The defending champion Dallas Mavericks got booed off their home court – and that happened before halftime.
The L.A. Lakers lost in Sacramento for the first time in more than three years.
The Chicago Bulls, lost, too, while the Nets, Raptors and Bobcats opened what promises to be a weird, wild, compressed NBA season with victories that left them all 1-0.
Scratching your head? That’s OK.
It’s allowed after these first 48 hours of NBA basketball that we all waited so long for are now in the rear-view mirror.
This 66-game season is going to be a wild rollercoaster ride, and it’ll have some folks vomiting just like Dallas center Sean Williams was if the early trends take hold.
Williams vomited from exhaustion, not disgust, in the late minutes of the Mavericks’ 115-93 home loss to the Denver Nuggets, a 22-point loss that came one day after the champs were down by 21 at halftime after raising their new banner to the rafters of the arena in Dallas.
The Mavericks were actually down by 27 at halftime of this one after surrendering a 20-0 run, and the deficit reached 33 in the third quarter (two points shy of the 35-point hole they were in against the Heat in the opener. Including their two exhibition losses to Oklahoma City, the Mavs have trailed by at least 23 points all four times they have played since the lockout ended.
And the Lakers think they have problems.
In Miami, where the Heat play the Celtics tonight, they are getting a kick out of other teams being the national punching bags, and they also don’t sound too scared of the now 1-1 Chicago Bulls — at least 790-The Ticket host Jorge Sedano didn’t when I spoke with him this morning, debating — among other things — whether Rip Hamilton better enables the Bulls to compete with the Heat. (Click to listen to the interview).
We will focus on the surprising losers in today’s links.
From Jeff Caplan of ESPNDallas: “The Mavs credited their championship run a season ago to a top 10 defense spearheaded by departed center Tyson Chandler. In two games, a revamped Mavs squad that did not return six players from the title team and added five new faces — including a so-far disappointing Lamar Odom and Vince Carter — allowed 97 points in the first three quarters of both games and a total of 51 fastbreak points. “It’s terrible, it’s terrible,” Carlisle said of his team’s defensive effort. “The biggest thing is we’ve got to rebuild trust defensively,” Carlisle said. “We’ve lost some; we’ve lost a lot and I’ve got to do a better job coaching these guys. It’s as simple as that.” Dirk Nowitzki, the reigning NBA Finals MVP, described the team through two games as looking “old and slow and out of shape. It’s all of us together,” Nowitzki said. “Obviously, it was a weird situation with the short (training) camp, but we’ve got to deal with it now. Coach always tries to take the blame if some stuff doesn’t go right, but we’ve got a lot of veteran guys and we’ve just got to keep on working and eventually turn the corner. It might take another week, it might take another two weeks, but we’ve got to find ways to stay in games and not be down 30 at half.”
From Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times: “In the season opener, the Lakers blew an 11-point lead with two minutes left in the game. In the second game, the Lakers cut their deficit to two points after trailing by 14. Yet, they still blew it. The Lakers made ridiculous mistakes in the final minutes that could’ve ensured them a victory. The Lakers made one field goal in the final 3:48. The Lakers granted the Kings seven free throws in the final three minutes. And they lacked the ball movement that led them to cutting the lead in the first place. Forget any learning curve. These mistakes have nothing to do with a system. It has everything to do with the Lakers lacking fundamentals and losing their late-game composure. The result: the Lakers are 0-2 for the first time since 2002.
From K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune: “Turning it over on their first two possessions and three of the first five, the Bulls committed 20 miscues overall to help hand Mark Jackson his first victory as Warriors coach. Golden State scored 22 points off the Bulls’ turnovers, 14 of which came in the first half. “He just said it was B.S. and he was right,” Joakim Noah said of (coach Tom) Thibodeau’s postgame address. “We’re not going to get to where we want to go playing defense like this. Even though we beat the Lakers, we only played well in spurts. “Bad pick-and-roll defense. Bad post defense. Lack of communication. Our defense was just bad.” Of course, it’s harder to defend when turnovers are putting an already speedy Warriors team in transition. … The Bulls committed 24 turnovers in their Christmas Day loss to the Knicks last season to set the high-water — or low-water — mark of Thibodeau’s short reign. Maybe it’s holiday hangover. Whatever it is, it needs to be corrected soon and continues a disturbing trend at this arena. Last season, Derrick Rose turned it over a then-career-high nine times in a loss. Rose had three turnovers on Monday. Luol Deng and Taj Gibson “led” the Bulls with four each.
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Seems like Stern found a way to improve parity after all — compressed schedule loaded with back-to-backs and a vestigial training camp.
Sean WIlliams thowing up was damn funny — apparently he didn’t think he was going to get any minutes and filled up while he was on the bench. I wouldn’t call that “exhaustion.” Either way, good to see him playing again!