Spurs 90, Mavericks 78 - Bring On The Nets!!!

The Spurs were down by six at the end of the first half and it seemed like 13 points would be a tough lead to catch going into the 4th quarter, BUT give it up for Steve Kerr for making 12 POINTS COMING OFF THE BENCH. Not only did he tie the game up at 71 a piece, but he made all his three point attempts giving the Spurs the lift they needed to close out Game 6.

He gets my vote for MVP tonight.

After Game 5 it seemed the Mavericks figured crowding Tim Duncan from the basket was the key to victory as the rest of the Spurs avoided shooting the ball in their 4th quarter collapse. Tonight seemed like deja vu as the Mavericks jumped into the lead early and were aggressive on offense. With a double digit lead going into the 4th quarter the Mavericks shifted to cruise control giving Stephen Jackson a chance to light up the boards with some 3-pointers. Slowly the lead was whittling away and before the Mavericks realized it Steve Kerr was in the game and the Spurs offense EXPLODED.

A 23-0 run put any doubts to bed and now the Spurs need to get ready for Jason Kidd and the Nets.

Mavericks 103, Spurs 91… Oops…

I could break it down for you all fancy like, but the end result would be the same - the Spurs gave away Game 5. They stumbled, they balked, they tripped, they stood in awe, they folded, they quit, they refused to win, they decided they wanted to road trip to Dallas.

Michelle & I know the game the Spurs are capable of playing. Let’s hope they decide to bring that to Dallas on Thursday.

Makes me wish I finished working on the pictures from this past weekend. Hopefully, I’ll get those photos up for y’all tomorrow.

Weekend Recap…

Pardon the misspellings and poor grammar, but I’m still waking up (who am I kidding, F7 spell check coming right up). Before I kickoff the weekend recap, it appears Cyn had a guest poster Friday & Sunday. The direct post links seem to be down, but look for guest post #1 & #2 as I’m still chuckling.

Well the weekend was an adventure. I have MANY pictures to go through and I intend on sorting sometime today amidst all the chores Michelle & I left undone before heading out of town. As I mentioned Saturday night, we spent the weekend in Austin. It was Jamee’s birthday Sunday and our good friend Amy flew down from Michigan to join in the celebration. I met both Jamee & Amy while hangin’ out at Michigan State (no I never actually attended, I just got drunk there on many an occasion). It had been a couple of years since Amy’s last visit so it was quite the birthday treat. Here’s a quick recap of our weekend:

Thursday - Amy flies into Dallas from Detroit. We grab dinner for three at Applebee’s and toss back some Perfect Margaritas.

Friday - Michelle, Amy & I drive to Austin. Except for the two hour delay trying to get out of Dallas, the drive is mostly uneventful. Sorority screams and high pitched squealing ensue after arriving at Jamee’s place. The birthday celebration has officially begun. After settling in and hugs followed by more hugs, the five of us (Amy, Jamee & Scott, Michelle & I) make our way to 6th street which is the club district in Austin. As it was Game 3 of the NBA playoffs, we just had to start off the evening at a sports bar. Amy & Jamee went next door to a brewery after dinner while Scott, Michelle & I watched as the Spurs took Game 3 away from the Mavericks.

We took our victory celebration over to the Ginger Man and joined what was now a large group of people wishing Jamee happy birthday. From the Ginger Man we moved on to Poly Esters for some disco dancing & karaoke. Needless to say it was a long night which ended with my recap of Game 3 at 3am.

Saturday - For some reason everyone slept in pretty late. The day didn’t begin until Noon and required massive amounts of coffee as motivation. Jamee’s friend Juliet offered to host a crawfish boil (yes, new experience for me too). We packed the truck and drove out to Lake Travis where Juliet has the most AMAZING house overlooking the lake (this is me green with envy). Scott labored all afternoon preparing 100lbs of crawfish. By the end of the night Juliet was walking next door to ask her neighbors to come and take a few pounds of leftovers. Never has such a small party gorged themselves so thoroughly. The evening wouldn’t be complete without some fireworks and a small brush fire.

Sunday - Jamee’s birthday!!! Woo Hoo!!! While still a late morning, we managed to pull ourselves together and head out to Hamilton Pool. This by far was the highlight of the weekend. Yup, Michelle & I are only jobs away from moving out of Dallas. The park only allows 75 cars in at one time so we had a bit of a wait before we were able to enjoy the pool. Unfortunately, we arrived in the late afternoon, so we didn’t have time to really take in the scenery. I snapped off some quick pics along the trail to the water, but next time I’ll get some better photos. After lounging in the water we drove out to the Salt Lick Barbecue for dinner. WOW! Can you say tasty eats? On a Sunday evening we had ourselves a 45 minute wait, but it was well worth it. GINORMOUS portions of ribs, brisket, pork, chicken with side plates of potatoes & coleslaw - YUMMY! Oh and if you’re ever out that way, the Salt Lick is BYOB.

