RE: MAVERICKS LOSS MAKES MY TUMMY HURT

Couple of notes from basketball folks I respect. First from an online chat with John Hollinger, the stats stud at ESPN.com:

What’s going on with the Mavs? I don’t understand how a team can collapse like they have, especially after how well they did in the regular season.

Hollinger: The Mavs aren’t collapsing; Golden State is playing out of their minds. Look at the run they went on to end the season; this is NOT your typical 42-win team, and if they get past Dallas I would give them great odds of making the conference finals.

And from Bill Simmons, aka The Sports Guy:

And that’s why I believed Golden State had a chance in this series — not just because of the matchups, but because it’s nearly impossible to beat the Warriors in Oakland if the crowd gets involved. So you can imagine my delight when they delivered the goods this weekend. Games 3 and 4 reminded me of The Good Old Days, before the NBA priced out the true fans, constantly blared music on the Jumbotron and inadvertently created an environment in which casual fans couldn’t think for themselves and had no real clue how to affect a game. We’ve reached the point that the only two old-school crowds left belong to Madison Square Garden and the Oakland Coliseum. Sad but true. You can’t overstate this point: There is no way that the Warriors could have beaten a ticked-off Mavs team in Game 4 without their fans coming through like that. It would not have happened.