It depends, of course, on your allegiance. If you like the Mavericks, then you want me away from my laptop. If you're a Jazz fan, you're saying 'please blog."
Went downstairs to mingle with the fans and the Mavericks began mingling with the basket. They were behind 29-17 went I left but they tied the game at 31 and now it's halftime and Dallas is ahead 55-51.
When the Mavericks have had problems lately, most of them can be traced to no Josh Howard. Everybody needs a third scorer, especially teams who have only three players averaging in double figures. Dallas has had problems finding another scorer behind Dirk and Jason Terry. JKidd is a terrific passer, but if he's passing to guys who miss, there is no assist and passing skills are insignificant.
Dirk has 19 points and the half and JT has chipped in nine. But the Mavericks are getting a good number of garbage points from Brandon Bass, who is dunking rebounds every chance he gets. He also has nine.
If Bass and another player -- perhaps Antoine Wright -- could get in the 10-12 range, the Mavericks might be able to survive without Howard, although obviously they are going nowhere in the playoffs without him.
Who knows? Maybe the extra scorer will be Matt Carroll, although a guy averaging 4.1 points a game hardly seems like a savior. But as a rookie, Carroll averaged 12.l points. His average has gone down every year, but perhaps telling is that the third-year player is now on his fourth head coach. It's not like he's going to have stability right away,but it will be interesting to see how Rick Carlisle incorporates him into the lineup.
-- Jan Hubbard
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