Now I know what you’re thinking - you did manage to watch the Spurs game Sunday night right? Well, fortunately Michelle is ALWAYS prepared and although dinner did not include a TV, she did manage to bring her headset radio. In-between drinks and the occasional morsel she spouted out game scores for Scott & I. You’d think after gorging ourselves two days in a row that the food coma would have set in quite nicely. Seeing as it was Jamee’s birthday we left the Salt Lick and moved on to Lake Austin for drinks at the Hula Hut. We sat outside drinking “fish bowls”, Michelle announcing game scores while I took pictures of the ducks and Jamee & Amy caught up on all the latest gossip.

We closed the bar out and briefly thought of going back to 6th street before heading home. Jamee & Scott fired up the “ghetto tub” and we had ourselves one last night cap before passing out… err… well Michelle & I had one last drink. Rumor has it the birthday girl &amp company stayed up until 4am, hence the slow moving and hangovers the next morning.

Monday - Yeah, I know what you’re thinking - Why didn’t YOU stay up partying `til 4am? Well seeing as how a 3-4 hour drive absolutely sucks with a hangover; I figured I’d make the smart play for once. It was fun pouring Amy into the car and watching Jamee attempt some for of morning conversation in-between sips of coffee. The drive back to Dallas went quicker than we anticipated and Michelle & I dropped Amy off in record time for her flight home.

So there you have it. I’ll get to the pictures later and hopefully post them today. But first I’ll go wake up Michelle and get some stuffed french toast for breakfast.

Spurs 96, Mavericks 83 - Let’s Get Two More Wins!!!

Well, you might be asking yourself why this post is happening after 3am… or not. Michelle & I caught the game, but seeing as Amy flew in from Michigan and we’re in Austin visiting our friends Jamee & Scott well hoppin’ on the `net wasn’t an immediate priority.

Damn!!! What a game we had tonight!!! It was a knock down dragged out tussle which ended with the Mavericks losing Dirk Nowitski midway through the 4th quarter. The refs let the two teams duke it out and the foul calling while still questionable at times was significantly less.

I have to say tonight’s game reminded me why I will never be a fan of Dallas teams. Before the game was over seats at the American Airlines Center (in Dallas) started emptying. Not ten minutes before the game ended, but the beginning of the fourth quarter.

I felt bad for the Mavericks because they deserve better from their fans. I think this has been a good series and both teams are playin’ their asses off. This is what the playoffs are all about and it’s disappointing that people would spend A LOT of money on tickets then bail just because their team might lose.

Well, it’s late and I should think about getting some sleep. Hope everyone is having a great Memorial Weekend. I’ll hopefully post something late Sunday night after Game 4.

Taking pictures (as promised) to post when we get back and oh!

Happy Birthday Nanette!!!

nite.

Spurs 119, Mavericks 106 - Series Tied 1-1

Look at me, posting three times today. Woot! I am the bloginator… heh.

Well, it certainly wasn’t pretty, but the Spurs managed to hold the lead in another game ridden with foul calls. This time the Spurs knocked down 24 foul shots before trailing off 10 of 18. As with Monday’s game the Spurs were aggressive from the start boasting a 25 point lead at the end of the first half. Against any other team this would establish a comfort zone, but the Mavericks were once again able to pull within 8 points. Coming into this series the Spurs had lost four out of five games where they had blown double digit leads. It was beginning to feel like history would repeat itself.

Fortunately some changes in personnel - Malik Rose for Bruce Bowen - gave the Spurs advantage in holding back the tide that is the Mavericks offense. There will be a lot of controversy over the officiating as Dallas quickly ran up technical fouls and Don Nelson was ejected from the game early in the first quarter. With the games tied at one a piece, both teams have proven that this will be another grueling series.

Quote of the day

Dawn found today’s quote of the day over at Bitch Has Word.

Take some time to look around this blog. There were some great entries about censorship and of the entries I read there were some great comment conversations.

I missed the series finale of Buffy last night. I managed to tape it (as well as NYPD Blue), but I don’t think Michelle & I will actually have the time to watch TV until next week. That sucks because Ryan will be posting his final Buffy review at Noon. I’ll miss his analysis probably more than the show (at least this season which was not the best IMO).

