Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
And AGAIN a down to the wire loss vs. an elite team. This is actually getting pretty remarkable. Not sure I can remember a team getting stuck so close yet so far for such a long stretch in the NBA,
If I told you that in a couple of months there was going to be a playoff series between two 50+ win teams, Team A was the Lakers/Hornets/Celtics/Spurs/Jazz/Mavs, and Team B was a young up and coming team, and that the series was going to go 6 games with 5 of the 6 games decided by 6pts or less with the young team holding second half leads in each of the tight games, you might think hey, that's a playoff series I would want to watch. That young team sounds good. It sounds like OKC again. Except we're not like OKC -- we're 12-37. But 12-37 or not, in the past several weeks we have been playing basketball at the level of a playoff team...until of course it comes time to win it.
So theme...well, while it makes me feel cheap and degraded, and valued only as a piece of meat, I am going to go ahead and put up Gogogadget's suggested (and fully researched/fleshed out) boytoy theme: Really good actors who happen to also be yummy.
Yummy is obviously her word, not mine. Hey, don't blame me for how incredibly shallow modern women have become. All post pic comments are hers, not mine. I do not as a rule droooool over guys.
Official Boxscore
Casspi ( C ) -- not much in the first half, and mysteriosiuly wandered off of his man in the corner for the buzzer beating three at halftime to put the Mavs up 9. Minutes ended up beign restricted in this one not so much by his production -- his 8pts 6rebs was right in line with what he has been giving for some time now -- and not because he was being lit up (poor Peja has the whole cutlery drawer sticking out of his back anymore), but by...Luther Head. Yes, that Luther Head. Head got bumped up in the rotation to match up with the Mavs smallball 3 guard backcourts, and Casspi was left without a position to play. Highlight of this one may have been a beautiful hi low pass to Daly for the dunk +1 at the 6:30 mark of the 4th. But missed an open three we needed a minute late and was replaced again never having had any impact on the game.
Tom Hardy – Becoming well known stateside after Inception (and rightfully so as his charming, easy performance stole the show from an ensemble of better known actors), Hardy has been both busy and acclaimed in his native England for a number of years. His performance a couple years ago in a film called Bronson (itself a tad uneven) remains one of the single best bits of acting I’ve seen quite a while. Scary good. And, if he manages to avoid being thrust into pretty boy status as his career gets going here, I predict a long and well awarded career. And, oh yeah, droooooool…
Thompson ( C+ ) -- and the other of young pair of forwards had a sinilar relevance, or lack therof, to the outcome of this game. Did not look terribly steady early on, but was not hurting us, and was letting basically all of his offense be created by Reke drive and dishes. Dirk was not able to do anything back the other way either...can't count that as Jason shutting him down as Dirk was clearly just way off for the entire game no matter who he was facing. But you can say that Jason at least did not let a struggling star have the easy ones that might have gotten him going. Lost most of his second half minutes with the return of Samkeem Olajubert to our lineup. I'm going to call Jason's game a C+ and Omri a C, mostly because you would have come into this one expecting Jason to get smashed by his opponent, and he played him pretty much even. But the truth is both guys existed right on the same C/C+ borderline, not playing poorly, but not doing anything compelling and having no impact.
Michael Fassbender – I first took notice of the yummy part in 300 as the only in a cast famously packed with abs and testosterone to catch my eye, but had no clue who he was (couldn’t even figure out his name when watching the credits, given the film’s approach to character development). It wasn’t until Inglorious Basterds and his wonderful turn as British officer Archie Hicox that I finally learned his name and was able to look at earlier work. There’s a lot of hit and miss in the early stuff, but he’s been great in everything I’ve watched.
Cousins ( B ) -- pinch me if you're heard this one before. Actually, don't, I'm not much into being a pinchee. Pinch somebody else. Anyway, it was, dum dum dum, a tale of two halves for DeMarcus. Imagine that!? Not much in the early going. Hit a jumper, but the rest of the offense was forced. Returned in the second and it was more of the same. Looked intimidated by Chandler and Haywood and unwilling to attack. Made him tentative, turnoers and ugly shots ensued. But once again the good halftime faeries came down and tapped Demarcus on the head with their little sprkly wands, and after half he was a new man. Finally got a drive and finish to go early in the quarter, and started to wake up. Also started to pick up cheap fouls on Chandler that threatened to take him away, but he won that battle tonight..well at least until the end, which we'll get to. Eventually chased Chandler with aggressive play as he began to dominate the third with pure power, banging right through the Mavs inside and piling up boards once again. Got a technical in the mid 4th that hurt us in such a close game, and set up a ridiculous outcome late. Hit a tough fallaway in the mid 4th and was cleaning the defensive glass for us as it was neck and neck the whole final quarter. With the game still right there, less than a minute to go and Reke having just cut the Dallas lead to 2, all of asudden teh refs decide to give Cousins and Chandler double technicals for a very minor wrestling match under the hoop. Did not matter for Chandler, but because of Cousins' earlier T this one took him out of a 2pt game with 45 seconds to go. Which is just terrible refereeing. But also a good example of why not to pick up stupid Ts earlier in the 4th quarter of a close game. 19 and 15 again. And yet really only giving us half a game too as I think he was 2-7 in the first half for 4pts 4rebs and 3TOs, adn hence its a 19 and 15 B. So much talent. And you know what? For all the crap fans around here like to throw at our young studs -- maybe moreso Reke than Cousins of late, but they've both caught a ton of heat at times -- they were both far better than the Mavs putative HOFer in Dirk. We had the two most spectacular talents on the floor, again. They just are young and still do dumb things.
