Re: Are things not hunky-dory in Dallas?

[Ryan W <ubiquitous_am_i@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks, Mark, for posting this...  

A couple concerns, though, about this writer's
"points".  Antoine didn't come from a bad Boston team.
 Secondly, Antoine's the only one playing well for
that team right now.  Surely it's illogical to blame
to team's poor performance on the one player that's
actually playing well (very well, 20 points, 14 rebs
last game).  Thirdly, as Nash admits, he's rusty.  He
got absolutely destroyed by Payton on Tuesday night. 
As Nash goes, so go the Mavs....so he needs to start
showing up if that team's going to get on the right
page.  Some may say that Nash feels rusty due to the
fact that Antoine is assuming more of a ballhandling
role.  However, in the Lakers game on Tuesday, Antoine
was not dominating the ball at all...he ran,
rebounded, passed nicely and defended (Shaq, of all
people, in the post).  I didn't see the Golden State
game, however...  From these factors, it seems as if
the writer of the article is just picking on the most
obvious (to your basic idiot sportswriter) target,
Antoine.  And I thought the Boston media was the only
one that did that.....shows what I know....

Ryan
--- "Berry, Mark  S" <berrym@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> As with the Celtics, it's too early to draw any
> definitive conclusions, but
> does any of this sound familiar? I found this column
> VERRRY interesting. -
> Mark
> 
>
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/basketball/7149360.htm
>
<http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/basketball/7149360.htm>
> 
> 
> 
> New Mavs arouse yearn for yesteryear
> Randy Galloway commentary
> The Mavericks? Disorganized, confused, painful to
> watch, and the worst sin
> of all for a Big Nellie team -- boring.
> What are we seeing this week?
> Is this simply the price of future progress? Or the
> work of a mad basketball
> scientist who misread his test tubes?
> Very early overreaction:
> Undo everything.
> Bring back Nicky. And even Raef. Re-sign Raja and
> Adrian.
> Bring back the emphasis on the Big Three.
> The Big Three made the Mavericks a big deal. Made
> the Mavs the most
> entertaining team in the world. Made the Mavs a
> winner. Made the Mavs a
> happy brotherhood, and a beautiful offensive
> machine.
> Hasn't Michael Finley, leader of the Big Three,
> earned the right to shoot
> himself out of a slump? How long does the happy
> brotherhood last if Finley
> is getting eight shots a game, and a newcomer from a
> bad Boston team is
> jacking at will? Even if Antoine Walker is hitting,
> which he has been, how
> does this make the Mavs better in the long run?
> Scoring wasn't exactly the problem.
> But the trade parade of August created a new
> problem.
> And the trade parade didn't solve the old problem.
> And it won't solve the
> old problem. Not now, and certainly not in May, when
> the playoff mentality
> of pack 'em in, half-court hell, always takes over.
> Defense? Rebounding?
> They used to be the old problems. Return us, please,
> to the days when those
> were the only problems.
> OK...
> That's a wrap on that rant. I feel better already.
> What's done is done.
> Now, what does Nellie do about all this?
> The Mavericks' home opener is Saturday against Utah.
> Next week, Miami,
> Washington and Toronto come up real quick.
> This is a fortunate stretch of schedule that
> possibly allows the Mavs to
> sort things out, and also get a win streak going.
> No disrespect intended, but consider these upcoming
> opponents as
> "scrimmages."
> The Mavericks need scrimmages.
> As Don Nelson has pointed out, and as his floor
> leader, Steve Nash,
> confirmed again Thursday, training camp is still
> going on.
> Nash admits to "feeling rusty." The Mavs, as a team,
> look very rusty. The
> best rust-remover is about two hours a day of
> five-on-five practice-floor
> monotony.
> But Walker and guard Tony Delk have been around less
> than two weeks. Antawn
> Jamison and Danny Fortson, plus guard Travis Best,
> are also newcomers.
> The Mavericks have little time to scrimmage.
> Instead, they do walk-throughs.
> It's teaching, not practicing.
> 'We started all over," Dirk Nowitzki said. "We spend
> a lot of time [in
> practice] standing around, because everything has to
> be explained to our new
> guys.'
> That's one way to legitimately excuse away the
> standing-around embarrassment
> of the opening-night road performance against the
> Lakers.
> The Lakers, of course, have newcomers. Why did they
> look so good in that
> opener? Shaq, for one thing. And they were playing
> the Mavericks for another
> thing. They were playing a team not even close to
> being ready to begin a
> season.
> Even with an eventual win against the Warriors, the
> Wednesday-night
> follow-up was much worse than what happened in LA.
> Considering the class of
> the competition, the Mavs went from embarrassing to
> disgraceful.
> Still, it was a W. And it was a scrimmage. Maybe
> they can milk more of both
> over the next four games. If you snooze, you lose.
> Lose valuable ground in
> the Western Conference.
> If it's any consolation, the San Antonio Spurs have
> also looked awful this
> week. That's a key foe, obviously, in the West.
> Another might be the
> Timberwolves, another rebuilt club also panned for
> its play, albeit a W, in
> the opener Wednesday night.
> But the Mavericks have changed more than players.
> The personality of the club suddenly appears
> different, and that's a spooky
> unknown factor.
> It seems Antoine Walker is quickly assuming a
> leadership role, or at least
> attempting it. He's a shot monger, that's for sure.
> The Mavs have never had
> a problem with the often touchy issue of shot
> distribution. But now? Stay
> tuned.
> Walker is also a chatty fellow. One reason the
> Celtics wanted him gone was
> his chatty personality. Management didn't want him
> as a dominant
> personality. But after two games, he's talking a lot
> on the floor. Again,
> how does that eventually go over, particularly with
> the Big Three?
> As the departed Nick Van Exel said about his former
> teammates before
> Wednesday's game in Oakland, "Everybody over there
> is so nice. There's not a
> mean-hearted person in that locker room."
> At the moment, however, there's a lot of confused
> people in the Mavs' locker
> room.
> The good ol' days (last season) never seemed so
good.


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