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Wild, Wild Western Conference

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There has never been, nor will there ever be a more insane last day of the regular season in the NBA. The top two seed are the only ones that have been locked up, and that did not happen until last night. Here are the various scenarios that can still happen in ONE GAME (http://www.nba.com/news/playoff_scenarios_080416.html):

A. HOUSTON-PHOENIX-UTAH-SAN ANTONIO (Seeds 3 to 6) (Higher Seeded team has homecourt in first round unless otherwise indicated)
1. If Houston and San Antonio win:
3-San Antonio
4-Utah
5-Houston (homecourt)
6-Phoenix

2. If Houston, Utah and Phoenix win:
3-Utah
4-Phoenix
5-Houston (homecourt)
6-San Antonio

3. If Utah wins and Phoenix loses:
3-Utah
4-San Antonio
5-Houston
6-Phoenix

4. If San Antonio and Phoenix wins and Houston loses:
3-San Antonio
4-Utah
5-Phoenix (homecourt)
6-Houston

5. If San Antonio wins and Houston and Phoenix lose:
3-San Antonio
4-Utah
5-Houston
6-Phoenix

6. If Utah and Phoenix wins and Houston loses:
3-Utah
4-Phoenix
5-San Antonio
6-Houston

B. DALLAS-DENVER (Seeds 7 to 8)

1. If Dallas wins or Denver loses:
7-Dallas
8-Denver

2. If Denver wins AND Dallas loses:
7-Denver
8-Dallas

Faith & Fatherhood

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Proverbs 22:6
Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Ephesians 6:4
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

These two verses are ones that most any Christian parent is no doubt familiar with. In fact, most every parent is at least familiar with the principle that it is a parent’s job to raise their child right so that they can be a mature, responsible adult. As Christians, our job is to raise our kids up to be people of faith. I think most of us are hoping to not mess our kids up to the point that they abandon their faith or become a mass-murderer. That’d be a good start.

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit since we found out Brea’s pregnant. There are plenty of examples of kids raised by full-time ministers who hate going to church, don’t believe anything in the Bible, and in many ways turn out to be exactly the opposite of what their parents were hoping they would be. This type of thing somewhat terrifies me.

This leads me to the news story from last week that really got my thinking about this topic. Last Thursday on Oprah’s show they had a “transgender pregnant man” from Oregon on. “He” describes “himself” as “transgender, legally male, and legally married to Nancy.” In other words he is really a she who had a gender-altering surgery, but kept the internal female reproductive organs.

“He” also said “Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.” I agree about the wanting to “have” part of that statement, but not if “have” means giving birth. I don’t know any guy who has ever said they wanted to give birth to a child. In fact, most women I know who are or have been pregnant don’t really look forward to the giving birth portion of the whole ordeal.

I didn’t watch the program, but thinking about the situation made me fairly angry. It’s an obvious attempt to make people more sympathetic toward transgender and homosexual couples. Oprah tries to come across in her show as a spiritually enlightened person, but in reality she is a pluralistic, polytheistic, new age apologist. She thinks that everyone should have the same beliefs that she does.

But the show also troubled me for another reason. I know that my main task in becoming a father for our soon to be born daughter is to guide her into being a woman of faith. I don’t know the person’s story on why she decided she was really a he, but I know there was a father involved in the process at least at some point. What if that dad was a good Christian person? Where did he go wrong?

I really don’t worry too much about our daughter one day doing anything as radical as this person did. But I do wonder how I will respond when she first messes up in a big way. I hope that I will be able to have the grace to forgive her as the father of the prodigal son did (Luke 15:11-31).

Dampier: The unsung hero of the Mavs.

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Fans of the Dallas Mavericks have a habit of dogging on the team’s center. Since the days of Shawn Bradley people have found plenty of reasons to complain about the person who is filling this slot. I’ve recently heard people say that Diop was the better center between him and Dampier and were very upset to see him go to New Jersey.

