Dallas Mavericks

The Rockets Are Back In The NBA Playoffs! Their Complete Rebuilding Anthology

With four games to go in the 2011-2012 season, the Rockets were coming off a 117-110 loss to Dallas, a loss in which Dirk Nowitzki provided a stark reminder to last season's Rockets team that they were devoid of a superstar caliber player by dropping 21 points on them in the fourth quarter. To call ... More >>

Rockets Crush Mavs: 44-Point Third Buries Dallas, Probably Ruins Playoff Chances

It's never a bad thing when, in one night, you can absolutely destroy a Dallas sports franchise on the floor and, for all practical purposes, ruin their chances of making the playoffs. Given that the Rockets haven't beaten the Mavericks in nine straight tries leading up to last night's win at Toyota ... More >>

From Five Straight Wins to Four Straight Losses, the Young Rockets Continue to Confound

I've mentioned in this space on numerous occasions that you have to take the good and bad with youth. It's exciting and fast-paced and fun, but it's also exceedingly frustrating. On a weekend that saw the Texans go out more with a whimper than a bang, it would have been nice for the other halfway de ... More >>

Rockets' Ups and Downs Continue Despite Coach's Return

Check out pics from Saturday's close game against the Mavs in our slideshow. Kevin McHale was emotional at times when he met with the media upon his return to the team on Saturday night after an extended absence due to the illness and tragic death of his daughter. He kept in touch with the players ... More >>

Next Five Games Will Test Young Rockets Starting Tonight Against the Lakers

With a serious tragedy behind them and injured players starting to return to the line up, the Rockets dive into a string of games against contenders and Texas rivals this week that will add yet another test to the young team's season. First up is the LA Lakers, in town tonight at Toyota Center. Des ... More >>

NBA Draft: Recent Stinkhole History To Enlighten Rocket Fans

Prior to Wednesday night's game between the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics, the 27th annual NBA Draft Lottery took place, or as Rocket fans like to call it "a tradition like no other." For those Rocket fans, their 0.5 percent chance of coming away with the top pick gave the draft lottery a decide ... More >>

Jerry "The King" Lawler Piledrives Clipper Fan: Old School WWE Wrestlers for Each NBA Playoff Series (w/ VIDEO)

People laugh dismissively when I say it, but the more they can incorporate WWE performers and the general WWE "way" of entertainment, the more enjoyable other genres of sports will become. No, I'm not talking about the predetermined outcomes of matches (The NBA has already incorporated that aspect o ... More >>

Rockets Sweep Road Trip, Bear Down on the Playoffs

Photo by Groovehouse This Rockets team, it just sneaks up on you. It's loaded with second- and third-tier players, most of whom would be backups (albeit rotation players) on good teams. They struggle with interior defense and have an unproven coach who was once a hated rival. They lost their entire ... More >>

Houston Rockets Acquire Marcus Camby And Derek Fisher. Wilford Brimley Next?

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post where I offered up some proposition wagers for the degenerates in the crowd who like to bet on really obscure things. (Yes, I am gazing into the mirror right now.) One of them was "Total Trades Made Before Deadline: OVER/UNDER 1 1/2" At the time, I cautiously took t ... More >>

Top 10 Sports Moments of 2011

More rings than LeBron James and Chris Bosh combined. ​Think about it: Eliminate the Astros and Houston had a year worthy of holding down multiple spots on this list that encompasses athletic accomplishments both inside and outside of the best U.S. state. 10. The Rise of the Houston Dynamo Th ... More >>

Five Oddly Timed or Just Plain Odd Texas License Plate Offerings from MyPlates.com

​The folks over at MyPlates.com, who bring us just about every custom license plate our Texas hearts could desire, just released a batch of new offerings we didn't even know we needed. The mostly-sports-themed releases provide citizens of our great state the opportunity to show pride in their ... More >>

