Mockingbird Airbag

All basketball, beeyatches

This is two days old, but what a stifling performance from the Mavs over the Lakers on Tuesday night, holding Kobe to 24 pts. The Mavs have finally learned to add. It's not calculus here - it's complementing your incredible offense with a good, quick defense. It's adding. It's making a really good team even better. In years past, every game was a shootout - first to 120 points wins, and who doesn't like to see a ton of dunks, threes, and jumpshots falling? But by God, I wanna see some tenacious D, and I don't mean a fat, overrated comedic actor. This will make the Mavs a post-season threat and give some legitimacy to the Dallas franchise, which for so long has been looked upon as being soft and a flash-in-the-pan, regular season acrobatic circus. When the playoffs rolled around, no one took them seriously. All that will change this year. Gimme the Lakers in the first round, gimme the Spurs in the 2nd, the Suns in the Western Finals, and the ultra-good Pistons in the Championship. Up to now, the Mavs have proven they can beat every single one of these teams - it's time to prove it in the playoffs.

Last night the Sooners held off a desparate oklahoma state team for their first win in Pukewater in 6 years. It was a good bounce back game after the heartbreak in Lawrence. Although the Big XII title is probably out of reach by now, it's time to get some good momentum heading into the tournament and NCAA field of 64. The Big XII tournament title is definitley within reach. OU has shown it can play with any team now. Here's a great quote by Kelvin Sampson, the coach:

“It would be easy to say we could maybe be 4-5 (in the conference) or 5-4 but we could easily be 9-0,” Sampson said. “We haven’t played a team we couldn’t beat. We lost to Missouri. I wish we hadn’t played them, yet. Timing is everything. But we could’ve won the Nebraska game. We could’ve won the Missouri game. And we certainly could have won the game Sunday.”

I love Terrell Everett's snarl in this picture. Boomer Sooner baby.....

posted by Airbag1 @ 8:47 AM