3 Cheers: Spurs 102, Mavs 88

When I was in the seventh grade, I made the Wilson Middle School basketball team in Plano, Texas.  I was the backup point guard on the B team, so it wasn’t anything special.  I was just one notch above the kid that didn’t make the cut but agreed to be the “equipment manager” and mop the gym floor before practice just so he could get a patch for his letter jacket.  Of course at the time, I didn’t think it wasn’t anything special.  I thought I was on top of the world.  I had made it.  I was basketball immortality.  More importantly, I thought that since I was already on the team that I would automatically make the team in the eighth grade.  When tryouts that year were all said and done, I was that kid that the coach was offering the “equipment manager” position to.  Last night, the Mavs were asked to mop the gym floor before the game, the Spurs mopped the floor with them during the game, and it is all because they fell prey to the same thing I did my eighth grade year at Wilson Middle School: unsubtantiated, unbridled, and ungrateful overconfidence.  You know what happens when you look a gift horse in the mouth?  I don’t either, but I imagine it just means that you are staring at a horse, and when did that get anyone anywhere?

3 Cheers: Mavs 100, Spurs 94

I have a few friends that live far away from me.  Sometimes I go years without seeing them and months without talking to them.  It’s no big deal.  When we finally catch up, we jump right back into a conversation as if we had just talked the day before.  We wait until later to dispense with the info about families, health, schedules, money laundering, etc.  So it’s been ten months since we last spoke, but let’s save the particulars for later.  We’ve got some Mavs to talk about.  3 Cheers is back!

3 Cheers: NBA Draft Preview

I can act like I am capable of breaking down the draft, do mock rounds, and give expansive lists of pros and cons of every player on the board.  I can pretend that I know or care why Player A would fit well with Team B, or why Team C should do everything in their power to grab Player D.  But you should know me by now.  I could care less that Stephen Curry probably won’t fall to the Knicks at 8, and they don’t have the assets to move up to get him.  I care about one thing and one thing only: the Mavs.  So let’s get our basketball on!

3 Cheers: Nuggets 124, Mavs 110

This is always the hardest one to write.  It’s the one with unsettling closure.  It’s the one that has no end of the rainbow.  It’s the one that won’t invite you up for drinks after dinner.  Yet I’m startling okay with it.  After two straight years of what I and most would consider true playoff disappointment, I can’t be too upset about this one.  The Mavs overachieved considering their regular season.  The Nuggets were the better team.

3 Cheers: Mavs 119, Nuggets 117

Nothing about the Mavs’ season made me think they could do this.  Nothing about the Mavs’ toughness made me think they could do this.  Nothing about the Mavs’ last three games made me think they could do this.  Nothing about the Mavs’ luck made me think they could do this.  But they did it.