2011 NBA Draft -- 4 Winners, 4 Losers

Tough night for Dick Vitale​My fingers are still recovering from the lengthy (eight printed pages!) live blog I did last night here on Hair Balls, but the day after the draft necessitates some post-draft analysis. I've now had a day to sleep on it, and without further ado, a few post-draft tho ... More >>

NBA Draft Rewind -- 1986, The Worst Draft Ever

Plus the shorts sucked​As much as those who construct teams in sports would like to think that they have a formula and a blueprint that they can go execute with any team in any market and be successful, the fact of the matter is that even for the best personnel men in the best-run organization ... More >>

We Live In A World Where Dallas Has Won An NBA Title: Five Things to Consider

Old school Mavs​Way, way back in the day, when we lived in Dallas -- more or less against our will -- we were Dallas Maverick fans. The Dallas Morning News' offices were a block or two from Reunion Arena, and Mark Aguirre and Roy Tarpley were there to he enjoyed. The Mavs never made it over ... More >>

Mavericks Celebrate In South Beach Bar: The Photos, Including Dirk Nowitzki Guzzling an $80K Bottle of Champagne

worldredeye.com​The webiste worldredeye.com has a page full of pictures up of the Dallas Mavericks, the whitest NBA champs since Larry Bird's Celtics, getting down last night and early this morning at Dallas South Beach nightclub LIV. We can only assume such a hip name as LIV is an homage to ... More >>

NBA Finals -- LeBron James Hits Rock Bottom

Snipes would play LeBron, but he's done his own disappearing act​"He struggled. Point blank, period. He struggled out there. ... I want to see him aggressive again. He can turn it up, his aggression, a notch." -- Miami Heat forward Chris Bosh, talking about his teammate LeBron James after Tue ... More >>

NBA Finals Game 2 -- Anatomy of a Meltdown

On the "Play-by-play" Web page for Game 2 of the NBA Finals, it simply reads "Dwyane Wade makes 24-foot three point jumper (Mario Chalmers assists)," one simple play out of a few hundred plays during the course of an NBA basketball game. But if you were watching the game, you knew that Dwyane Wade' ... More >>

Eskabel: Houston Rapper Says You Can't Beat The (Miami) Heat

The hip-hop world is a less than sensible place -lots of times, you're even required to clarify when bad means bad and when bad means good- so once a week we're going to get with a rapper and ask them to explain things. Have something you always wanted to ask a rapper? Email sheaserrano@gmail.com. ... More >>

Rick Perry V. Florida Governor Rick Scott: Who Makes The More Pathetic NBA Finals Joke?

Meeting of the titans​The NBA Finals start tonight (the Rockets are not involved, if you haven't been keeping up). It's the Dallas Mavericks against the Miami Heat, and that means a silly little bet between Governor Rick Perry and Florida Governor Rick Scott, two of the more Tea Party-esque go ... More >>

ESPN's Doris Burke's Difficult Week (w/ VIDEO)

Doris Burke and a moment of Zen​Of all of the on-air personalities who put their fingerprints on a sporting event -- studio host, play by play, color analyst, sideline reporter -- I've always thought that the sideline reporter has the hardest job out of all of them. It starts with the inhe ... More >>

Dallas Mavs' Promo Video: A Life & Death Battle of the Gods, Examined Second By Excruciating Second

Above is the official promo video put out by the Dallas Mavericks for their ongoing playoff run. It just may be the single most defensive and embarrassing such video ever, but hey, it's from Dallas. Let's examine this thing. Throughout, the music is so over-the-top dramatic it makes "O Fortuna" s ... More >>

Happiness Through Hustle

Cordial but guarded promoter H-Kane has become one of the local hip-hop scene's most important movers and shakers.