OK, I know I’m a little light on the entry this morning, but I’ve several things I should actually accomplish given I have the day off from school. I’ll try and get my blggin’ groove on a little later.

Mavericks 113, Spurs 110… Uh Oh…

Well, last night’s game proved that the only team that is going to beat the Spurs is themselves and luck sometimes finds the other guy.

I felt certain after dominating the first half the Spurs had every answer to “the run & gun”. It seems Don Nelson was able to pull out a few answers of his own; namely the immediate fouls on Bowen. I can’t say I saw that coming and neither did the Spurs. That broke the rhythm they had going and with Bowen only a 40% foul shooter it kept him from being effective on the floor.

It didn’t help that the Spurs gave the Mavericks FIFTY foul attempts, 49 of which went in. The Spurs also had a large number of attempts and it hurt them.

I know beating the Lakers was a big deal, but the Spurs need to get past that series and find a way to close out games in this series.

Holla back y’all…

OK, if you happen to be reading this then leave a comment or two or three.

The website has been up & down since Friday night when I discovered my webhost decided to move my content from one server to another. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal except they didn’t let me know so at some point while DNS was propagating updates were split between the two servers.

For those peeps that have no clue what I’m talking about imagine DNS is like the Yellow Pages. If you want pizza, you look up Pizza Hut in the directory and get the phone number to a location nearest you. You don’t remember the phone number, it’s easier to remember Pizza Hut. DNS is the same thing. When you open your browser and type www.gottagotta.com your computer uses DNS to find the proper IP address so the website opens in your browser.

In my case, the entry in the phonebook was wrong so everybody dialing Pizza Hut called a disconnected number.

Anyways, that explanation was much too long. Hopefully, I’m online to everybody that matters. I’ve added to the blog list once again and if you get a chance checkout these awesome sites: brainrazor, choz, darkside/lightside, popdog, rhys-isms & sweetcitrus.

MOVIE REVIEW - The Matrix Reloaded

The anticipation of this sequel put a lot of burden on the filmmakers. IMO, with the exception of The Lord of the Rings and T2, there aren’t many sequels you could say performed as well or outdid their predecessors. This film comes close.

The Matrix Reloaded is everything you would expect from a sequel, the explosions are bigger, the villains are badder and bullet time still looks pretty damn cool. The story still centers around Neo as “The One” who will save the human race from extinction. I was impressed with the underlying themes throughout the film as Morpheus spouts hope & prophecy to the faithful against a background of pragmatism from Zion’s military leader Locke. While only a few names are dropped we learn that Morpheus & crew are just one group of many plugging into the Matrix.

This isn’t a movie you can see just once because you’ll leave asking all sorts of questions. The plot has a few twists & turns and while some scenes left me asking “Uhm, why did he do that?” it also had my brain reeling from all the “What if?” scenarios this saga seems to generate.

The Good - Everybody was kung fu fighting. If you loved the fight scenes from the first film you won’t be disappointed with the sequel. The scenes are more elaborate and fortunately the cinematography doesn’t distract from the action. The love scene made me wonder if anybody thought about all the attachments you could connect to those body plugs. Agent Smith to the 10th power. Morpheus wielding a samurai sword, nuff said.

The Bad - Jada Pinkett’s character Niobe. Barely onscreen and not much of a plot mover. In fact, the supporting cast felt just like that, afterthoughts. The movie doesn’t end it gets cutoff. The cliff-hanger moment isn’t really a surprise, but when the credits started rolling I was like “What the hell?” The Twins as an appetizer instead of the main course.

Overall - It was hard to go into this film without any expectations. I was annoyed that the previews highlighted some of the best scenes (really can the marketing people STOP doing that?), but even so, I was thoroughly entertained. I look forward to the movie being released in IMAX theatres in the upcoming weeks. It’s definitely worth another look. Oh and if you can manage to sit through the credits (which took forever) then you’ll get to see a quick 60 second preview of The Matrix Revolutions.

UPDATE - Ryan has written an EXCELLENT review which is a must read.

Spurs 110, Lakers 82 - See ya!!!

Isn’t that a pickle? While Michelle & I are ecstatic that the Spurs handed the Lakers their ass on the court tonight, it ABSOLUTELY SUCKS that we missed the game. Yes, that’s right WE MISSED THE GAME. Not like we didn’t know the game was tonight, but did it have to end before we got home from seeing The Matrix Reloaded?

DOH!

OK, so I was going to write my movie review (maybe later), but let’s just take a moment to say HOW SWEET THIS VICTORY IS!!!

Points to Kobe for being a gracious loser, but this house still doesn’t have any respect for Shaq.

(Thanks Katie for posting the happy news in the comment section)

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