I want to offer a suggestion to these people: stop whining and watch the games. With Bradley, people said that anyone 7′ 6″ tall should be a more dominate player. They thought he should block every shot and get every rebound. If you really watched Bradley play you would see that his presence greatly affected the game. He altered people’s shots more often than he was credited for a block and was a decent rebounder.

These days Dampier gets similar criticism. People think he doesn’t put up big enough numbers, nor does he affect the game as much as he should. I disagree. Dampier has become a force to be reckoned with on the defensive end, even if his stats don’t look that way all the time.

Take a look at the game against Golden State on Wednesday. Dampier’s stats were decent: 11 rebounds and 3 blocks. But was more impressive was what happened when he was off the floor. He first went to the bench with 4:28 left in the first quarter. Up to that point the Warriors had ZERO offensive rebounds. He came back into the game with 6:00 left in the second. During that stretch Golden State collected EIGHT offensive rebounds. At the end they only had three total offensive rebounds when Damp was on the floor.

This type of influence in a game does not show up on a stat sheet. Dampier did not collect every possible defensive rebound when he was on the floor, but he took up enough space to keep Golden State away from the boards and allowed his teammates to pick up boards as well. It also kept Golden State from getting second-chance scoring opportunities. His presence was one of the big reasons the Mavs were able to dominate this game.

Dallas needs him to stay out of foul trouble for the remainder of this year if they want to have a chance to make some noise this post-season, not to mention getting in the playoffs in the first place.

Bruce Bowen is Dirty

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Check out this video of Bruce Bowen kicking the Hornets’ Chris Paul. The amazing thing is that Paul was called for an offensive foul and Bowen didn’t get called for anything. The NBA needs to suspend him for at least one game.


Can’t see the video above? Click here.

An example of the difference Kidd makes

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The Mavericks lost to San Antonio and Jason Kidd was on the bench when it mattered most, but would it really have made a difference if he was in the game? Let’s take a look at some pictures.

First off, take a look at the clock. Kidd was on the bench with Dallas down by two points and 12.7 seconds left in the game. He was actually out for the last 30 seconds or so, but this picture tells the story.
1-12-seconds-left-in-the-4th.png

Next up, take a look at the defense. Count the defense and take a look at what they are doing. All five Spurs are watching Terry with the ball. This woud have been the perfect chance to catch them off-guard.
2-count-the-spurs.png

Take a look at Josh Howard. There is no defender within 12 feet of him. Terry should have tossed him the ball and let him either shoot, pass to the open man in the corner, or drive to the basket. Kidd no doubt would have dished the ball in a heartbeat.
3-move-the-ball.png

But Terry didn’t pass. He held on to the ball and waited for almost five seconds for someone else to move to create a play. Dirk saw this, so he came over to setup a pick and roll.
4-pick-and-roll-ready.png

Dirk set the pick and roll up really well, so what is supposed to happen here is Terry passes the ball to Dirk and let him either drive to the hoop (remember the move he made to draw a foul from Ginobili in the 2006 playoffs?) or shoot a wide-open jump shot.
5-dirk-clear-path-to-the-basket.png

The opportunity to move the ball didn’t end with the non-pass to Dirk. Terry moved to the free-throw line, drew in Manu Ginobili, which would have been another chance to pass to Howard, who could have swung the ball over to Stackhouse (whose defender most likely would have come over to guard Howard) or drove to the basket. But, again, no pass.
6-swing-to-stack.png

Lastly, even when Terry was up in the air with Bowen right on him, he still had people wide open for good looks. Take a look at it. Dirk has both his hands up waiting for a pass to Terry’s right. Howard is still open at the three point line. Stackhouse is now WIDE OPEN, since his defender decided to come over and help guard the basket. But again, it didn’t happen.
7-lots-of-options.png
In the end, Avery’s decision to bench Kidd may not have been the reason the Mavs lost, but him being on the bench ended up being the wrong decision. It’s a mistake that I really hope Avery doesn’t make again.

If Avery keeps coaching like this, the Kidd trade was a bad idea.

