The Mavs enter the month of December with a mediocre 8-8 record.

Just when things were looking like it would turn around with a 5-game win streak, they met a brick wall in the Los Angeles Lakers. Sure, the Lakers are easily the best team in the league today. But, if the Mavs had won that game, they would have had a winning record for the first time since October. After finishing November and their California trip with a win over the Sacramento Kings, the Mavs go home with a .500 winning percentage.

Luckily, they will play the struggling Los Angeles Clippers at home tonight. For the Mavs to have any chance of resurrecting their season, they must start December with a win at home and get their first winning record in a month. Can they do it against a team led by Baron Davis? The same Baron Davis that led the 8th seed Golden State Warriors and surprised the top ranked Mavs in the playoffs a couple years ago? A team with strength in the paint with Kaman and Camby? Can they finally break the .500 mark? We will know by the end of the night. Let's go Mavs!!!

Continue reading "Can the Dallas Mavericks to break .500?"

Last night, the Mavs trailed the entire game until the final seconds to beat the Clippers. This is obviously far from an impressive outing. We're talking about the Clippers here. Their record is now 3-14. Dallas should be running laps around the Clippers. They shouldn't need to come from behind to beat them by just 2 points.

On the Mavs' Yahoo! team report, they're talking about the Mavs being on top of the division by the end of the 7 game home-stand. Are you kidding me? Sure, they're only 1 1/2 games behind the leading Houston Rockets. But, if they need last minute heroics from Jose Barea shooting 3's to edge out the lowly Clippers, they'll be lucky if still above .500 by the end of the home-stand. Especially because they'll be playing teams with winning records: Phoenix Suns, Atlanta Hawks, San Antonio Spurs, and Denver Nuggets. The Charlotte Bobcats and Oklahoma City Thunder games might seem like easy wins. But if they struggled against the Clippers, I wouldn't count on those wins yet.

Continue reading "Mavericks come from 15 points behind to beat the Los Angeles Clippers"

Dirk and Barea lead the Mavs over the Suns last night. "Barea? Who?" That would be the response from any one that doesn't live in Dallas or follow the Mavs. He's so unknown that even Yahoo! doesn't have a link for him in their stories about last night's game.

Jose Juan Barea is 5'11" from Puerto Rico, and went to college at Northeastern. He came to the Mavs undrafted in 2006 and played 33 games that season. Last year, he played 44 games for the Mavs and averaged about 10 min per game with less than 5 points per game. He earned his first NBA start after a stellar performance and pivotal role in beating the Clippers in the Mav's last game before the Suns. Barea normally plays point guard in reserve of Jason Kidd. But, coach Carlisle decided either to reward Barea, or just to shake things up to counter Steve Nash's fast running offense, starting two point guards. Barea played for 30 minutes with 18 points, 4 assists, and 3 rebounds. He may not be a household name, or be in the All-Star Game any time soon with those numbers. But, if he keeps developing the way he has this season, he'll be a vital cog in Dallas' playoffs and Championship chances.

Continue reading "Dallas Mavericks on 3 game win streak with victory over the Phoenix Suns"

Tonight, the Mavs will play their 7th and last home game in a row against the Denver Nuggets. The Mavs have been playing strong 5-1 so far in this homestand beating the Clippers, Suns, Hawks, Bobcats, and Thunder. Their only loss came against the San Antonis Spurs in a double overtime game. Despite the 5-1 run, they're still 1.5 games behind the Southwest leader, the same amount of games before they started this home stretch. And, they are still 4th in the division. Nothing has changed.

This is testament to how good the Southwest Division is, with 4 out of 5 teams having winning records. And with the Mavs at 13-9, they're only 4th in the division. If the Mavs where in the Pacific Division, they'd be 2nd there.

Northwest leading Denver is 16-7 coming off a 3-game win streak. With the addition of Chauncy Billups, they've been on fire. The Mavs will have their work cut out for them tonight.

Continue reading "Dallas Mavericks still 1.5 games behind after 6 straight home games"

By now, any fan that watches the NBA knows that there will be a bunch of good players that will become free agents in 2010. The New York Knicks have already cleared their salary cap in anticipation of getting Lebron James and others from that free agency pool.

Now, according to the Dallas Morning News, Dirk is willing to take a pay cut for the Mavs to be able to compete for these free agents.

"I'm very fortunate that I've made a lot of money in this league, even though I've never really played for money. I love the sport. I love this organization. Obviously, I want to win. I won the MVP, and individually, there's nothing really left but winning a championship ... If that means I have to play for less money, it's all possible. It's all open."

Dirk has an option to also become a free agent in 2010, but he wants to stay in Dallas and will take a pay cut to get better teammates. Now, that's a team player!

Continue reading "Dirk willing to take a pay cut in 2010"

In last night's game against the Trail Blazers, the Mavs had a break down in the third quarter. The team collected 4 technical fouls and Josh Howard tackled Portland's Joel Przybilla, trash talked, and was ejected from the game. Dirk was in foul trouble. The team scored only 18 points in the quarter.

It appeared as if the Trail Blazers were picking up momentum just as the Mavs were fizzling out ending the 3rd quarter with a 3 point deficit. In comes the 3-guard lineup with Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, and Jose Barea along with Brandon Bass and DeSagana Diop down low. James Singleton and Antoine Wright also saw some court time. When I saw those lineups, I thought that the Mavs where just going to mail it in for the rest of the night and start their Christmas vacation early. Then Barea zipped in and out of the paint, picked and rolled, and connected with Bass going in for a dunk. It hit me, the Mavs are better without Howard and Dirk on the court! Because the bench players are actually pretty good, they pick up their level when their starters are off the court. If this keeps up, the Mavs will be a force to be reckoned with down the road.

Continue reading "Josh Howard kicked out of game and Mavericks came back to beat the Portland Trail Blazer on Christmas Day"