Blow it up

- Observations from the most disappointing season of the Cuban era. It's a close race with 2003-2004, but at that point, we knew they were a fatally Nellie-flawed team who would never win. This year, after a near championship, and then a 67 win season, we all thought this was the year where all those lumps taken were going to pay off.

What happened?

1) The West got better, and I severely underrated this. In fact, I remember writing that the West's newfound strength from teams 1-9 was overrated. I stand corrected.

2) Management over-valued Josh Howard and under-valued Jason Terry beginning at the start of the 2006-2007 season. Not in salary, but in personnel decisions. Avery and the guys at the top made the decision that Howard was a #2, a legit scoring option when Dirk gets double and triple teamed, and the all-star they needed to satisfy the 2-star theory to win a title. They were horribly wrong. And they pushed JET to the bench, devalued him as a #2 scorer, and minimized his role for the sake of Howard.

He launches jump shots at all times. Drives to the hole maybe 30% of the time. Can't dribble. Like I've been saying for 3 years, Howard's real value to the team is when you don't run plays for him, you let him roam and do the gargbage work, defend the other team's best player, and just let him go free. Run plays for him and make him your focal point, and you're dead. I don't want a 22 and 7 Josh Howard. I want a 17 and 9, with 3 steals and 3 assists.

3) They overreacted when they were injured and made a trade. They were sitting near the top of the West, had used the current mix to beat some really good teams, and really just needed to stay healthy. But they blew it up, gained salary, lost draft picks, and got worse.

Written immediately after the trade, before Kidd had even played 1 game with Dallas.
http://notexrant.blogspot.com/2008/02/cuban-panics.html

The trade could possibly have worked if they had a coach that would adapt to his personnel. Which leads to this.....

4) Avery has now become this team's worst enemy. He can't let a Hall of Fame point guard run the team like he knows how. He's micromanaging a bunch of millionaires, which never works unless you win titles. He's been outcoached at the highest levels in the past 2 playoffs. And he won't adjust his style to his personnel, perhaps the most fatal thing a coach can do. If you don't have the players, your "system" won't work. SEE: Bill Callahan and Charlie Weis.

His best route would be college. There, its ok to call offense and defense every time down the court. There, you can treat 18 year olds like 12 year olds. There, you can be a dictator. Those guys are around for only 1-4 years, so they don't have a chance to tire of his act, because they'll be gone.

5) This could be the dumbest team in the NBA. How many game changing technicals have we seen in the past 3 years? How many suspensions have we seen in the playoffs? 1 is too many, and they've had 2. I'll go back to what Dirk said after game 6 of the 2005 playoffs, after losing to Phoenix. "Our basketball IQ is not where it needs to be." Translation - I'm surrounded by a bunch of spare ass idiots who don't know basketball basics and how to react to adversity.

6) It's time to blow it up. I want Avery out. I want everyone outside of Dirk and Kidd on the block. Kidd mainly because his contract will prevent him from being attractive on the trade market. At least until next year, when it becomes expiring gold. If you make moves this summer and it's still not working, deal him during the season next year.

Upgrade the IQ on this team. Give me sharpshooters. Give me cheap slashers, they're everywhere.

I'd roll next year with a superstar (Dirk), a PG (Kidd), a center (Dampier), and a collection of cheap athletes and sharpshooters. I don't care if its a bunch of Kyle Korvers. Athletic wings are everywhere as well, and on the cheap.

7) The current mix has proven that they can't get it done anymore. They peaked 2 years ago and are sliding down exponentially. I'm ready for major change this summer.




- Just pitiful last night......



Dallas Mavericks waste golden opportunity in loss to Nuggets

01:27 AM CDT on Friday, March 28, 2008
By DAVID MOORE / The Dallas Morning News
dmoore@dallasnews.com

DENVER – Holding onto a playoff spot in Dirk Nowitzki's absence is difficult enough.

It just got tougher.

The Mavericks lost two games in one Thursday night. Not only did Denver's 118-105 victory narrow the gap in the standings, it gave the Nuggets what could be a crucial tiebreaker.

For the first time in 13 years, Denver won the season series (2-1) against the Mavericks. If these teams wind up tied for the final playoff spot in 20 days, Denver will advance, and the Mavericks will turn their attention to the lottery.

"Just disappointed, man," Mavericks coach Avery Johnson said. "We're battling our butts off out there."

And it still wasn't enough. The Mavericks remain the No. 7 seed, but only one-half game separates them and Golden State. Their lead over Denver is one game.

What happened Thursday provides a more accurate picture of what lies ahead for the Mavericks without Nowitzki than their victory over the LA Clippers two nights earlier.

