All-Star Game?
Why am I replying to you? How old are you?
Dirk as a soft pussy choker is a woefully one-sided picture of him as a player. Calling him a closer and denying he came up short against Golden State would be at the other end of the spectrum, but the truth is in between. Do some research, pay attention to the NBA, get your homer lips off the Lakers sometime and you might learn something.
Nobody ever brings up that ty series he had against Houston three years ago. He was far worse in that series than he was against Miami or Golden State, but nobody remembers it because Dallas won. Just like nobody remembers that tough runner he hit over Shaq in overtime of Game Five against Miami, or that 29 points and 15 rebounds he had in Game Six when the Heat won the le. Dirk was clutch in the last two games of the Finals, but he's a choker. He put San Antonio and Phoenix away with clutch play, but he's a choker. His teams are 5-0 in Game Sevens, he came up big in four of those games, but he's a choker.
If I'm not allowed to gloss over his play against Golden State, you can't ignore the times he's come up huge.
Avery would himself in a playoff series with Phil Jackson after the first mindgame test.
Kobe will rape the Mavs weak ass perimeter D worse than Wade/Baron did. He will get any basket he wants anytime he wants. The Mavs will be forced to throw double and triple teams at Kobe while having Bynum/Gasol under the hoop and Fisher/Sasha/Walton/Vlad/Farmar will be WIDE WIDE WIDE WIDE OPEN from the 3 point line. So many shooters are going to be open for the Lakers that it wont even be fair. Meanwhile Bynum/Gasol/Turiaf/Odom will have their shares of uncontested dunks and layups. Man what a fun ass series that would be for the Lakers.
Dirk was a clutch player when Nash was on his team. It wasn't until Dirk had top play with Terry as point guard that he found the playoffs much more dificult. Teams were sitting on Avery's plays making Dirk having to work hard for his points. Kidd I expect will be able to fix that and now Dallas has good defense to go with it a real point guard.
TrueAvery would himself in a playoff series with Phil Jackson after the first mindgame test.
Kobe will rape the Mavs weak ass perimeter D worse than Wade/Baron did. He will get any basket he wants anytime he wants. The Mavs will be forced to throw double and triple teams at Kobe while having Bynum/Gasol under the hoop and Fisher/Sasha/Walton/Vlad/Farmar will be WIDE WIDE WIDE WIDE OPEN from the 3 point line. So many shooters are going to be open for the Lakers that it wont even be fair. Meanwhile Bynum/Gasol/Turiaf/Odom will have their shares of uncontested dunks and layups. Man what a fun ass series that would be for the Lakers.
Yet the Mavs have been able to beat the Lakers lately. Lakers have no real point guard so it will be more of an isolation game. Dallas will have more fluid offense and the Lakers having no true point guard and suck on defense. Those 2 things will be their downfall.Avery would himself in a playoff series with Phil Jackson after the first mindgame test.
Kobe will rape the Mavs weak ass perimeter D worse than Wade/Baron did. He will get any basket he wants anytime he wants. The Mavs will be forced to throw double and triple teams at Kobe while having Bynum/Gasol under the hoop and Fisher/Sasha/Walton/Vlad/Farmar will be WIDE WIDE WIDE WIDE OPEN from the 3 point line. So many shooters are going to be open for the Lakers that it wont even be fair. Meanwhile Bynum/Gasol/Turiaf/Odom will have their shares of uncontested dunks and layups. Man what a fun ass series that would be for the Lakers.
Yeah you only have played us like how many times....once? Bynum didnt even play that game and Gasol wasnt on the team. Much different Laker team now. Kobe has help now. We have the best coach ever at the helm. Mavs perimeter D blows and they are easy to frusterate. When Bynum comes back the D will be alot better. Farmar/Fisher is more than enough at the pg position. We didnt have a true pg during our 3 peat either. Our frontline will control the boards and protect the hoop. It is going to be fun to watch Phil mind ing Avery to death.
Dallas and the Lakers would be an entertaining series. Mismatches on both ends. I assume Kobe would actually end up guarding Dirk, because any time in the past that Odom or Gasol has attempted to do it, Dirk has kicked their teeth in. And Kidd or Howard would guard Kobe in crunchtime as well. The key with Kobe as always is to force him to score his points as inefficiently as possible, and try to goad him into taking the scoring load all on himself at the expense of distributing. With the supporting cast he's got this year, that hasn't been necessary.
If I'm Avery, I gear my defense to stopping, or actually mitigating Kobe, since you can't stop him. Golden State geared their defense to denying Dirk and forcing his teammates to knock down open shots that resulted from the double and triple teams. They couldn't do it. If I'm Dallas, I take my chances with Gasol, Fisher, Odom and Bynum beating me rather than Kobe.
