It's halfway into the 2007-2008 season, and the key question has nothing to do with the regular season at all: Have the Mavericks improved their players and systems for a more successful playoff run? Of course the answer to this question has much to do with a comparison to the past: Have the Mavs improved in various ways to overcome the strategies that stopped them in 2006 and 2007? That's what I'll look at in my review of games 1-42.

Are we pacing ourselves?

Before we look at offenses and defenses, let's take a look at minute usage. Both Detroit and Phoenix have often been pegged as teams with poor minute distribution. They ride their starters all season long, and by the time the playoffs come around, fatigue becomes a factor in their play. This has some support from the statisticians, with at least one report showing that limiting starter's minutes has a correlation to post-season success. Certainly the Spurs have been lauded for this as a team that paces itself and peaks at the right time.  read more »

(Boulder-CO) Today's date is March 10th, and on this day: '61- Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors became the first NBA player to score 3,000 points in a season. '63- Wilt Chamberlain, playing for the San Francisco Warriors, scored 70 points in a 163-148 loss to Syracuse, one of six 70-plus point games in his career. '85- Dallas Coach Dick Motta became the fourth NBA coach to record his 700th career victory as the Mavericks beat New Jersey 126-113. '87- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar became the NBAs all-time leader in personal fouls committed when he charged into Denvers Danny Schayes with 4:23 left in the first quarter of the Lakers 143-107 victory over the Nuggets.  read more »

Game 3 of Hornets-Spurs is in the immediate future (8:30p.m. Central on ESPN), and we've got the usual dose of news, notes, quotes and anecdotes form around the web. You gotta love technology.

To start, Tommy Beer has nothing less than a fascinating read over at HoopsWorld.com, giving you about nine billion statistical reasons why Chris Paul should have won MVP this season (hat tip to TrueHoop for the find). I could quote so much from that article, but I'll just whet your appetite with these two...  read more »

(Boulder-CO) Today's date is January 15th, and on this day: 1892- The 13 original rules of basketball were printed in the Springfield YMCA training school newspaper. '57- Attempting a length-of-the-court pass to Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman stunned an NBA All-Star Game audience in Boston Garden when his 70-foot pass swished through the net. After the shot, Cousy asked Sharman, Dont you ever pass?  read more »

The Dallas Mavericks re-signed former Texas A&M standout guard Antoine Wright on Friday and also signed guard Keith McLeod and forward James Singleton Terms of the deals weren't released. Wright played two seasons with New Jersey before he was acquired by the Mavs on Feb. 19 as part of the deal that also brought Jason Kidd to Dallas.  read more »

Amid all the talk about Maggette and Posey and Andersen and all the other free agents, there hasn't been a lot of mention of some other very important free agents, the Celtics assistant coaches. All 4 of Doc's assistants' contracts expired on July 1, making them all free agents. Doc has one more season on his contract and Danny has begun negotiations to give Doc an extension. More important, though, should be signing their assistants to new contracts before another team lures them away. Tom Thibodeau is the architect of the Celtics' defense which was the main reason that they won the championship.  read more »

Game 6 goes down this evening in San Antonio, with the Spurs needing a win to avoid elimination at the hands of our Hornets. Here's the usual bunch of notes, quotes and anecdotes from around the web...

Let's start it off with updates on the injuries to Tyson Chandler and David West. Here's words from Tyson himself, who blogged his ass off on NBA.com yesterday...  read more »

(Boulder-CO) I apologize for the absence of posts yesterday, but as many of you know I live way out in BFE and when the satellite Internet goes down it can take me a minute to work out the kinks. Anyhow, today's date is April 6 th , and yesterday's was April 5 th , and in the past to days of in NBA history: April 5, 1967 Wilt Chamberlain, playing for the Philadelphia 76 ers , grabbed an NBA Playoff record 41 rebounds in a 115-104 win over Boston. April 5, 1981 The Philadelphia 76 ers rejected an NBA Playoff record 20 shots in a 125-122 win over the Milwaukee Bucks at the Spectrum in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.  read more »