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The end of the Mavericks vs Spurs game on Thursday showed me something I’ve known for a while: Avery Johnson is a defensive minded coach whose decisions on the offensive end have become stale. Every since the Finals of 2006 I’ve noticed it. There are a lot of times that the offense breaks down, people are standing around, and nothing really happens unless a shooter makes his shot.

That was supposed to change.

The blockbuster, epic saga that was the Jason Kidd, Devin Harris trade was supposed to bring a spark back to this team. He was brought to Dallas to make it easier for Dirk, Josh, and JET to get the ball and make shots. He was brought here because he knows how close out games and win in the fourth quarter. Avery himself said this about Kidd at the post-trade press conference, “He’s going to help us just because at the end of the games, he knows how to win. … He knows how to finish games. That’s what we need.”

Kidd said similar things about himself. “The big thing is just to understand how to win a game with six minutes left in the fourth quarter and not shying away from that time. Wanting the ball, make or miss, being involved in the play so you can help your team win.”

In the first real test of Kidd and the Mavs, you would expect him to have the opportunity to prove his worth, wouldn’t you? He didn’t. In the closing possession of the game, Avery chose to put Kidd on the bench. Take a look at what happened:


(if you can’t see the video click here)

The biggest problem I have with Kidd being on the bench is that Avery’s logic makes no sense. Jason Kidd is one of the best passers in the history of the NBA. He creates plays for his teammates. His first thought is to pass the ball, which makes it easier for everyone around him to score. I’ve seen the difference it has made in the rest of the team in his first three games with the team. Why wouldn’t you want him on the floor?

Avery answered this question after the game. “Well, we were looking at spreading the floor with all of our shooters in the game. We wanted to put Stack, Josh and Jet, and that gave Dirk some more room to operate in those situations.”I’m sorry Avery. The days of Dirk creating his own shot are over. Jason Kidd will create shot opportunities for Dirk if you let him. If you want to create “more room” for Dirk “to operate” than Devin Harris should still be the Mavericks point guard. Charles Barkley echoed this after the game. “That was a bad decision, because there’s no sense in making Jason Kidd trade if you’re not going to play him in crunch time. You had Jason Terry; you had Devin Harris.”

Bottom-line. Avery needs to change his coaching strategy on offense. If not, either he or Kidd don’t need to be here.

Political Buzz

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I’m starting to think that whoever ends up being the Republican Party representative (John McCain) might be doomed from the start. Not only does he have the negative associations that a lot of people have with George W. Bush, but no one is talking about him. Here in Texas, every commercial break on tv has an ad for either Barack or Hillary.  They’re gearing up for the primaries next week. I can’t remember seeing any commercials for McCain or Huckabee.

This lack of advertising doesn’t matter much now, November is still far off, but I know there is a saying that goes like: “There is no such thing as bad press.” People who don’t have ties with either party might be starting to make decisions about who they will vote for, so buzz now might pay off later.

I’m wondering if McCain’s team has recognized this and manufactured the “smear campaign” last week to bring people’s attention back to him. Probably not, I would hope, but American politics is dirty in election years.

The Rockets’ winning streak is a little deceiving

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In case you haven’t notice, the Houston Rockets are scorching hot. After their win against Chicago on Sunday they had won 12 games in a row. They have me worried, but I wanted to see how legitimate that winning streak really is. After looking at the list of opponents they played, it’s not really all that impressive of a streak. Here’s why.

In the streak, seven of the wins came against teams with losing records. They were Indiana, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Atlanta, Sacramento, Miami, and Chicago. All of these teams are basically playing for next year at this point. One thing you have to give them credit for, though, is that they are winning the games they are supposed to win. Any team who wants to go far in the playoffs needs to do that.

The only really impressive win of the entire streak came on Friday when they beat the New Orleans Hornets 100-80. This win came two days after the Hornets embarrassed the Mavs in Kidd’s first game after returning to Dallas.

If the Rockets can keep this momentum going they could be a dangerous team come playoff time. However, I think we’re going to see history repeat itself as the McGrady curse returns: Rockets out in the first round of the playoffs.

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