River Trip!

Honestly, I can't tell you what I am more excited about; The Mavs beating PHX last night, or getting to go down to Austin/San Marcos to float the river tomorrow. Either way, today might as well be Christmas Eve to me. Only with more beer.

The best part about going to the river is that I get to use my employee discount for the first time. While many people we know are going down this weekend, we get to stay at the Embassy Suites Austin in a $150 dollar room for 39 bucks! Jackpot! I knew showing up and putting forth my most mediocre effort would payoff sooner or later.

Actually.....wait.....I must correct myself. The best part will not, in fact, be staying in Austin for cheap. The best part will be me floating down a river covered in beer and BBQ chips. Some may call this crude, but when I picture heaven, the beer and chips are both a plenty and a messy. A boy can dream, can't he?

I must also mention another staple of our trips to the river. We always, and I mean always, go to the dollar store in Austin to buy goofy shit to wear down the river. Reason being that after a few very crucial moments along the river you are very likely to lose every article of clothing you are wearing due to the rapids and the undertow. We counter act this navigational hurdle by stocking up on orange sun glasses, bandanas, straw hats, and youth girl's flip flops. The river demands a sacrifice, and we fill its belly with the crap of the world. Kinda like eating at Jack in the Box. The river knows better, but sometimes you just can't argue with a couple of dollar menu chicken sandwiches. Anyway, this sacrifice seems to keep the river off our case about taking our beer, and lets just say that’s for the good of everyone. There would be hell to pay if our cooler ever went over. Luckily, me and Chad have always been willing to sacrifice ourselves to preserve the life of the beer. The girls, unfortunately, aren't as devoted. We're working on that.

I was going to say just a few things about the Mavs. The first is that not one person, including myself, thought that DeSagana Diop would be a factor in this series. I mean, most didn't think he would get any playing time, let alone force Dampier to the bench.

The second thing, is that every time the Mavs lose a lead it seems like you can trace the exact moment to when Keith Van Horn sets foot on the floor. I call this a coincidence-non. The thing with Van Horn is that he has two main problems. The first is that he's slow. The second is that he sucks. Put those together and you have a formidable combination of non-finesse (couldn't find an antonym for finesse) and dead weight. Add his atrocious contract to that and you have the makings of a smaller Shawn Bradley. All that aside, he must be a hell of a practice player for Avery to keep putting him with the starting 5. I have a feeling that the Keith Van Horn Era will end just like it started, with me not really caring.

The final Mav's thing that I wanted to shed some light on was the fact that Dirk put fifty on the board and showed us all that he is "all growns up". Especially because I didn't see it coming. It was like all of a sudden he had 41 and everyone at Pluckers was looking around at each other, quietly nodding to themselves, knowing that we might be seeing something special happening. Especially after the Tim Thomas ordeal. I just don't see how a player like Thomas, who has robbed every team he has played on by half-assing it every night, finds the balls to call Dirk a "Pussy." I could go on about this, but I think The Crafty Veteran summed it up best:

Tim Thomas, you probably don't want to go back to your hometown anyway. Maybe I don't know the exact meaning of punked, but I think having 50 dropped on you in a playoff game will do the trick. Can a guy who constantly got smoked by Dirk blow a kiss as a taunt? I was getting all excited about Tim Thomas finally becoming a real player, and then he acts like a goof. If someone like Barkley or even Brent Barry blew a kiss then I would just laugh. However, watching Tim Thomas do it to Dirk just gave me the creeps.

Agreed. Spare.