Dallas held a scrimmage at UNT (where they have held training camp for the
first week) that was free for any students who wanted to attend and others
who were able to finagle an invite (such as me). Training camp now moves
to the AAC. There is an open scrimmage (free to the public, $5 for
parking) on Sunday at the AAC. Doors open at 12 pm and the scrimmage is
scheduled to start at 1 pm. [Note: even though Friday's scrimmage was
announced as the "annual Blue-White scrimmage", the Fan Jam scrimmage for
Sunday is actually the annual event.]

It was a fun evening and there were lots of people there as the lower bowl
of The Pit was fairly full - easily several thousand people in attendance.
The fans went over-nuts as usual when the Maniaacs and Fun Slingers came
out early and threw t-shirts into the stands. Finally 5 pm rolled around
and the players came out to a loud ovation. Dirk Nowitzki came out a
minute or 2 later and the crowd went even more nuts (especially when he
would wave) and a short chant of "MVP" started. The players shot around
for a while with occasional cheers for various players. Another loud
cheer went up when Avery Johnson came out.

After the National Anthem (and someone needs to point out to Mo Ager to
put his hand on his heart, as all on the team do so (even non-Americans)
as a sign of team unity), a little of bit of rookie hazing was done as
Ager was told to introduce his White team. Ager quickly mumbled through
the names and got razed for his poor performance. Jason Terry took over
the mike with an over-the-top introduction of his Blue team. Devin Harris
then took the mike and then did a better introduction of the White team.

Avery Johnson and Del Harris sat across from the teams watching the game -
passing instructions a couple of times for players to switch teams.

White team: Nowitzki, Josh Howard, Jerry Stackhouse, Harris, Ager,
DeSagana Diop, Darius Washington, Ndudi Ebi; coach: Jay Vincent;
assistants: Brad Davis, Bernard Griffith

Blue team: Terry, Erick Dampier, Anthony Johnson, Greg Buckner, Devean
George, DJ Mbenga, Greg Buckner, Pat Carroll; coach: Joe Prunty;
assistants: Popeye Jones, Greg Dreiling

Austin Croshere did not play and there was no sight of Pops Mensah-Bonsu.
The newspapers clarified that Croshere sat out with minor back problems
and Pops was at the hotel with a respiratory virus.

Just to confuse things, at halftime Ebi and Ager were switched to the Blue
team and George and Mbenga were switched to the White team. And during
the 2nd half, Diop was moved to the Blue team 5 minutes in (at Del Harris'
instruction) and Dampier was moved to the White 7 minutes in. Which
basically made the boxscore worthless as the system was not set up for
players changing teams midgame (though the boxscore looks wrong anyways as
the minute numbers are way off [according to it, Dirk played all of the
2nd half, where he actually only played a few minutes]. Thus, I'm not
including any stats as I don't trust them (though I'm pretty sure the
numbers mentioned in the Fort Worth Star Telegram are wrong)).

The game consisted of 2 12-minute halves and was fairly competitive, but
sloppy at times and entertaining at times - often one right after the
other. The Blue team actually looked better than the White early on.
After the teams missed 4 shots, Johnson got the scoring started with a
bucket, and Harris scored at the other end. As it was a scrimmage, I'm
just going to scattershoot the rest of the way. The Blue team led 31-26
at halftime and the White team won 48-45.

Dirk, Josh, Terry, and Stack really didn't play that much except for the
first few minutes of each half. Buck also didn't play much and had his
left thumb heavily taped. Dirk had a really pretty assist early on and
Josh was aggressive when he was out there. It was weird seeing Stack's
calves - the league has outlawed the tights that he always wore. Johnson
looked good and George had a couple of nice anticipation steals. Diop
looked really good and was active on both offense and rebounding. Damp
was okay, but did have a really nice power move inside and hit all his
free throws. DJ was also active and his game looks to have matured as he
didn't show any of the dumb mistakes that I used to see a couple of times
during scrimmages like this. Maybe that is because Ebi had that market
cornered. I can't tell you how many times I saw Ebi do something stupid
(dumb foul or turnover). It would be understandable if he was a rookie,
but you'd think he'd have learned something in his 2 years with Minnesota.
Plus he needs to hit the weight room something bad. He's got some of the
skinniest legs I've seen. The surprise was Washington. He hit a number
of shots that helped the White team to the win and I can't recall him
doing anything stupid - it was between him and Diop for Player of the
Game. To continue using my word of the day, Barea was very active.
Unfortunately he is also still very short and that alone will probably
keep him off the team (he needs to find a team that has taller primary
point guards and shooting guards). It's not fair, but with just a glance
I can't help but think that Pat Carroll has absolutely no shot at making
the team. [Ebi, Washington, Barea, and Carroll are hoping to earn the one
open roster spot.] My wince moment of the night was when I saw Mbenga
playing power forward (with Dampier at center). Maybe bringing back Keith
Van Horn isn't such a bad idea. Heaven help us if Dirk has to missed a
number of games. What else... Devin is still quick as can be, but no
sign of an improved shooting touch this night. Hmm, can't recall anything
of Ager from the game that sticks out in my mind. Terry got the place
roaring near the end of the game as he started teasing tossing his shoes
into the stands. He finally did toss them, as did a number of players.
Other game items (towels, headbands, ...) were also tossed into the
stands.

Also have to note that I'm not a fan of the team's catch-phrase for this
season: "Mavs Fever! Catch It. Spread It." Don't like thinking of the
Mavs as a virus. Plus it would really sound bad (and probably be quickly
dropped) if a serious outbreak of something hit the US/World.


patricia


--
Patricia Bender pbender@eskimo.com
For NBA stuff: http://www.dfw.net/~patricia/index.html
For Mavs stuff: http://www.dfw.net/~patricia/mavs.html