Ewan McGregor – I just adore him. Can’t think of anything else needs sayin'.
Udrih ( D+ ) -- remember only a couple of months ago when we were having to depend on Beno as effectively our best player? Well, with the emergence of Reke/Boogie since the new year (Reke Last 10 games: 20.9pts (.465 FG) 4.9reb 5.7ast 1.7stl 0.8blk; Boogie Last 10 games: 17.2pts (.471 FG) 9.0reb 2.2ast 1.1stl 0.8blk) those days are long gone and not likely to be coming back. But we still need more from Beno than this, as this was another incredibly tight game against elite competition where all we needed Beno to be was average Beno and we trounce on some elite team throat. Got off to the very slow start offensively, missing things he should hit. Was hustling on the othe end at least, but hurt us offensively. Took a blow to the stomach and went to the ground in the mid 2nd, and was replaced by Head. Finally hit a three in the mid thrid to cut the led back to something reachable, but it was the only one he hit on the night, and he missed a key one at the 3:00 mark. More importantly on a ngiht for littel guards, with Dallas runnign their smallball Barea/Terry/Kidd mishmash and Westphal trying to match, Beno was maybe only the 5th best guard on the floor after Reke and the whoel Dallas trio. And maybe only the 6th best after Head as well. Resulted in a really empty 7pt 0reb 1ast statline, with some defensive hustle (not to be confused with effectiveness) the only saving grace.
Jon Hamm – I remain convinced that sometime soon the dictionary definition of “handsome” will be replaced by a picture of Jon Hamm. Don Draper has been great to watch over the seasons, and his performance in The Town was very good. SNL and talk show appearances have also shown a great bit of comedic timing and willingness to poke fun at himself. Thumbs up all around.
If I told you that in a couple of months there was going to be a playoff series between two 50+ win teams, Team A was the Lakers/Hornets/Celtics/Spurs/Jazz/Mavs, and Team B was a young up and coming team, and that the series was going to go 6 games with 5 of the 6 games decided by 6pts or less with the young team holding second half leads in each of the tight games, you might think hey, that's a playoff series I would want to watch. That young team sounds good. It sounds like OKC again. Except we're not like OKC -- we're 12-37. But 12-37 or not, in the past several weeks we have been playing basketball at the level of a playoff team...until of course it comes time to win it.
So theme...well, while it makes me feel cheap and degraded, and valued only as a piece of meat, I am going to go ahead and put up Gogogadget's suggested (and fully researched/fleshed out) boytoy theme: Really good actors who happen to also be yummy.
Yummy is obviously her word, not mine. Hey, don't blame me for how incredibly shallow modern women have become. All post pic comments are hers, not mine. I do not as a rule droooool over guys.
Official Boxscore
Casspi ( C ) -- not much in the first half, and mysteriosiuly wandered off of his man in the corner for the buzzer beating three at halftime to put the Mavs up 9. Minutes ended up beign restricted in this one not so much by his production -- his 8pts 6rebs was right in line with what he has been giving for some time now -- and not because he was being lit up (poor Peja has the whole cutlery drawer sticking out of his back anymore), but by...Luther Head. Yes, that Luther Head. Head got bumped up in the rotation to match up with the Mavs smallball 3 guard backcourts, and Casspi was left without a position to play. Highlight of this one may have been a beautiful hi low pass to Daly for the dunk +1 at the 6:30 mark of the 4th. But missed an open three we needed a minute late and was replaced again never having had any impact on the game.
