The games: a lousy one that was a win, a great one that was a loss, and a
decent one that was a loss.  

The Vancouver game was extremely ugly and the Mavs did not deserve to win 
it.  The team was down by 16 at several points in the the 3rd quarter and 
by 15 with 5 minutes to go in that quarter.  Thanks to Vancouver's poor 
play and the Mavs' decent play, the Mavs were able to tie the game and it 
went into overtime.  In the first OT, the Mavs shot 1-4 FG and 2-5 FT.  
Vancouver shot 1-7 FG and 2-6 FT.  The second overtime wasn't much better 
as the Mavs shot 3-10, but Tony Dumas (who had a very ugly stat line of 18 
points on 3-16 FG including 1-13 at one point and 11-16 FT) banked in the 
game winner at the buzzer.  With 4 seconds left, Kidd had missed a layup, 
Jackson rebounded and missed a layup, and Kidd tapped the rebound to Dumas 
who hit the 15-footer.  Only against Vancouver can you shot 30.2% FG and 
win.  The Mavs set a team record with 76 rebounds including another team 
record 37 offensive - Jim Jackson had a team record tying 12 offensive
boards.  Dallas 103, Vancouver 101 2OT

The Houston game was really exciting.  The Mavs trailed the entire games
and were down 59-73 after 3.  Houston opened the 4th quarter by missing
their first 4 attempts and it was a close game the rest of the way.  The
Mavs tied the game at 92-92 with 3 minutes left and took their only lead
of the game at 93-92 with 2:15 left.  The Mavs played good D and it was
Houston's ball with 1 second on the shoot clock.  They inbound to Olajuwon
who nailed the 18 foot fall away as the clocked expired to put Houston up
by 6.  Popeye made a free throw and Mario Elie committed an offensive
foul.  With 42 seconds left, Popeye nailed his second 3-pointer of his
career to put the score at 97-101.  The teams traded layups and Kenny
Smith made 1 of 2 free throws.  99-102 with 7.7 seconds left.  George
McCloud banked the 3-pointer over Olajuwon and another defender with 2.2
seconds left.  Tie game.  Sam Cassell tried to inbounds the ball to
Olajuwon, but Terry Davis tipped the ball away - but the ball rolled right
to Cassell who picked it up and banked the 3-pointer at the buzzer.  Argh.
The Mavs missed 8 free throws in the quarter including 5 missed in the
last 3 minutes.  Houston 105, Dallas 102

The Mavs started the game vs Utah pretty lousy as Utah went up by 10 early 
in the 1st.  They picked up their game some and were only down 29-23 after 
1 despite Utah shooting 65% FG.  The Mavs played well in the 2nd as Utah's 
shooting touch went out the window.  Loren Meyer sprained his right ankle 
early in quarter and spent the rest of the game in the locker room.  They 
went on a 16-5 run in the 2nd to take the lead and go up 48-44 at the half.  
Jackson was playing well and had some-teen points in the half.  The Mavs 
came out of the half very poorly as Utah went on a 18-7 run.  Dallas went 
on a 9-0 run to close the quarter to cut Utah's lead down to 70-68 after 3.  
Utah took a 9 point lead early in the 4th and controlled the rest of the 
way.  They had their largest lead at 91-77 with 3:10 left.  Too little too 
late, the Mavs tried to comeback at the end of the game with a 3-point 
barrage but they were not able to stop the Jazz on the other end.  The 
Mavs hit 4 consecutive 3-pointers to cut Utah's lead from 9 down to 6 with 
less than 30 seconds left.  The Mavs did not score again.  For the game, 
Utah shot 58.4% FG while Dallas only shot 41.6% FG.   Utah 102, Dallas 92

The players:
Loren Meyer has looked very good.  His stats from the Houston game does 
not show it, but he had a great game and defended Olajuwon well.  Olajuwon 
went a large portion of the 3rd quarter scoreless with Meyer on him.  Look 
for Meyer to keep getting more minutes (once his ankle heals).

Cherokee Parks, on the other hand, gets to play the role Tony Dumas played 
last year - the rookie who gets no minutes in Motta's system.

Tony Dumas continues is nice play.  He is pretty inconsistent still and 
sometimes tries to do too much and needs to work on his free throw 
shooting.  He is currently second in the league in 3-point shooting and 
would qualify for the 3-point Shootout for All-Star Weekend.  After his 
showing last year on All-Star Saturday, I do know if the NBA will allow 
him anywhere near San Antonio.

Jim Jackson is also inconsistent.  He played great in the first 3 quarters 
of the Utah game (and Motta sat him too long), but played lousy in the 
Houston game and Motta sat him for most of the 4th quarter.

Other News and Notes:
Jamal Mashburn update: well, I just had to delete what I had wrote earlier
as I now have new news.  It looks like Mash will not need surgery after
all.  He will sit out another 2 to 3 weeks resting the knee, though.

The Dallas Morning News and the local media recently got a hold of a letter
the city sent to the Mavs regarding the possible new arena and it has been
getting a lot of attention.  Ignore it.  The letter was sent to the team
during the summer and the city and the team never actually sat down and
discussed it.  The Mavs, city, and the Stars have a meeting scheduled for
Friday to discuss the arena situation.

Loren Meyer, who sprained his ankle during the Utah game, didn't travel 
with the team and will very likely miss tonight's game vs Washington and 
Friday's game vs New Jersey.  If the ankle is feeling better, he may 
travel to Boston for Sunday's game.

With only 9 players available to play for the next two games, the Mavs 
activated Donald Hodge [in keeping with my dismal record of predicting 
what the team will do roster wise - I predicted he would be cut after his
marijuana possession arrest].  Hodge was fined one game's pay for his 
drug arrest.  The Mavs will be bringing someone or two in after January
10, the date teams can start signing players to 10-day contracts.

There have been several Jim Jackson trade rumors floating around.  Ignore
them.  The rumors are coming from other cities and other teams.  The Mavs
are not initializing any talks (Norm Sonju said this during last week's
Mavs Hour) and the teams that are calling with interest in Jackson are
offering way below market value.  The Mavs currently have _no_ plans to
break up the 3 Js.

Kudos to Scott Brooks: I noticed a couple of games ago and he has also 
done it in all the games since that when the ball kid (an under 10 year 
old) on the Mavericks side is introduced, Scotty will direct the kid to 
stand next to him and to do stretching exercises with him while the other 
team is being introduced.  It was the cutest thing to see the little first
grade girl mimicing Scotty as he stretched.


patricia