Mavs in PHX

Tonight’s game was a matchup of an old bitter rival between two teams led by once best friends, and still good friends. The last game before the all star game is what your high school basketball coach called a “trap game.” The game before Christmas break where if you’re not focused you can walk into The Little Sisters of the Poor’s home turf and walk out with a loss.

Fortunately due to the rapid growth of the blog and our many followers, the d-fdub was able to send yours truly, to the game as a correspondent all the way in the unfriendly biosphere known as US Airways Arena. The suns have been struggling all year after losing Amar’e and signing as many 6’7 210lb small forwards as they possibly could. Their win two nights ago against a head coachless Jazz was a squeaker to get them above 500. The mavs had just beaten the Kings the night before. I for one am happy that the Kings have taken on the persona of their owners, The Maloof Brothers. Know the brothers and the team all suck instead of just the brothers.

The mavs came out of the gates a little cold and let Nash pick up some easy assists early and the Mavs quickly took a time out. Out of the time out they made an 11-4 run featuring scoring from a plethora of options. All the cheering Suns fans in my section weren’t to keen on me standing up giving them the Hulk Hogan gesture while the Mavs fans peppered around the arena were the only ones you could hear. The game ebbed and flowed through the first half with Mavs firmly in control but you just couldn’t miss the little magician. There was a series early in the second quarter where Nash came off the pick and roll and engaged the big man. (No one in the league is better at engaging a defender than Steve Nash. By engage I mean, his ability to pick who guards him by offensively creating the contact between the two and using this contact to create separation by a step back, or draw the help defender rendering Marcin Gortat with an easy dunk.) Nash engages the big and after some fancy dribbling and almost losing the ball but not throw’s a great behind the back no look pass to a teammate who wasn’t ready for the greatness that is steve and fumbles it. Steve recovers it, dribbles it out to the wing, but before facing the hoop cracks off ANOTHER no look pass to a wide open Channing Get’s-Frye’d-on-Defense who missed the uncontested jumper. It was plays like that when you miss the guy. The Mavs walked into the locker room with just a 3 point lead but the whole feel of the game was that the Mavs were in control.

The whole second half was great basketball and the 3rd quarter was basically a street game of just trading baskets from two high powered offenses. After being knotted up at 80, the mavs closed the quarter on a much needed 5-0 run to take that lead into the 4th quarter.

The people around me were getting pretty used to me on my feet because, donning my throwback Dirk jersey from the Reunion Rowdy days, I stood up each time Dirk made the round orange thing go through the round orange thing. This happened 13 times. The 4th quarter featured the mavs getting up by as much as 7 before David Stern picked up the Bat Phone and told Dick Bavetta to make it a bit closer. The mavs closed the game out well and with 3 minutes left Suns fans were losing hope and exiting the arena. The mavs held on to win 112-106 and just to show you how pathetic they are here, regardless of win or lose if the Suns score >99 points they get jack in the box tacos. At least we had to win to get our Chalupas!!!

Few things in life are better than being a fan of the visiting team. Sure its fun to cheer and high five with your friends at a home game, but its even better to talk trash to an entire section of people. This theory works best when your team wins, if not exit the building cautiously. Though unable to get press passes for the game tonight, it was the first on site reporting job from D-Fdub and for that, we thank you.

GG