The Nuggets are not the Clippers, although they looked like it early. The Mavericks scored 70 points in the first half for only the second time this season. They shot 59.6 percent from the field, picked up 49 points from Josh Howard, Jerry Stackhouse and Jason Kidd and took a 70-60 lead into the locker room.

Denver was a desperate team in the second half. The Nuggets hit the Mavericks with a 22-9 run in the third and never looked back. What had been a 15-point deficit mushroomed to a 16-point lead for the Nuggets in the second half.

"We played a pretty good first half," Kidd said. "But once they took the lead, they became even more aggressive, and well, we just sat back.

"We watched. We didn't come out with the same intensity we did in the first half."

The Mavericks watched as Carmelo Anthony scored 32 points and Allen Iverson 31. The Mavericks turned the ball over – something they stressed they couldn't do – 17 times and scored only eight points in the paint in the second half.

The Mavericks scraped together only 35 points in the final two quarters. Howard finished with 30 points. But Kidd and Stackhouse combined for just eight points in the second half.

"I don't know how to elaborate," Howard said. "We made silly mistakes and turnovers and they were able to capitalize on it."

The Pepsi Center is not a nurturing environment. The last time the Nuggets played a game here, they scored 168 points. Denver averaged 126.3 points and beat teams by an average of 23 points in its previous six home games.

The Mavericks were simply their latest victim.

"If it comes down to the last game and we're tied with them, we can't do nothing but look at ourselves and know we had opportunities, not only tonight but the game at home where they came in and took it from us," Stackhouse said. "We can't do anything but look in the mirror.

"That's all we can do from here on out."




- And the Stars are looking just as bad right now. 1-8 in their last 9 games. Another stomach punch loss.

March 19 vs. Anaheim - Dominate the whole game, get late dumb penalty, allow a trickled goal sneak through with less than 10 seconds to go.

March 22 vs. LA - Dominate the entire game again, lose 2 goal lead and allow 3 goals in 1:30 and lose to the worst team in hockey.

March 27 at San Jose - Don't dominate, but play well enough to win on the road against the hottest team in the NHL. Turco gets a dumb 4 minute minor late, and then allows the tying goal. Modano has a breakaway that gets stopped not once, but twice in the final part of the 3rd period. And even more frustrating was the 2nd shot laying on the goaline and not moving, allowing the SJ goalie to swipe it away.

It's pouring right now for Dallas.



Point blank: Dallas Stars lose in OT to Sharks

02:45 AM CDT on Friday, March 28, 2008
By MIKE HEIKA / The Dallas Morning News
mheika@dallasnews.com

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Marty Turco is a direct reflection of his team right now.

The Dallas Stars goalie did almost everything right Thursday.

But stress the "almost."

Turco had a spectacular game, until he took a foolish four-minute high-sticking penalty and helped hand the San Jose Sharks a 3-2 overtime victory at the HP Pavilion.

The win pushes the Sharks’ point-scoring streak to 17 games at 15-0-2. San Jose (46-21-10, 102 points) can clinch the Pacific Division title with a win Friday against Anaheim. The Stars’ slump runs to 1-7-1 for the month of March. They now have 90 points and still are battling to maintain a playoff spot in the West.

Turco said he felt like his team had one of its best games of the month. Still, he said it came up short at all the wrong times.

"We made progress, but you don’t feel much better,’’ Turco said. "Mental mistakes are a lot easier to change than when your game’s not there. Tonight, I thought we did some good things."

Turco claimed responsibility for one of the biggest mistakes of the game. In the middle of overtime, he clipped Joe Pavelski in the head with his stick. Turco was trying to put a stiff arm into Pavelski to force the Sharks forward further around the net and create space for a Stars defenseman to carry the puck. But Pavelski leaned into a turn to go around the net, and Turco hit him square in the face.

"That thing in overtime was nothing short of dumb,’’ Turco said. "There’s no excuse. It was what it was, it doesn’t matter what you were trying to do. I always am trying to help my guys out, but in that case, he didn’t really need any help. It was just a reaction – and something that’s easily stopped.’’

Turco said that was the encouraging thing about the mental mistakes – that they can be controlled. But Stars coach Dave Tippett wasn’t as optimistic. B.J. Crombeen took a foolish instigator penalty in the second period when he was sticking up for teammate Toby Petersen after Petersen received a clean hit from Sharks defenseman Kyle McLaren. The Sharks scored on the ensuing power play. Then, Trevor Daley compounded Turco’s penalty in overtime by taking a hooking call that gave the Sharks a two-man advantage.

“These rules changes three years ago - how we can keep sticking our stick in a guy’s stomach just baffles me,” Tippett said. “And the Marty one, I don’t know what he’s thinking there, whether he’s protecting himself, I’m not sure what he’s thinking with that one. Those are just mental mistakes that have to come out of our game.”