Tom Hardy – Becoming well known stateside after Inception (and rightfully so as his charming, easy performance stole the show from an ensemble of better known actors), Hardy has been both busy and acclaimed in his native England for a number of years. His performance a couple years ago in a film called Bronson (itself a tad uneven) remains one of the single best bits of acting I’ve seen quite a while. Scary good. And, if he manages to avoid being thrust into pretty boy status as his career gets going here, I predict a long and well awarded career. And, oh yeah, droooooool…
Thompson ( C+ ) -- and the other of young pair of forwards had a sinilar relevance, or lack therof, to the outcome of this game. Did not look terribly steady early on, but was not hurting us, and was letting basically all of his offense be created by Reke drive and dishes. Dirk was not able to do anything back the other way either...can't count that as Jason shutting him down as Dirk was clearly just way off for the entire game no matter who he was facing. But you can say that Jason at least did not let a struggling star have the easy ones that might have gotten him going. Lost most of his second half minutes with the return of Samkeem Olajubert to our lineup. I'm going to call Jason's game a C+ and Omri a C, mostly because you would have come into this one expecting Jason to get smashed by his opponent, and he played him pretty much even. But the truth is both guys existed right on the same C/C+ borderline, not playing poorly, but not doing anything compelling and having no impact.
Michael Fassbender – I first took notice of the yummy part in 300 as the only in a cast famously packed with abs and testosterone to catch my eye, but had no clue who he was (couldn’t even figure out his name when watching the credits, given the film’s approach to character development). It wasn’t until Inglorious Basterds and his wonderful turn as British officer Archie Hicox that I finally learned his name and was able to look at earlier work. There’s a lot of hit and miss in the early stuff, but he’s been great in everything I’ve watched.
Cousins ( B ) -- pinch me if you're heard this one before. Actually, don't, I'm not much into being a pinchee. Pinch somebody else. Anyway, it was, dum dum dum, a tale of two halves for DeMarcus. Imagine that!? Not much in the early going. Hit a jumper, but the rest of the offense was forced. Returned in the second and it was more of the same. Looked intimidated by Chandler and Haywood and unwilling to attack. Made him tentative, turnoers and ugly shots ensued. But once again the good halftime faeries came down and tapped Demarcus on the head with their little sprkly wands, and after half he was a new man. Finally got a drive and finish to go early in the quarter, and started to wake up. Also started to pick up cheap fouls on Chandler that threatened to take him away, but he won that battle tonight..well at least until the end, which we'll get to. Eventually chased Chandler with aggressive play as he began to dominate the third with pure power, banging right through the Mavs inside and piling up boards once again. Got a technical in the mid 4th that hurt us in such a close game, and set up a ridiculous outcome late. Hit a tough fallaway in the mid 4th and was cleaning the defensive glass for us as it was neck and neck the whole final quarter. With the game still right there, less than a minute to go and Reke having just cut the Dallas lead to 2, all of asudden teh refs decide to give Cousins and Chandler double technicals for a very minor wrestling match under the hoop. Did not matter for Chandler, but because of Cousins' earlier T this one took him out of a 2pt game with 45 seconds to go. Which is just terrible refereeing. But also a good example of why not to pick up stupid Ts earlier in the 4th quarter of a close game. 19 and 15 again. And yet really only giving us half a game too as I think he was 2-7 in the first half for 4pts 4rebs and 3TOs, adn hence its a 19 and 15 B. So much talent. And you know what? For all the crap fans around here like to throw at our young studs -- maybe moreso Reke than Cousins of late, but they've both caught a ton of heat at times -- they were both far better than the Mavs putative HOFer in Dirk. We had the two most spectacular talents on the floor, again. They just are young and still do dumb things.
Ewan McGregor – I just adore him. Can’t think of anything else needs sayin'.
Udrih ( D+ ) -- remember only a couple of months ago when we were having to depend on Beno as effectively our best player? Well, with the emergence of Reke/Boogie since the new year (Reke Last 10 games: 20.9pts (.465 FG) 4.9reb 5.7ast 1.7stl 0.8blk; Boogie Last 10 games: 17.2pts (.471 FG) 9.0reb 2.2ast 1.1stl 0.8blk) those days are long gone and not likely to be coming back. But we still need more from Beno than this, as this was another incredibly tight game against elite competition where all we needed Beno to be was average Beno and we trounce on some elite team throat. Got off to the very slow start offensively, missing things he should hit. Was hustling on the othe end at least, but hurt us offensively. Took a blow to the stomach and went to the ground in the mid 2nd, and was replaced by Head. Finally hit a three in the mid thrid to cut the led back to something reachable, but it was the only one he hit on the night, and he missed a key one at the 3:00 mark. More importantly on a ngiht for littel guards, with Dallas runnign their smallball Barea/Terry/Kidd mishmash and Westphal trying to match, Beno was maybe only the 5th best guard on the floor after Reke and the whoel Dallas trio. And maybe only the 6th best after Head as well. Resulted in a really empty 7pt 0reb 1ast statline, with some defensive hustle (not to be confused with effectiveness) the only saving grace.
Jon Hamm – I remain convinced that sometime soon the dictionary definition of “handsome” will be replaced by a picture of Jon Hamm. Don Draper has been great to watch over the seasons, and his performance in The Town was very good. SNL and talk show appearances have also shown a great bit of comedic timing and willingness to poke fun at himself. Thumbs up all around.
