There are never really any good excuses in sports. It's a job like any other, and athletes are expected to put their personal lives behind them and handle their biz.
But it doesn't always work that way, and many fans accepts this. So for everyone who trounced Dirk Nowitzki in the wake of the dramatic Mavs upset, chew on this bit from The Dallas Morning News:
While the top-seeded Mavericks were getting shocked by Golden State in the first round of last spring's playoffs, the public never knew that Nowitzki's father, Jörg, was undergoing surgery in Dallas.
[...]
"It was not easy for him to deal with the pressure of the playoffs and my dad's surgery at the same time," Dirk's sister Silke e-mailed from the family's hometown of Würzburg, Germany. "But Dirk is good at being able to focus on his game when he is on the court."
The author speculates that Dirk's held this info back so as to not have "the slightest whiff of excuse in the air after the Golden State debacle." And that's probably because we're going to wonder now if these issues played a part in Dirk's poor showing. Not to excuse him for failing, or blame him for not blocking them out, but just out of natural curiosity.
Point of order: Dirk's family has declined to specify the nature of the surgery, but definitely didn't make it sound like a minor procedure.
Or something like that. We've seen Mark Cuban do some strange things lately, but this seems a little extreme. Cuban is actually suing Don Nelson, claiming that Nellie used "confidential information" to help his Warriors knock the Mavericks out of this year's playoffs.
John O'Connor, who said Cuban is suing Nelson, claiming the Warriors beat the Mavs in the first round because the Warriors' coach -- and former coach of the Mavs -- had "confidential information and he [Cuban] wants to enjoin Don from coaching against the Mavericks."
The article goes on to explain how Nellie was employed by Dallas as a consultant before he left to coach the Warriors. Part of the consulting agreement had a "non-compete" clause which was supposed to mean that Nellie wouldn't take what he learned in the Mavericks' organization and use it against them.
So does Cuban have a case here? Our very own Miss Gossip's expert legal opinion, after the jump.
Where would we be without Gilbert Arenas and his blog? Today he posted about a prediction that Baron Davis made back in March: According to Arenas, B-Diddy knew his Warriors would beat Dallas should they meet in the first round of the Playoffs.
Actually the funniest part about the Golden State/Dallas series was that when we played against the Warriors in March out in Golden State, me and Baron Davis were talking about playoffs and stuff and Baron said, "Man the only team we want, the only team we'll beat in the First Round of the playoffs is Dallas."
He's like, "Man we can beat them. For some reason they can't match up with us."
He was like, "G.A., if we get them in the First Round, we're going to the Second Round."
While the Arenas story is awesome, I really wish someone would reveal Dirk Nowitzki's predictions for the Playoffs. I wonder how clairvoyant he was.
We were already aware of the fact that Warriors' coach Don Nelson likes to enjoy an alcoholic beverage (or six) while forming his game plans. But we've now learned that the alcohol consumption extends to the post-game festivities as well. Check out the video of Nellie swigging from a Bud Light can before the Game 4 post-game press conference begins.
Now many of us like to enjoy a cold beverage after a hard day's work, and it's not like a single beer is going to impair anyone of Nellie's, um, stature. The problem is, doing it in full view of the press during his playoff media sessions isn't exactly something the NBA can get behind, and in fact they've made sure we won't be seeing it in the future. Which is a shame, really. I understand why the league has to do this, but ultimately it will prevent us from getting any more beautiful moments like this one:
After the series-clinching win on May 3, Nelson was watching the Turner Network Television broadcast while waiting to begin his press conference. Charles Barkley, a Turner analyst who had picked the Mavericks, was wearing a ``We Believe'' T- shirt worn by fans of the Warriors.
According to a Sports Illustrated account, Nelson raised his beer and called out, ``The Chuckster,'' referring to Barkley.
You may recall that Barkley, like some other crazy people in the media, predicted an easy Dallas victory over Nellie's Warriors in their first round series. But seriously, what's the NBA coming to when a drunken head coach can't raise a glass beer can to toast a television analyst in jest? Next you'll tell me that players can no longer taunt fans by waving wads of cash at them.
Over the next few weeks, maybe even months, you'll hear a lot of criticism of Dirk and T-Mac. They couldn't carry their respective teams, lacked heart, and don't deserve to be seen as elite players. The problem with this reasoning, though, is that Nowitzki and McGrady had completely different playoff experiences. Comparing the two just doesn't make much sense.
Dirk Nowitzki's Mavericks were dominated by the massive underdog Warriors. Maybe they lacked a low post option or a crazy guy, but on paper Dallas was the deeper, more talented of the two teams. Dirk was largely absent for the series, bothering only to flex his superstar sinew at the end of game five. Josh Howard looked like the better player most of the time, and Dirk made several comments that called his leadership skills into question.
McGrady, on the other hand, took a closely-matched series to seven games, with little more than himself and Yao to work with. Utah's vastly underrated squad swarmed him non-stop, and still he managed to take over when necessary. While Yao might have put up numbers, it was unquestionably T-Mac who helmed the Rockets' effort. He went out of his way to take sole responsibility for whatever happened, and if anything is being condemned for passing the ball and not forcing his shots at the very end of game seven.
The Mavericks' fairly shocking first round loss to the Warriors has been well-documented. After spending almost six months winning a league-best 67 regular season games, it took just two weeks for Dallas to get bounced from the playoffs by a team that they simply could not match up against. Mark Cuban built a championship caliber team to contend with consistent powers San Antonio and Phoenix, so what does he do now that his team's weaknesses have been exposed for all to see?
