About last night...

Last night's scrimmage was a thrilling overtime win against the 76ers. It started off great for the Mavs. Philly had struggled to muster up 8 points, while the Mavs were rolling with KP contributing 8 out of the teams 15 points so far. The first quarter ended with Philadelphia only scoring 13 points total. Then it came to a screeching halt, after half both clubs were shooting below 40% from the field and you could tell that both the Mavs and 76ers just wanted to play some meaningful hoops again. But still Tobias Harris was leading the charge back for the 76ers, dominating the Mavs in the third quarter. Eventually the Mavs bench fired back in the fourth and overtime to seal the win. 118-115. Here are the main points I took away from the scrimmage.  KP  Porzingis hasn't been able to show his stuff at all these scrimmage games. Having racked up 5 fouls early vs LA and missing his Covid test vs the Pacers, it was refreshing to see him get a lot of minutes last night. What he showed

Yesterday afternoon's scrimmage was... weird. It showed the highs of a run and gun, free flowing, watch Luka go to work offense and then the lows that I had forgotten about over this hiatus. Lazy defending, bad shot selection, relying on a foul call. Ultimately these things cost the Mavs the game. Not to mention KP missing his COVID test (what???)  Here are my key Takeaways from yesterday's loss.  Defense  After the game, Rick Carlisle had this to say about the Mavs defensive effort; "We know we can score, but we have to have the same type of emphasis getting better defensively." He is completely correct. Talented teams in this format don't put up duds very often. If you allow their scorers to get easy buckets, your lead is never safe, no matter how well you shoot. This is what happened with Indy, they just kept coming back at the Mavericks after every bucket. They waited for the Mavs to take the foot off the gas and get cold, and never gave that lead back. Condit

    Last night was the very first scrimmage for the Mavs in the Orlando bubble, kicking off their restart. Like most basketball fans, I was locked in. Highlights were back! NBA drama was back! Crossovers, deep threes and the refs giving calls to.... nevermind. I'm super excited for the season restart, even more than I thought I would be going in, so here are my way too early takeaways from last night's scrimmage win: Luka is Luka If there was any doubt in your mind about Luka's conditioning, he shut that down with a drive to the rim off a screen slam dunk. He got up so high that his wrist smashed the edge of the rim! (thank god he wasn't injured) I'll be thinking that on every play he & KP fly in the air or drive to the paint... In the limited scrimmage minutes he ended with 14 pts, 6 AST, 5 boards. Typical Luka. His stepback three swished in for his first shot and ate Kyle Kuzma up any time he tried to guard him. BBQ chicken. I was relieved by his first two fre

As the NBA restart looms large, there has been a flurry of speculation by media and fans. “What if LeBron goes down?”.....”What if Kawhi gets covid?”.... “Will the basketball even be good?”...”How do you create a playoff atmosphere without fans?”....”Will the champion have an asterisk?” All of which are valid questions. To offer my speculation, as a casual European soccer fan, we can use the challenges and successes of the EPL, La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga to shed light on what we can expect from the NBA restart.  Injuries . The scar tissue in my brain from watching KD’s calf ripple in game 6 haunts me when considering whether the restart is appropriate. Just yesterday, former Chelsea legend Gary Cahill collapsed from a noncontact hamstring injury, gifting his former team Chelsea an easy opening goal. Sergio Aguero, the prolific Manchester City striker, suffered an injury that could keep him out of the champions league restart in August. However, for the most part, megastars like Me

22 NBA teams set off for Orlando tomorrow, beginning the bubble plan into action. There are strict rules, found in a 108 page book, that players and staff must follow while at Disney world. Regular testing is required, along with masks. Players get almost anything their hearts desire: golfing, video games, movies, hiking trails, chefs, swimming pools etc. etc.  Still, there are a ton of concerns... for me, there's fairness.  I will admit, I never saw the NBA coming back; and agreed with players and personalities saying that it's not practical. The NBA has thought of everything they can do to keep the players safe, though.  The problem I see is what happens if, let's say Giannis, or another big name gets sick? Let's even take it a step back... if the 15th man on a team gets sick, it puts that team at a severe disadvantage. Players will have to quarantine, mess up their routines, go through even more testing. The player that tested positive will have to go into an isolate

     Okay, I've been meaning to write this blog for two years now. My thinking was, "Mavs just drafted Luka, this is probably the last year for Dirk... this is the perfect time for me to start writing and reflecting on this transition period for the mavs!" Things got in the way. I was too focused on making this perfect that I just gave up; especially when I couldn't get the site layout how I envisioned it. Hell, it took alot for me to just get snowballed on this intro!     The plan for this blog is to go over the previous game, focusing primarily on the Dallas Mavericks. I'll be talking about last night (the namesake!!!) along with a future outlook for the next game and whatever else I can add (about the mavericks, the rest of the association, venturing into the NFL when the time comes.)     I hope that I can provide an interesting perspective and analysis on games/the league. Comment, debate, shoot some takes off, let's FINALLY get this thing started!