Pau Gasol Gets Revenge On Dirk Nowitzki

Pau Gasol got revenge. Well, not really. But he did get the better of Dirk Nowitzki and Spain got the better of Germany in the EuroBasket second round, beating them 77-68 behind the two Gasol brothers (Pau: 19 second-half points and Marc: 24 points). Dirk matched the All-Star with 19 of his own, but didn’t make a shot during the last nine minutes of the game. When you’re playing a team like Spain that can bring five or six different guys who have the capability to be their team’s best player on any given night, it’s difficult. Besides Chris Kaman (15 points, 12 rebounds), Nowitzki didn’t get enough help. Germany is now 0-3 in group play, and Dirk, after doing everything he had to do all season in the NBA, may not make the quarterfinals. Turkey lost by four to France. Tony Parker had another big night with 20 points while Lithuania went off for 100 points in their 10-point win over Serbia. NBA rookie Jonas Valanciunas (18 points) was awesome. He played Nenad Krstic (21 points) to a push while Lithuania hit 11 threes from the outside … At last…the two sides have come up for air. After two months of virtually no news concerning the lockout, the owners and players met yesterday for nearly six hours and got after it. Nothing specific or noteworthy happened. Just the fact they were in there is big news for basketball fans. They’ll also be meeting today and tomorrow in hopes of building off the momentum. An interesting situation occurred yesterday afternoon after the meetings finished. Roger Mason, who is a VP with the NBPA, had a tweet come from his account that said it looked like we might be having a season after all. Almost immediately, Mason said his account had been hacked. The specific tweet has since been deleted. Is he telling the truth about it being hacked? Or was it momentary excitement that caused him to tweet something maybe he shouldn’t have? … How this lockout affects next June’s draft will be one of the more interesting subplots of the season. Yesterday, it was reported the NBA might be looking to add a third round. Forget everything else, how would that affect you if you were in college? Are we going to see more guys rushing to get out and get drafted? Will any third rounders have any shot at all of making it? That would be tough to predict … Yesterday was the tip for our Dime Ultimate Baller sweepstakes, pitting the best basketball movie characters against each other. Already, there are a couple of interesting matchups. Voting for Neon/Kenny Tyler and Shep/Saleh is still going on … Mehmet Okur has passed his physical and could begin playing with his new Turkish club Turk Telekom this weekend. He does have an opt-out in place for whenever the season does begin … As much as we’ve been hyping NBA 2K12 in the last few weeks, there is one big problem. If the lockout continues on its current course, when the game drops it will not include any rookies (apparently outside of Ricky Rubio, who signed a contract before the lockout began). That’s a huge bummer. With Madden, that was never a problem. Their lockout didn’t cancel EA Sports’ rookie rights, but in this situation it has. So that means no Derrick Williams, Kyrie Irving and the rest. Who’s heated? We are. And so is Kemba Walker. He tweeted: So the rookies not gonna be in 2k. I’m tight. I was planning on avg 100 wit myself. Lmao. Still, it seems 2K is prepared for that and means to include the rookies in a roster update once the lockout has ended, which is better than nothing we guess … Speaking of video games, we know Gordon Hayward is a fanatic. Now, he’s set to join a professional gaming league with IGN Entertainment called the IGN Pro League. From Oct. 6-9, the Jazz swingman will be a part of a StarCraft II tournament at Caesars Atlantic City … And Kobe Bryant joined Twitter yesterday (and had 36,000 followers after only three hours) and then was suspended. No answers yet on what exactly went down. His Twitter name nearly survived as long as the Lakers’ playoff run … We’re out like 2K12 rookies.