Initially, the thought is that Cuban won't do much. He has said that he has no plans to "blow up" the team that dominated the regular season. At the same time, the way the Warriors dismantled his club in the playoffs cannot be ignored.
The Mavericks have no low post scorer or any way to get easy points in the paint, so when a team with a small and quick lineup punishes Dallas on defense, the Mavs can't return the favor on the offensive end of the floor. The Warriors forced Dallas into a series of long jumpshots, evidenced by the astounding fact that they didn't make a shot inside the three-point arc the entire first quarter of Game 6.
So Dallas does need to make some changes, and most of all, they could use some players that are a little, um, "edgier."
Mark Cuban may have trashed one former employee of his. But when it comes to the subject of Steve Nash, he certainly has his regrets. Especially after this historic first-round upset, when someone to run the offense might have come in handy.
"The last time we tried to blow something up," Cuban reminded, "it was the biggest mistake we've made."
The article also notes that it's time Jason Terry give way to Devin Harris as the full-time starter, since Harris is a better penetrator. He's also a better passer, and maybe even more like a real point guard. Still, it's a shame that Cuban let this Nash guy go. Playing the "what if" game is silly, and these Mavericks clearly wanted to get away from the direction Nash took the Suns in. Still, when a two-time MVP walks and the team lacks offensive direction...yeah, I'd say keeping Nash might have helped avoid this humiliation.
Everyone's calling the Warriors win a triumph for up-tempo ball. Personally, I think that the void Nash left on the Mavs is every bit as important in this war between styles.
Remember that mini-feud that took place back in February between D. Wade and Dirk Nowitzki? Wade was upset that, in his mind, the Mavericks never gave his team credit for winning the 2006 title, and Wade fired back by putting it all on Dirk:
"Dirk says they gave us the championship last year, but he's the reason they lost the championship, because he wasn't the leader that he's supposed to be in the closing moments. That's because of great defense by us, but also he wasn't assertive enough as a leader's supposed to be.''
Nowitzki didn't really respond, but Mark Cuban did, and we all enjoyed a little mid-season bickering between two of the league's most high profile franchises.
Ira Winderman, who blogs for the Heat, decided to remind us of this war of words , and suggested that Wade is now having the last laugh by being somewhat correct in his assertion:
Thursday night against the Warriors, Nowitzki shot 2 of 13 from the field for eight points. The Mavericks' season is over, like the Heat's.
Wade, though, still has a championship ring -- and a view of the Mavericks forward that not only stings, but also appears more accurate than anything Nowitzki launched Thursday night against the Warriors.
The key phrase there is "The Mavericks' season is over, like the Heat's." While Wade's words may have turned out to be true about Dirk's play against the Warriors, the only reason to bring this up again is to try to pour salt in the Mavericks' collective wounds. I know misery loves company, but at least Dallas tried during the regular season, and won a couple of playoff games before falling to a red-hot team. The same can't be said of the Heat, who intentionally coasted through the regular season and got swept in the first round.
The Warriors really did win last night, and it got me thinking about whether there's ever been a similar first-round upset in the NFL, a playoff game in which an inferior team somehow manages to shock the best team in the league in the first round of the playoffs.
The best example I can come up with was in January of 1997, when the Jacksonville Jaguars, an expansion team in only their second year of existence, beat the Denver Broncos, who at 13-3 were the AFC's best team. Jacksonville barely got into the playoffs that year, and when they won the wild-card game against the Buffalo Bills, it was a shock. Everyone was sure it would end there, though: There was no way the Jags were going into Mile High Stadium and beating the Broncos.
And then they did it. The game itself wasn't particularly memorable, but there's one big similarity between the aftermath of that game and the aftermath of this Warriors-Mavericks series: Fans and the media are now saying the Mavs' superstar, Dirk Nowitzki, just doesn't have what it takes to lead a team to a championship. That's exactly what people said about the Broncos' superstar, John Elway. The good news for Mavericks fans is that in each of the next two seasons, Elway led the Broncos to a Super Bowl title.
The biggest difference between Warriors-Mavericks and Jaguars-Broncos is that in the NFL, it's one-and-done. I don't know anyone who thinks the Jaguars would have beaten the Broncos in a seven-game series. So for that reason, the Warriors pulled off a bigger upset last night than the Jaguars did 10 years ago. But in both cases, fans are waking up the next morning and shaking their heads at what they saw.
The Warriors won last night, advancing to the second round of the playoffs over the #1 Mavs ... can you "believe" it? The fans at Golden State sure can.
(Is the "believing" theme ever going to get old? Probably not until the Warriors show signs of slowing down.)
Next stop is either Houston or Utah and there's no reason not to believe the Dubs might be able to triumph in that round too. Which means we may be treated to many, many more playoff games featuring the Association's most creative fans.
These two gentleman believe in The Beard. Continue reading for more pictures of believing fans from last night's historic Game Six upset.
There are never really any good excuses in sports. It's a job like any other, and athletes are expected to put their personal lives behind them and handle their biz. 
Where would we be without Gilbert Arenas and his blog? Today he posted about a prediction that Baron Davis made back in March: According to Arenas, B-Diddy knew his Warriors 
Over the next few weeks, maybe even months, you'll hear a lot of criticism of Dirk and T-Mac. They couldn't carry their respective teams, lacked heart, and don't deserve to be seen as elite players. The problem with this reasoning, though, is that Nowitzki and McGrady had completely different playoff experiences. Comparing the two just doesn't make much sense. 
The Mavericks' fairly shocking first round loss to the Warriors has been 
Mark Cuban may have 
The Warriors won last night, advancing to the second round of the playoffs over the #1 Mavs ... can you "believe" it? The fans at Golden State sure can. 
