Gee, Maybe These Mavs Are For Real....

I Love the Smell of Mavs Win in the Morning...

It's funny how difficult it seems to be for these broadcasters to accept the simple truth that Dallas is just a better team than Miami. Could you believe how many picked Miami to win? I had a few folks look at me crossways when I said I couldn't see how Miami could win a game, much less four, unless Dallas collapses. But I digress...

Some have asked me how my formula played out in game one of the Finals. Well, I went to the game so I did not score it. But, I did score game two. Things started out looking one-sided during the pregame show. ABC did three stories on Miami, and one on Dallas. Thus, Miami had an early lead (big surprise). Who enjoyed watching Alonzo Mourning angrily predict that Shaq was going to go off on Dallas "unless dey do some adjustment we never seen." Or maybe Shaq would just stink. Who knew?

At any rate, I am pleased to say that Mike Breen and Hubie Brown were the most unbiased of any broadcasters that we have seen to date. The score:

Positives and comments about a team:
Miami 9
Dallas 10

Graphics dealing with only one team:
Miami 9
Dallas 5

Score references to only one team:
(this one was hard to score, since they referenced it regularly depending on situations; I only counted two references each on other occasions, so this was not a factor; comment if you want more details on how I score this).

What "this team has to do to win":
Miami 4
Dallas 0

Negative comments/criticisms:
Miami 1
Dallas 0

Stories about a team in Pregame:
Miami 3
Dallas 1

Total Score after subtracting negatives:
Miami 24
Dallas 16

So, you can see that it was not the 30+ point blowout that we saw in the Phoenix series.

Stephen A. Smith Goes to a Funeral

After the game we continued to see the winds of change that were noted in my previous post. Greg Anthony stuck with his prior praise of Dallas and grew more bold with the offering that "Dirk is just a monster," and added that Dirk is the best player in the series, and is "more athletic than anyone on Miami's front line." He has consistently praised Dallas, so no change there.

Tim Legler is beginning to come around. He predicted Miami would win the series, and has consistently tried to offer opinions and analysis that would make that make sense in his mind. Last night he offered that "I am convinced now that Miami can't win this series." That is a very telling comment. You see, he was never analyzing it from the perspective of whether Dallas would win or lose, he only looked at it from the perspective of whether Miami would. Now he "is convinced" that Miami cannot. It remains to be seen if he still remains to be convinced that Dallas can.

I must admit, watching Stephen A. Smith interview Avery after the game raised all kinds of questions, like "are those tear tracks on Smith's face?" and "who died?" and "why does Chris Arnold still have a job in Dallas?" among others. Smith was so incredibly subdued that it made me smile. He could not bring himself to praise Dallas, just to ask questions and then get out of the interview. I do note that his column in the Philly paper after game 1 showed that he was much more doubtful about Miami's chances, and now he must be crushed that Shaq just can't seem to get it done.

I should note that the halftime panel was Dan Patrick, Mike Wilbon and Mark Jackson, and for the most part, all were impartial (as opposed to what we saw on TNT's broadcasts).

In short, last night's post game seemed to demonstrate an awakening in the national media: "Hey, Dallas is pretty good." For the first time you heard such high praise and credit to Dallas for what it did. Instead of blaming Shaq's woes on Shaq and his Miami teammates, you began to hear credit for what Dallas was doing defensively. You began to hear the announcers repeatedly credit Dallas for quality play as opposed to fault Miami for their mistakes. They actually began to seem to recognize that DALLAS IS BEATING MIAMI, as opposed to Miami simply making mistakes. Clearly, however, the story is still MIAMI and where they stand in the series, though the winds of change continue.

A Funny Thing Happened....

Some other interesting and funny notes included the absolute genius of the group that went to the game dressed as Jason Terry "Jet" Airlines crew, including guys dressed as a pilot, steward, ground crew (complete with orange vest, flashlights, earphones) and a girl dressed as a stewardess (I don't see why that term is demeaning).

I also loved seeing Dirk goof on the reporter in the post-game press conference because he was from Waco. The guy introduced himself and asked his question, and while he asked Dirk laughed and said, "Waco?" Everyone had a laugh at that guy's expense.

It Ain't Over Yet...

All in all it was a great game to watch and to see Dallas begin to put together their usual game and style. However, I counted 14 blown possessions by Dallas in the first half (including 11 turnovers) and 12 blown possessions in the second have (with 7 turnovers). So, there is still much work to do to make sure we take care of the ball. If we do, we'll win by 30. That won't make the Miami fan that sat in front of me at game 1 happy. I asked the bleary-eyed gollum if he was going to drive the trash truck all the way back home, and if he could empty my trash can before he goes since they missed it this week. He didn't like that very much. But, no one liked him.

Go Mavs.