I’ve defended Dirk to NO END in the whole “Dirk is TOO soft” debates over the years…

But, my God, I won’t be able to defend him with a straight face if someone brings that up. The guy had his hand on your cheek, basically telling you he thinks you’re soft and you won’t do anything, and you don’t do anything. Nothing. You look at him, don’t say anything, and walk off as soon as the official forces himself between you…

That’s the exact reason the Mavericks have flopped the last two years. No backbone.

The Hornets were going at Dirk all night long. Chandler was in his face and pushed him into the crowd after a whistle. David West was in his shorts, then rubbed up on his face when Dirk pushed off a bit…

The fact that none of that drew even the slightest bit of anger or reaction from Dirk bothers me… Find one other superstar in the league that would let someone push them into the crowd after a whistle and then let someone rub up on their face, and not react whatsoever?

There’s not one.

Intensity and toughness on a team starts with your best player. Unfortunately, our best player isn’t tough. He doesn’t care to react to opponents pushing him around or trying to intimidate him.

It looked like Dirk just wasn’t bothered by it. He was probably happy to get under West’s skin.

damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

if the mavs won, whatever he did would have been right, since they lost it will be seen as the wrong thing.

Dirk is an incredable player during the regular season. But he lacks the ability to take it to the next level during playoff season. Dirk also relies too much on his jumpshot. Sometimes it may be better for him to drive to the basket and cause a foul, but he keeps shooting jumpers when he’s going flat. The incident that took place with West could have been handled differently. Dirk does need to show his authority on the court. I also don’t believe he would have gotten thrown out of the game for at least pushing West out of his face. But I’m an old school basketball fan. And none of the legendary great ones would have took that type of dispect. Remember the series between the Bulls and Knicks, how many times did Jordan and Sparks push each other around.

Did you watch the 2006 playoffs? I’d say Dirk took it up a notch plenty during that run. He also had a pretty damn good game the other night. His 31 (and 10 baords) weren’t enough for you? Too bad his buddies Josh and JET decided to stay home (apologies, Josh, if your ankle is the reason you couldn’t/wouldn’t take it to the hole in the second half, though past history leads me to think otherwise).

I’m of the opinion that if the referees had any control of that game, they would have ejected West in order to prevent the need for these kind of questions (and the attendant retaliation that can/will/should happen).

But that’s my general complaint about refs- they ought to be much slower to call personal fouls, and a million times quicker in calling Ts.