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Day One Links

By Wes Cox

Dallas vs. San Antonio 7:00 - TNT

Four months ago I watched the Mavs lose to Miami and felt like never watching basketball again for the rest of my life.

Five months ago, the last time these two teams played a game against each other that counted, I watched the final half of the game through my fingers which were covering my eyes.

Twelve months ago, when the Mavs kicked off last season I stayed up until 1 AM to watch the Mavs beat the Suns in double overtime.

Tonight I'm hoping for something kind of boring. A simple victory. Not yet fully recovered from last season I'd kind of like to start things off slow.

Devean George will miss tonight's game as he hasn't yet fully recovered from stomach illness.

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Art Garcia has a very good article about the Mavs/Spurs rivalry. A rivalry that Jerry Stackhouse is very into:

"I don't care nothing about them," Mavs guard Jerry Stackhouse said this week. "Why would they want to say anything about us? We don't like them. They don't like us. That's it.

"It may all sound sweet when you're talking to the media, but when you actually get between those lines, man for man, I don't like them. You can write it down. Put it in present tense. Whatever you want to."
It's definitely a real rivalry now. That's why some were surprised that Mark Cuban won't raise the Western Conference banner tonight in front of San Antonio.

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Tim Cowlishaw has a really dumb article about why the Mavs can't reach the Finals again.
The bad news is that Nowitzki, Howard and Terry are locked into long-term contracts.

A year ago, these players were doing more than taking a franchise where it had never been. They were playing for contracts that they have now received.
Yeah, Dirk was playing for a contract. OK......

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Funny quote from Avery at the bottom of this article.
The Mavericks played the Spurs 11 times last year and once last week in the preseason. So it stands to reason that because of the familiarity, it should be easy for the Mavs to prepare for tonight's regular-season opener against the Spurs, right?

"No," Avery Johnson said, "because the frustrating thing is if you know them so well, why do their stuff still work?"
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Art Garcia also has a good advertisement for NBA League Pass and talks about how it will help Dirk's native Germany keep up with him and the Mavs.

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And Randy Galloway tears himself away from T.O for his first Mavs article in forever, and I bet you can guess the subject...
I'd like for Avery to be honest with us, and admit how many NBA coaches phoned him over the summer to say something like this:

"You will never win a championship with THAT owner."

It's one of those grassy-knoll guessing games, but common sense says Mark is killing the Mavericks with, among other things, his constant baseline buffoonery.

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