The Lakers were good defensively during that 3 peat. Gasol is a softy though. Dirk and Howard are both going to go off with Kidd's help. Don't forget the improved Terry with Kidd as well. I'd say Kidd would do just as good as anyone can do on Kobe. I could be wrong.
They've also beaten Cleveland twice, San Antonio (this may have been right before the streak, but it was pretty recent), and Golden State...And also Portland twice, including one at Portland right after they were on a sick tear.
Houston is playing as well any team in the L right now. The win at New Orleans was on the road, back to back, and just a complete shallacking against the top seed in the West (at that time of course).
The comparison with the Blazers is not accurate IMO. It was much easier to write off the Blazers given their youth and their schedule was considerably weaker in that time. The Rockets streak is actually 21 out of 24 also if you go back 12 games before the current streak, so that's definitely a longer period of high quality ball than what Portland put together. I believe Detroit was also in that streak?
The Rockets have always had the talent, but just never been able to put it together. But with Scola/Landry, the supporting cast is improved. The wildcard is Alston, who's playing way better than his mediocre career self for the past several weeks. If they get production out of Bobby Jackson (questionable) they've upgraded a weakness in perimeter shooting. They may miss Bonzi though.
The other team being ignored here is certainly Utah. I believe LA, SA, Utah, and Houston are the cream of the crop in the West right now in terms of who is really playing the best. The Mavs are just way too soft in the interior, but I dont see any big weaknesses on the top 4 teams I mentioned. The Suns will have to be thrown in as well if they get used to playing with Shaq fairly quickly...
I dont see many weaknesses on the Jazz post-Korver. They have a top 3 PG, the best offensive big man in the game right now, a pure shooter in Korver, and some damn good role players. AK47 is playing much better than the timid, passive player of last year. Their only weakness is lack of a great interior post defender. But they somewhat compensate for this by playing incredibly physical (as all Sloan teams do). In fact, I think Utah may have the best record in the NBA post-Korver trade?! Definitely a le contender.
I will ignore all this talk about rankings over other teams, but I will wait anxiously for the above teams to play each other. All this talk just made me mark down a date for the Spurs and the LAkers game against Dallas. I can't see any any of the above teams being better untill they maintain a constant-
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against the top tiered teams( Mostly just talking about the West for right now)
More like shut your pie holes about speculation of one team owning the other, while not evening seeing them play.
As bas as Avery has been at times, he coached his best series against Pop. And while I am the first to admit that PJax is the best coach of all time he was beaten twice by D'Antoni, with an inferior team I admit. There is only so much coaches can do.
To anyone who thinks Gasol can counter Dirk go look at 06 playoffs, or the times they have met in international competion where Gasol with a MUCH BETTER team (Spain) has been defeated by a team of amateurs and Dirk (Germany, and they really unbeliably bad beyond Dirk). And Kidd will eat Fisher and Farmar alive.
Devin Harris has become extremely overrated around here, while Dampier is very underrated. Anyone, ANYONE, that watches the Mavs games understand how he changed their defense. I don't think Bynum does much against him to be honest. Diop got the rep as the best defender for 5 good minutes against Duncan in 06, while Dampier was the one that wore him out throughout the series.
And Dirk is no more of a choker than Kobe in 04. Seriously anyone that says that Dirk choked in the 06 Finals watched the highlights only. He started a little slow, but he was rolling by the end of the series, just like in the SA series, while also being hacked frequently by Haslem. There is one reason why the Heat won, and even NBA players and coaches have come out and admitted it. I mean PJax basically said Wade's career is a gift from the refs, so I shouldn't add anymore to it.
And while Dirk should get some of the blame for GS, most Mavs followers have put the blame squarely on Avery's shoulders for that. Dirk was tripple teamed at times, and yet there was no movement at all on offense. He went small, did not attack GS in transition where they were very vulnerable. Jet and Stack also played about as bas as they could.
the only two teams that i think the Mavs cant beat in a series are the Spurs and Suns. i feel confident about Boston and Detroit. we are 1-1 vs Detroit this year. we lost a very close game in Boston that couldve gone either way. until the Lakers beat us this year i wont say that we cant beat them. we went 4-0 vs them last year too. we can take Hornets, Rockets, and Nuggets in a series. Utah would be a very tough series that would probably go seven games.
no comment on Golden State
How about the Spurs & Lakers injuries? If the Lakers & Spurs didn't have injuries the last 4 weeks no other teams would be close. This is like saying "if the sun didn't come up we would all die of frostbite".
It doesn't matter anyway - when the playoffs come, Dirk "deer in the headlights" Nowitzki will choke again.
