Dallas Pushes The Lakers One Step Closer To Extinction

Last night, Dallas took the Lakers’ panic temperature and shot that thing through the roof. It’s all about faith now. Faith, and a whole lot of drugs. Something needs to wake up Pau Gasol and slow down Dirk Nowitzki…and J.J. Barea? What? The little guy was the difference in the second half of Dallas’ 93-81 Game 2 win, completely taking over the fourth quarter. We’ve heard the Mavs were as soft as cupcakes for nearly a decade now. Well, someone definitely left them joints in the oven too long. This team is playing hard as a rock … Don’t the Mavericks have this sneaky way of playing well without actually looking like they are? The Lakers came out executing offensively, yet every time we checked the score, the Mavs were still up. We kept wondering who scores on this team outside of Dirk (24 points) and his fadeaway. The answer: everybody. It’s Shawn Marion hitting awkward runners, Jason Kidd spotting up for threes and whoever else in the royal blue that might contribute that night. In the first half, as we all waited on Jason Terry, DeShawn Stevenson knocked down a few threes and Tyson Chandler got vertical … While the Lakers tried to establish the interior with Andrew Bynum (18 points, 13 rebounds) and safely remove Dirk from Pau Gasol‘s (13 points, 10 rebounds) brain, the good Kobe Bryant came to play (23 points). It was the high-post fade, the 19-foot face-up, the baseline J. But it wasn’t enough, mostly because Steve Blake and the rest of L.A. couldn’t sniff a three (2-for-20) … In all seriousness, does Pau have mono? What’s the deal? Son must’ve had his heart stolen by his brother … The Lakers were down six going into the fourth when Barea (12 points) literally took over the game. When both teams went small, he got into the paint whenever he felt like it. When JJ left, it was Dirk time. There’s not a whole lot to say about his fallback 19-foot and-1 with less than three minutes left, except “good” and “clutch.” The Lakers are headed to (Don’t Mess With) Texas Friday for a Game 3 down 0-2. Could this be the beginning of the end? … Somewhere deep in Florida, Dwight Howard is smirking right now, knowing he’s 48 minutes closer to being a Laker … Read more to hear about how Josh Smith gets no love and the official ROY press conference The Bulls started off the night by pulling out a win in a competitive-but-sloppy Game 2 in Chicago, 86-73. If you’re into pros missing tons of open jumpers, then you were all about this one. Both teams shot under 40% … We were thinking about jotting down that Derrick Rose (25 points, 10 assists) was using his size to score over Jeff Teague (21 points), and that, at least early in the game, we had yet to see his explosiveness. But then he started D-Rose-ing and we had to go in a different direction. Despite that ankle tweak in the waning seconds of Game 1, the dude can still fly, and can still remind us why we never became NBA players. That’s probably what goes into being crowned the youngest MVP in NBA history. And even though Joakim Noah‘s hook shot is anything but amazing, he brought the energy as well, logging 19 points and 14 rebounds and getting the United Center crowd pumped up … We keep waiting for the clock to hit midnight on Atlanta. Every night, we catch ourselves saying, “Alright, this is the night those 23-footers with two seconds on the shot clock aren’t going to fall.” And every night, Atlanta seems to delay what we thought was inevitable. Even though they stumbled last night, this might be the first time in the Hawks’ history that they’ve played consistently for more than two weeks. Last night though, none of that really mattered. Atlanta couldn’t buy a bucket at Home Depot on clearance … Reasons we believe NBA referees hate Josh Smith (13 points): a bad call on an Omer Asik charge, a loose-ball foul with Ronnie Brewer that should’ve gone the other way and a play where Taj Gibson got close to spearing Smith Goldberg-style under his own basket. Meanwhile, Kenny and Chuck wondered at halftime what the f$%^ is going on with the Atlanta forward? Hanging out by the three-point line and bricking elbow jumpers was all he was doing. Eventually, Smith lost the headband and started blocking shots and transition dunking again … Barkley trying to pronounce Kyle Korver‘s name was unintentional comedy. At halftime, it was Karl Corbo. Then after the game, it became Korey Kyver. On the same shtick, when the NBA’s MVP is going to be awarded the trophy before the game, you would think the league would make sure the TNT play-by-play guys would know his name. We don’t know…it just seems kinda important. We’re not totally sure how Dick Stockton still has a job doing play-by-play for national TV broadcasts, but we’re not happy about it. Sample quote: “The Bulls take a 25-19 victory over the Hawks in the 1st quarter.” C’mon man … Dialing Carlos Boozer…”Carlos, you there? Carlos?” … Some of the Dime crew was in the house for the official announcement awarding Blake Griffin this year’s NBA Rookie of the Year. At the press conference, comedian Norm MacDonald asked, “I was wondering why there’s kind of a curse with the Rookie of the Year? Nobody’s ever repeated it.” Griffin responded: “Well, I’ll try as hard as I can next year.” … We’re out like the air from the Staples Center.