And while Turco did a great job of clearing up a few shots on his penalty, he was unable to keep the puck out of the net once the Sharks went to the 5-on-3 power play. Sharks center Joe Thornton tried to thread a pass to Patrick Marleau, but the puck deflected in off of the skate of Stars defenseman Philippe Boucher for the winner.

Of course, the game would have never advanced to that point had Mike Modano scored on a short-handed breakaway seconds earlier. Modano blew past Sharks defenseman Brian Campbell and tried to make a stop and tuck move but lost control of the puck. He gathered it behind the net and tried to stuff in a backhand, but Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov came up with two big saves and prevented the puck from going completely over the goal line.

“I had him on the original one, but it just rolled off my stick,” Modano said. “The second one just missed.’’

Tippett said the team is simply finding ways to lose games.

“It’s a game of inches,” Tippett said. “He thinks it’s in … and it’s not. That’s kind of where we are right now."

The Stars are hoping to get out of the slump by playing a heavy schedule. They continue the California road trip with games at Los Angeles on Saturday and at Anaheim on Sunday.

"We battled hard and did some positive things, but we had some mental mistakes and those mistakes keep biting us," Tippett said. "We’ll take the point and keep pushing forward, though."



- The Texas Rangers are about to get our full attention this summer. F everything else. I want my playoff money back from the Stars. Give me back my lost sleep from the NBA playoffs. Screw everything else, I guess it's time for baseball.



Batting fourth for your Texas Rangers: Hank Blalock

Rehearsal reveals veteran fills cleanup spot ahead of Bradley

09:17 PM CDT on Thursday, March 27, 2008
By RICHARD DURRETT / The Dallas Morning News
rdurrett@dallasnews.com

SURPRISE, Ariz. – Manager Ron Washington treated the final spring training game in Arizona on Thursday like a dress rehearsal.

Kansas City started left-hander Mike Maroth, allowing Washington to use the lineup that he wants in the season opener against Seattle lefty Erik Bedard on Monday. He'll do the same tonight when Texas faces the Chicago White Sox and former Ranger lefty John Danks in Oklahoma City.

Hank Blalock, hitting fourth, followed Michael Young and Josh Hamilton in the batting order. Milton Bradley hit fifth.

Washington said all spring that Bradley would be the cleanup hitter, but Blalock's red-hot spring and Bradley's timing issues at the plate helped change the manager's mind.

"I'll take the same approach no matter where I am, but I'm comfortable at cleanup and I want to produce and help this team score runs," Blalock said. "I can tell you Milton is an animal. And when he's healthy, there's no one better to have as protection in the lineup."

Both hitters looked good in the third inning Thursday. Blalock tagged Maroth for his fourth homer of the spring. Four pitches later, Bradley hit a long home run.

Blalock had just one at-bat in the No. 4 slot during his shortened 2007 season and hasn't hit there on a regular basis since 2005. Blalock has 668 career at-bats at cleanup and has a .266 average with 22 homers and 97 RBIs.

To give Hamilton a break, Washington made him the designated hitter Thursday. But when the club gets to Seattle, Hamilton will play center field. He will be flanked by David Murphy in left and Marlon Byrd in right.

The lineup will include four left-handed hitters – Hamilton, Blalock, Murphy and Ben Broussard – despite a lefty on the mound. Washington will bat Broussard ninth to break up some of the left-handed hitters. Broussard, Blalock and Hamilton are batting a combined .226 against lefties in their careers.

"They have to learn how to fight lefties, so I'm not concerned about that," Washington said. "I believe that if a lefty makes a mistake, they're going to make them pay. If we get deeper in the season and any of them show they can't handle lefties, we'll make an adjustment."

No bullpen decision yet: The Rangers have one more spot to fill and it's in the bullpen. The two in-house candidates: Robinson Tejeda, who is out of options, and Wes Littleton. General manager Jon Daniels said the club is also on the lookout for possibilities from outside the organization. Littleton was supposed to pitch Thursday but was held back because the Rangers will use relievers against the White Sox tonight.

Briefly: RHP Luis Mendoza (blister) expects to throw again in a few days. "I get this every spring and it heals," Mendoza said. ... RHP Jason Davis, a non-roster invitee, asked for and was granted his release from the team. ... Texas released C Chris Stewart and INF Edgardo Alfonzo. ... Washington said the regulars will play seven innings against the White Sox tonight and then get one or two at-bats Saturday in Frisco. ... LHP Kason Gabbard is scheduled to pitch Saturday.


PLAY BALL


Here's the Rangers' planned opening day lineup:

Pos. Player '07 avg.
2B Ian Kinsler .263
SS Michael Young .315
CF Josh Hamilton .292
3B Hank Blalock .293
DH Milton Bradley .306
LF David Murphy .340
RF Marlon Byrd .307
C Gerald Laird .224
1B Ben Broussard .275