We can't beat the Suns??? Have you seen them recently? They took a swing and all signs point to them missing. We could beat them when they had Marion, which to us was as much of a problem as Amare. Did you see how Kobe went to the basket as if he was talking a walking in the park against them.
And we have yet to face the Spurs. Most knowledgable Mavs fans know that Diop played 5 good minutes on Ducan in 06, but Damp was more important. We'll see how Kidd v. Parker pans out but we beat them in 06 when it seemed like they had the advantage on us, and we can certainly beat them. I will tell you this, Dirk, Jet, Stack, and Josh don't fear the Spurs at all and actually play with a confidence against them that I would like to see against other teams. They are probably the only team in the league that take the court with that at ude against the Spurs. The mavs bring their A game against the Spurs so I am confident about them.
Just like Kobe will quit on his team when they need him the most.
At least Dirk has made it out of the first round without a dominant big man beside him.
Last time I checked Kobe was still on the Lakers...Dirk wouldn't have made it out of a paper bag with the (healthy) players the Lakers had surrounding Kobe the last couple of seasons - I'm picturing this "dream" starting lineup and wondering how far they would get in the playoffs:Just like Kobe will quit on his team when they need him the most.
At least Dirk has made it out of the first round without a dominant big man beside him.
Dirk Nowitzki
Kawame (no hands) Brown
Smush (cant even play for Miami) Parker
Lamar (good 3rd option) Odom
Maurice Evans
P.S. If Kobe hadn't (stupidly) mouthed off in the off season, Bynum would probably not have been motivated to improve so much in the off season (right after the Kobe comment is when Bynum hired a personal trainer that got him to where he needed to be physically).
I can't talk trash because we have been beaten by the Mavs. We will see what happens in two weeks.Damn I can't wait!!!!
Man, when the did Lakers fan become so arrogant. They are making Bill Simmons look like a humble guy. I thought the last 2-3 years taught you something about being likable guys, yet in about two weeks you have become the worst bunch of fans in the league. that's too bad cause I liked the new look Lakers.
Even in their best day, most Spurs fans are still willing to talk basketball. Yet all you wanna do is offend, yes offend, other teams. For all I know the Mavs have a much better track record the last few years, and Dirk has taken his team to the Finals while Kobe can't get out of the first round. Until proven otherwise you might as well shut up.
Say what you will about Dirk, but he wouldn't have quit on his team like a when they absolutely needed him the most. At his worst, he will still give you 19 and 10 on 38% shooting. He won't stop hustling and trying. Nor will you see him show up on youtube ing about JJ Barea in an Albertson's parking lot.
The Lakers are now legit contenders for sure. But let's hold off on the parade plans until June, mmmkay? If you're salivating over Kobe being "guarded" by Dallas, I absolutely cannot wait for Dirk to own Lamar and Pau again.
That's just how they are.* They go from being to a legit team, and all of the sudden we should just cancel the rest of the season and hand them the trophy.
* Apologies to Medvedenko and a few others.
We're still numero 1, even before the Thomas trade.
You Laker es want a championship, you have to go through San Antonio.
Before all these teams play eachother how do you think these elite teams each team would stack up against eachother. These are my rankings. What are yours?
The Teams:
1)Lakers - I see the Lakers beating each team below
2)Spurs - I see the Spurs beating each team below
3)Pistons - The team to beat in the East
5)Celtics - I'd love to see a Lakers Celtics finals, but Detroit may spoil
4)Mavs - Once Kidd gets use to the team I think they will be compe ive
6)Cavs - 2nd best trade after the Gasol trade
7)Hornets - No experience to go far in the playoffs
8) Rockets - McGrady can't carry a team
9)Suns - Bad move,
Click on link below
Sublime - Lakers got more scoring (so what) but regressed defensively, and in the playoffs defense wins.
Spurs picked up exactly what they needed in K. Thomas, and D. Stoudamire. The road to le goes through champs and by the way they also add Tiago Splitter next year (a heck of lot better defender than the soft Gasol).
Rockets also far more dangerous in playoffs than the LAL as are Jazz. Jazz and Rockets as playing right now would both take LAL and Spurs beat them all in no more than 6.
We don't even have to discuss the Mavs anymore = Kidd improves them against weak teams but will get wasted by Paul, Parker, Iverson, and Davis and then they gave up a fine defensive big in Diop. Don't be fooled by the assist Queen of Kidd, he cannot hit an open shot, and in the playoffs Spurs, Jazz and others will just pack it in against Mavs and watch their shooters choke. Letting go Harris big time dumb long-term.
What about the Spurs = Parker, Manu and Duncan all missed sign. time - no excuses for your soft team!
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