Mavs and the Nuggets played a great game tonight. Dirk Nowitzki came to ball today and singularly carried the Mavs to the finish line. He had a 44-13 night and hit 14/25 shots. Melo scored 41 in a losing effort and he was awesome too. It's interesting that both these guys had a rather quite season by their standards. Dirk is a former MVP and we are kinda used to his numbers and the Mavs were up and down this season. So there was not so much attention on him all season though he actually averaged more points per game than he did during his MVP year. In the case of Melo, I guess he has lost some of his sheen because of his suspensions and other extra-curricular activities. He was leading the league in scoring a couple of years back and was a MVP front-runner when he got suspended for a brawl. Plus he was always compared to LeBron until recently and now LeBron has taken off and separated himself. Melo's numbers were also a little down this year. But he has always been known for his 4-Th quarter heroics and even Kenny and Charles were talking about how pure a scorer he is. Kenny was saying he might even score easier that Kobe. Who knows - this year's finals might end up being all about LeBron-Melo instead of LeBron-Kobe.
But tonight, Dirk owned the 4-Th quarter. He was not going to let the Mavs lose. Dirk has had a great off-season so far. He has scored 31, 28, 35, 33 and 44 in the last 5 games. Those are legitimate superstar numbers. With all that said, the Mavs are not going anywhere unless they pair him up with another superstar. In other words, Dirk is much like KG or Pau Gasol. He is a better option 1-A than option 1. He needs that Paul Pierce or a Kobe around him. Thats what the Mavs are missing as far as winning a championship goes. Of course, Western conference semi-finals aint bad, but Cuban needs to get another guy to score with Dirk. Today was great for them, but Dirk can't do this every day. Speaking of Cuban, he is plain stupid and he was a big story today. Apparently he had a run-in with Kenyon Martin's mother on Saturday and referred to him as a thug and a punk. How classy! I do think Kenyon is a thug, but cubes had no bloody business saying that to his mom. Cubes is the wannabe thug himself who needs to be spanked by somebody and put in his place. I was hoping Kenyon would do it today since he wanted to meet him and deal with him face-to-face.
The best part of the story might be Kenyon's great quote - "I don't back away from nobody except the law.” Nothing happened today, but apparently a few fans were ejected around Kenyon's mom and his girlfriend. Thats amazing to me. How retarded are these fans that they would abuse the family of visiting players! How can you be so mean to such guests, especially to visiting women. I don't get that at all. Anyways, the series now moves to Denver and the Nuggets should take care of business on Wednesday. In the East, the Cavs buried the Hawks today. LeBron had a sub-par shooting night, but his team came through. Even Wally Szerbiak and Delonte West had impressive dunks. To borrow Delonte's phrase, how player is that? That dunk was very player of Delonte! The best part of the playoffs so far might be the fact that "Derek Fisher" has become a verb. I played basketball at the park this weekend and guys were routinely joking and saying things like "pull a Derek Fisher on him" and "I almost Derek Fisher'ed him". Even Antoine Wright asked the reporters after that missed foul on Melo on Saturday - "What do you want me to do? Do you want me to Derek Fisher him?". I love it!
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