
Leading the list is Baron Davis, who returned to action after straining a hamstring and then proceeded to hamstring the Mavs' title hopes. Even though he was obviously still in pain, Davis bagged several triples and limped his way through the toothless Dallas defense for layup after layup after …
Indeed, it was a half-driving-half-hopping layup midway through the third quarter — boosting the Warriors' lead to 14 — that made the Mavs unofficially throw in the towel. That one shot let all the leftover air (or was it gas?) out of the Mavs' bloated self-esteem.
Andris Biedrins also gets to wear a hero's wreath, for giving a convincing — albeit brief — impersonation of Bill Russell. Biedrins' early shot-blocking, rebounding and dunking helped get the Warriors up, up and away.
Stephen Jackson demonstrated once again that he's most effective as a catch-and-shoot long-range bomber. His seven home runs helped knock the Mavs out of the box.
Still, Jackson continued to have difficulty dribbling when pressured, and he did miss a total of six layups. Also, his overreaction to getting accidentally bonked on his bean by Austin Croshere was strictly juvenile. So let's give Jackson a wreath and a single horn.
Chris Mullin's radical reconfiguring of his team in mid-stream was also heroic.
And, of course, there's Nellie, who lets his guys do what they do best. Run berserk. Shoot first and never ask questions. And play with perpetual chips on their shoulders.
The Mavericks also had a hero: Jerry Stackhouse, whose trio of triples early in the game kept his team in touch with the runaway Warriors, and at least delayed the inevitable humiliation.
Stackhouse also proved his courage at the beginning of the fourth quarter: There was Dirk Nowitzki, ensconced in the pivot with Jackson perfectly sealed and barely visible. There was Nowitzki, madly gesticulating for Stackhouse to pass him the ball. But there was Stackhouse, taking a long look at Nowitzki before calmly looking away and passing elsewhere. Credit Stackhouse for recognizing what was really what.
GOATS
In truth, the all-time goat of goats has to be Nowitzki. The No-man failed to hit a shot until the fading seconds (38.7 to be exact) of the first half — and his overall lack of production was pathetic. Of course Nowitzki was also passive on defense, but for him that constitutes Standard Operating Procedure and hardly mattered.
Okay, wherever he went Nowitzki was perpetually tracked by aggressive defenders. Poor guy. Whatever the defense, and whatever the circumstances, erstwhile MVPs are expected to find a way to assert themselves.
Meanwhile, Dwayne Wade has to be careful not to laugh so hard that he herniates himself.
Jason Terry is goatish because, in his own quiet way, he also choked. But that's strictly business as usual for him.
Avery Johnson gets a goat-hat for several reasons:
# For not making effective (any?) adjustments to counter either the Warriors' smothering man-to-man or zone defenses on Nowitzki.
# For not getting his players in the proper mind-set from the get-go. Until Stackhouse's 3-ball heroics and Davis's injury, the Mavericks were extremely tentative on both ends of the ball game. They played as though they were more interested in not losing than in winning.
# For his season-long arrogance.
# For "resting" his starters in a "meaningless" game in Golden State the day before the regular season ended — a game easily won by the desperate Warriors. It was a cowardly move by Johnson that went counter to his play-all-out-all-the-time game plan.
http://msn.foxsports.com/id/6774626_36_2.jpg
Another year without a championship for Mark Cuban.
Mark Cuban also gets to feast on rusty tin cans for trying to bully everybody he thinks is weaker, less wealthy and dumber than he thinks he is.
Despite his energetic performance, Matt Barnes is more of a goat than a hero because of the flagrant foul he committed on Maurice Ager late in the fourth quarter when the game was already won and done. Barnes was apparently demonstrating the sheer disdain with which the Warriors regarded their soft-hearted opponents. Still, endangering the well-being of an innocent rookie was incredibly stupid.
However, the largest herd of goats is populated by sportswriters (like me) who predicted nothing but doom and gloom for the Warriors all season long.
In any case, the circus moves on. And it will be incredibly interesting to observe how Golden State plays against a real team.
Charley Rosen is FOXSports.com's NBA analyst and author of 13 books about hoops, the current one being "The pivotal season — How the 1971-72 L.A. Lakers changed the NBA."