Heard It Through the Grapevine 3-13-09

Posted by Rob Mahoney on March 13, 2009 under The Grapevine |

• A little buzz among the other Mavs heads on John Hollinger’s playoff odds system, and I’m not sure I understand why.  Here’s my take: I don’t know anybody who lives and dies by those rankings.  It’s interesting to see how a big win or a big loss affects a team’s playoff odds, but it’s just a system of probability that takes recent play heavily into account.  The predictions are appropriately salted, and everything is fun and games until somebody takes the fun and games too seriously.  Hollinger hardly needs me to defend him, and I’m not saying that his word is absolute.  His methods have their flaws, as any statistical methods do.  So why are we getting worked up over the fact that Hollinger mentioned the Suns in a chat but didn’t mention the Mavs?  Why are we disputing the fact that his system estimates the Suns chances of making the playoffs are “better than you’d think,” when we think the perception of the Suns’ playoff chances hover somewhere around 0% and his odds system has them at 26.4%?  It’s playoff odds, peeps.  Let’s all chill a bit, giggle when they’re absurdly wrong, and disregard them.
• Speaking of, the Suns lost again last night, putting them a full six games behind the Mavs.  On the other end of the standings, the Lakers clinched their playoff spot and division championship last night with a win over the Spurs.
• A quote from Jason Kidd that caught my eye (via Pete Aldrich of the DMN Mavs Blog): “‘This is not a bad time to start having fun,’ said Jason Kidd. ‘And having fun becomes contagious. This was a trip marked as make or break by all the experts. For us to get two wins back to back … we’re the only ones who believe and that’s all that matters.’”
• Randy Galloway throws some love Dirk’s way, and also nearly wrote an entire article without putting more than one sentence in a paragraph.
• Just in case you hadn’t noticed, Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry are kind of important to the Mavs.  Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News: “With Josh Howard out, it’s partly by necessity. But what Nowitzki and Terry have done during the three-game winning streak without Howard should remind everybody how formidable they can be. ‘We’ve lived and died with those two guys all year,’ coach Rick Carlisle said. ‘When it counts, one of those two guys is going to have the ball. And there’s a great chance that the other one of the two is going to be involved. They’ve come up big for us all year.’”
• R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S NCAA basketball game last night in the Big East tournament between Syracuse and UConn that went through 6 overtimes before deciding a winner.  Syracuse’s Johnny Flynn played 67 minutes.  UConn was 2 points away from having every one of their starters get a double-double.  As someone who writes a basketball blog (NBA-specific or not), it would be a crime for me to not at least mention it.  Meanwhile, my Longhorns are looking awfully good, and their chances at the Big 12 title just skyrocketed with the elimination of Oklahoma (Thanks, OK State.) and Kansas (Thanksomuch, Baylor.).  HOOK ‘EM.
• Tim Cowlishaw of the Dallas Morning News is looking up and looking forward, taking a peek at some possible playoff opponents.
• Injury notes: Monta Ellis returned for the Warriors on Wednesday, and will play tonight.  Devean George should miss the game tonight with the same knee issues that kept him out of the tail-end of the game in Portland, but J.J. Barea is expected to suit up and start once again.
• Look out, it’s a trap!