Mark Cuban Hit In The Face With Flying Projectile; Video of Five Times He Deserved It

Mark Cuban: We have the video evidence​Apparently, at the end of Game 3 of the Maversicks-Blazers series on Thursday night in Portland, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was pegged in the face with a mysterious unidentified object. While I don't condone the anonymous launching of projectiles a ... More >>

Five NBA Love Stories (For Valentine's Day)

The NBA: Love is in the air​Let me be the millionth to say that I hate Valentine's Day. It's a sham. It's a farce. It's a fabrication designed to stimulate the economy and jump-start jewelry, flower, restaurant and sex toy business for a random day in the dead period of February. And yet, as ... More >>

Steve Jobs Absence: Huge, But How Would It Rank Against Other Big-Time CEOs?

Steve Jobs takes a leave from Apple​Steve Jobs has once again rocked the tech world, albeit this time with his announcement that he is taking another medical leave of absence. It's huge because, to most people, Jobs is Apple, and Apple is the most hip, flexible, intuitive provider of gizmos t ... More >>

Game Time: NBA DRAFT -- Worst Lottery Picks Of The Last 15 Years

cutline​As "must see" events on the sporting calendar go, the annual NBA Draft is highly underrated. If you ask the average sports fan his or her five most watchable sports nights of the year you'll probably get canned answers like the Super Bowl, a Game 7 in the MLB or NBA playoffs, and any inte ... More >>

The Twitterverse

More than just cyberspace, the tweet life inspires people to make friends and adopt causes in person. It has a few problems, too.

Krayolas Attack Arizona Immigration Law On "I'm Your Dirty Mexican"

myspace.com/thekrayolas​ San Antonio Tex-Mex garage-rockers the Krayolas, who sharpened their political claws on the Little Steven-endorsed "Corrido (Twelve Heads In a Bag)," have set their sights on Arizona's controversial anti-immigration law on the band's new single "1070 (I'm Your Dirty Mexica ... More >>

To Keep Your Daughter Out Of Jail, What Not To Name Her Is Crystal-Clear

​The other day, Hair Balls was discussing the case of Crystal Sosa with a friend.Sosa is a young prostitute. Two years ago, her dead infant was discovered stashed in the freezer of the motel where she was staying with her boyfriend. She was eventually convicted of nothing more serious than attempt ... More >>

The H-Town Countdown: We Interrupt This Countdown to Bring You Some Basketball/Rap Metaphors

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.​You know how at the end of each American Idol season they drag the fin ... More >>

Game Time: Five NBA Games That Need "Dollar Beer Night"

Back in the day, Arco Arena in Sacramento used to rock pretty good. Even when it was hosting a perennially lottery-bound squad, and the Sacramento brass was drafting the likes of Pervis Ellison first overall in 1989 and Bobby Hurley in the 1993 lottery, fans would still show up and represent.Ultim ... More >>

Rockets-Mavs: Brooks Delivers Opening Statement

Aaron Brooks knows what many of you think. You fear the Rockets' new starting point guard is too small to defend big guards, like Dallas' 6-foot-4, future Hall of Famer Jason Kidd on Friday night. You expect him to be worked over in the post. You wonder if he's too young to lead a veteran playoff ... More >>

One-Fifth of the Way In, Whither the Rockets?

With about 20 percent of the season concluded, the Rockets' 11-7 record appears at first blush to be maddeningly inconsistent. But I think it's a lot easier to explain than it may seem. One way to measure the future success of the team based on its current record is to look at "bad losses" - ... More >>

NBA or WWE?

Supersonics vs. Rockets: Live-blogging with Jason Friedman

Because All Great Sports Rivalries Should Be Settled in the Courtroom

Will Houston Get on the Bandwagon Already?

JVG Bye-Bye

We Can All Be Golden State Fans for at Least a Day or Two

Rocket-hater or Realist?

Blast Off

Dear Diary

Which Texas Team Will Take Home the Title?

Random Thoughts While Anxiously Awaiting the NFL Draft and NBA Playoffs

Perchance to Dream

David Holt

Perpetual Motion (Blue Corn)

Jailhouse Shock

Did a Channel 13 reporter sneak her way into an exclusive?

Alligator Dave and the Couch Band

Saturday, October 19

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