The NBA's longest stretch of lottery appearences
belongs not to the Clippers, Nuggets, or Wizards. The owner of that proud
streak is the Dallas Mavericks. But with their best start in 12 years,
the Mavs should finally break that and reach the playoffs.
Michael Finley has been great for years. The quick
rise of Dirk Nowitzki and sudden emergence of point guard Steve Nash are
what pushes this team over the top.
Only one current Mav player was on this team back
in 1997 when Don Nelson came on board, and that's Finley. Everyone else
is new. The team began playing great basketball towards the end of last
season and regularly compete and win with regularity now.
They even sold a game out - a rarity in Dallas.
That occured Friday against the Lakers. With no West team consistently
dominating, the Mavs are truly in the hunt.
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It happened again. Yet another broken foot for
Zydrunas Ilgauskas, center for the Cleveland Cavaliers. This is his 4th
broken foot in his 5-year NBA career. He was contributing 11.7 points and
6.7 rebounds per game, but lately has stepped it up and demanded attention.
Ilgauskis was on the All-Rookie first team. Since
then it's been nothing but broken feet. His bones are made of plastic sporks.
We've lost hope. Tough blow to Cleveland.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
At the very beginning of this season we declared
the Clippers days as a joke to be over. This was no random burst of inspiration;
we saw it with our own eyes. This is a happy squad and they play hard.
As stated in the NBA Notebook, a huge amount of Clipper losses this year
are in games that were tied late in the 4th quarter. They're just not good
at closing wins out, but the games are competitive. And they still don't
have a consistent rotation outside of Odom. Most time at each position
is split right down the middle between two guys. Even in losses, guys like
Darius Miles, Quentin Richardson, Keyon Dooling and Corey Maggette usually
provide great highlights worth remembering. This team is young, athletic
and while their level of basketball isn't always up to par, they're fun
to watch.
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