Crisis Averted

I'm not going to lie to you.

It almost ended, right then and there.

I told you about being in the ledge when the Mavs played the Knicks, where I almost changed this site to "Oden is my Homeboy."

I'm not proud of it, but it's the truth.

Luckily, the Dirk and co. pulled it out, and they have been on a tear since then.

I didn't think I could sink any lower.

But I did.

I had to cover a local basketball tournament on Saturday night, the night the Mavs were hosting the worst team in the NBA, the Oklahoma City Thunder.

If the Mavs were any sort of contender, they should have beaten the Thunder by 30, and used the fourth quarter to get Green, Singleton, Williams and others some garbage minutes.

But it was not to be.

I got off work around 9:30, and on my way home, I checked the score on my phone.

I almost drove off the road.

OKC 76- DAL- 65, 5:08 to go in the third quarter.

What went through my mind at that moment? A lot of things:

• The Rick Carlisle experiment had failed.
• The Jason Kidd experiment had failed.
• The Mark Cuban experiment had failed.
• The 7-foot German experiment had failed
• THE NBA IN THE CITY OF DALLAS EXPERIMENT HAD FAILED!!!!!

I'm not proud of these thoughts, but it is what went through my head. Everything up to this point in history had failed if it led to this, the Mavs losing to the Thunder at home.

I hurried home to watch the game on my League Pass Broadband, and I contemplated what I would do if they lost.

I considered walking into oncoming traffic, but then again, a fine American automobile shouldn't suffer when my corpse shatters its front end just because the Mavericks can't play defense.

Luckily, my thoughts didn't get far. Thanks to the third best game of Dirk's career (scoring wise) the Mavs pulled it out.

But the Mavs' bench, besides Terry, had almost led me to ruin.

Some days, in my darkest nightmares, I see the score at the AAC that night as it could have been: OKC 110, DAL 100.

Then I wake up in a cold sweat, and spend a few minutes getting adjusted to reality, a reality where the Mavs were able to get the win.

The season is about a quarter of the way through, and I'm already in the nightmares stage.

Not a good sign.