Peanut Butter and Crack

Just when you thought it was safe to make a nice peanut butter and crack sandwich, we find out that peanut butter isn't safe.  What is this world coming to?  Is this the kind of world where we have a female and an African American running for President with legitimate chances of winning, but the media's more concerned with which of the 6 male suitors claim to be the father of a recently deceased former Playmate?  Is this the kind of world where NASA astronauts drive across the country in a diaper to kidnap and possibly murder the competition in their love triangle?  Is the kind of world where anybody with an insatiable passion for a basketball team can just send his thoughts out to the entire universe whether the universe wants to hear them or not?  What is this world coming to?!?!  I'm just going to go make me a peanut butter and crack sandwich to make it all feel better.  Wait!  I can't have peanut butter!  My God has forsaken me!  Let's talk Mavs instead.

DIRK'S DIGITS!

Another head to head battle with Tracy McGrady, another overall victory for Dirk, another feather in the MVP cap.  A close, low scoring game throughout where only 3 of the total 17 players that took the floor scored over 15 points, Dirk shot 12 of 22 for 26 points, grabbed 8 rebounds, blocked 2 shots and got a steal.  He basically played T-Mac to a wash, so that means it was the rest of the Mavs against the rest of the Rockets (without Yao Ming).  I like those odds.

1. Tracy McGrady - 27 points on 9 of 21 shooting (an awful 6 of 11 on free throws or this game would have had a different outcome) and 10 rebounds.  I wonder sometimes how good this guy could be if he didn't look like he just took a huge bong hit during the last timeout.

2. Greg Buckner - Not for a solid line (2 points, 3 boards, 2 steals), but for containing T-Mac as best as he could.  Normally, Avery swarms T-Mac with a constant rotation of Buckner, Howard, George, Dirk, Harris, Terry, and a partridge in a pear tree.  George is out for a couple weeks with his knee injury, so Buckner had to go up against a very good perimeter player almost by himself and give up a few inches in height.  Given the nature of this game, T-Mac could have had 40 points, but Buckner held him in check, especially in the first half and late in the 4th quarter when the game was on the line.

3. Jerry Stackhouse - Shooting was awful (5 of 14), but most players in this game were hitting shots with the same success as trying to hit the moon with a cinder block.  Still, Stack was the third leading scorer in the entire game with 17 points, got to the line more than any other Mav, and stayed active on the boards even though his actual rebound total doesn't reflect that.

RANDOM CRAP!

• I missed the first half of this game thanks to my Tivo.  Because I can only record two shows simultaneously (and I have to be watching one of them), when The Office and Grey's Anatomy overlapped each other, it couldn't keep recording the Mavs game, too.  I chose to delete the Mavs recording so that my wife would have her Grey's Anatomy intact (and so I could keep my anatomy intact).  Call it a Valentine's Day gift.
• I don't have a whole bunch of notes from this one because I missed the first half, and we just played Houston last week.  It felt like all cynical venom had already drained out of me for this opponent.  After losing the second game of the season to Houston by 31, we have since won the remaining 3 in the season series by an average of 12 points (and yes, that includes last night's 3 points victory).  Here's the best I could do.
• Scottie Pippen, 41, wants to return to the NBA.  Good for him.  I want to go back to college.  Yeah!  It was so awesome!  I'm not happy with what I'm doing, and people have forgotten about me, so I'm going to try to go back and relive my youth.  Oh wait, they might look at me funny when they see a 30-year-old rushing balls at the SAE house.  Scottie, take a lesson from your buddy, Jordan.  Don't ruin your legacy.  I don't really like you that much, but I still appreciate your legacy.
• The NBA has told Dwight Howard (up and coming resident badass) that he can't raise the rim higher than 10 feet for this weekend's dunk contest.  In related news, the NBA is dumb.  The dunk contest has held about as much excitement since Jordan quit participating as I get out of vacuuming the house.  "Tonight from the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, where the women pounce but the white tigers don't anymore, we give you, for your entertainment pleasure, The Dude dunking on a 5 foot rim while trying to get off the phone with a telemarketer!"  Oh, the insanity!  Ratings Monster!!  With the small exception of last year, when Andre Iguodala did his "catch the ball off the back of the backboard and come underneath for the backwards windmill jam", everything's been done at this point.  Half these guys need 5 or 6 tries before they actually get it right.  I say, if an astonishingly gifted athlete says he can do a 360 dunk on a 12 foot rim, I say I want to watch that.  If a guy says he can pass the ball between his legs and still get it back up in time to dunk on an 11 foot rim, tell me what time and station.  If a guy says he wants to jump from the free throw line (which always winds up being about 2 steps inside the line) for a one handed dunk, I say I've already caught that show, and I'm going to watch a rerun of Design on a Dime.  The All-Star Game is in Vegas.  The whole city is based on upping the ante.  Why would you handicap (no pun intended) your skills competition by not allowing an electrifying athlete to dazzle the world?  Isn't that what this weekend is all about?
• I love All-Star time because I love the break in regular season action.  I love the fact that it doesn't come truly at mid-season.  I love the fact that it's a celebrity freakshow of attention for the league.  I love seeing if my Mavs guys do well.  I love that it means that we are only 2 months away from the playoffs.  But I also love that it almost always coincides with the start of baseball's spring training.  For those of you that have been reading the blog from the jump or have known me for a while know that I have a severe love/hate relationship with the Texas Rangers.  In fact, I rarely watch them or talk about them because of the number of times they've crushed my hopes.  They will never, ever come within a fraction of a percentage broken down by scientific notation of how I feel about the Mavs, but if they would stop getting my hopes up every February, only to crush them back to Earth come April, they would become my second favorite team.  All that aside, now's the time for hope.  I will most surely post another entry in a couple of months expressing my displeasure with once again falling for the hype.  The Rangers be a tempting mistress.

I'm ready to unveil Devin Harris's song for The (Blue and) White Album.  It's a remake of Cake's classic song, "The Distance", but we will call this one "The Offense".  It goes a little something like this:

Generally placed in the starting lineup/Opposing defenders, come on and sign up/The jump ball tips, and the game is on/You try to keep me on my toes, but I deliver a yawn/I deftly maneuver and run through your line/The next thing you know, the ball is dropping through the twine/Defending like a trooper, I shut down other guards/Then I race by them like I was on the boulevard/As I speed to the basket, your team's a blur/The fans are waiting for great things to occur/I find a trailing teammate, and pass him the rock/The next thing you know, you are picking up your jock/As my teammate's smiling, swinging from the rim/Knowing he just made Sports Center's Top 10/I'm driving and striving and defending my man/And pumping energy into the Mavs clan

I'm running the offense/I'm going for speed/We won't stop/Until we get that ring/Because I'm driving and dishing and dunking in your face/I'm even starting to grow hair on my face/We're going the distance

Thanks to you all, this completes my 100th post in the 8 months that I've been up and active on the blog.  I have received over 2000 hits in that time, so I thank you all for checking in for your daily dose of awesomeness.  I will try to get back after the All-Star break with my State of the Blog address.  Until then, enjoy the time off, cheer for Dirk and JET in the 3 Point Shootout, cheer for Dirk and Howard in the All-Star game, and cheer for The Dude for, well, just because.  Oh, and don't eat peanut butter and crack sandwiches.  Go Mavs!

Comments

[Sarah May]

Thank you, Dude. Because of you, I am becoming more awesome. (Okay, this is from your aunt who is visiting your Gramma.) But who cares, awesome is awesome! Go Mavs!