5) Give one word that describes the season.
Hal: Ridiculous.
Josh: To quote Liz Lemmon, "blerg."
Andy: Uggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Tim: Horribawfugly (a combination of horrible, awful, bad and ugly).
Alan: Over.
Kirk: Predictable. We've become accustomed to greatness but after Dirk went down and we realized his recovery process was going to take forever, I think we all saw this sort of season in the works. We all talked ourselves into other outcomes, but past performance predicts future results and by mid-December it was clear that Dallas was a good but not great team that needed a few more breaks to go its way. Those breaks came infrequently enough that we missed the playoffs for the first time since the Clinton Administration.
Hal: The last Rockets game. My roommate is a die hard Rockets fan, and we do-or-die by Rockets/Mavs games, they set the bragging rights for the whole year. My dignity was at stake during that game: if the Mavs lost, the series would have ended tied, with the Rockets ahead in point differential. It couldn't happen. The game ended up being phenomenal, so close the whole way, and the Mavs barely pulled it out with a 10-4 run to win the game. I will probably link my roommate to this roundtable, just to remind him that I have the bragging rights for the year. Such a fun game.
Josh: It's hard to top that classic Dirk comeback against Chicago, but honestly, I'm going to go with the O.J. Mayo 40-point game against Houston. Mayo out-dueling a James Harden and a Rockets team that was in the Mavs way toward a playoff berth in Houston was pretty special. It gave us hope that perhaps Mayo is the second-star Mavs fans have all been hoping for. Sadly, it wasn't the case. But on this glorious night in Houston, Mayo could do no wrong.
Andrew: (ed. note: from question one) The best game of the season was the OT win against the Clippers—Hope was still and sort of suddenly alive, OJ Mayo did something amazing to one-up the great Chris Paul, Carlisle had his most intuitive lineup and gameplan---No Kaman, time split between Wright and Brand, 20 shots for Dirk, 15 or Mayo and less than 10 for everyone else—and the Mavs beat basically the only contender they beat all season, besides that weird Memphis game. I mean really, that should have been the lineup and gameplan every game after Dirk came back.
Tim: Give me Houston, where in the course of 48 minutes, the Mavericks forgot Dirk was injured, found the solution to the 2-guard that had alluded them for years and beat a playoff team as they knew the season would result in a low but dangerous playoff berth. Of course, not of that was quite accurate, but for a game, we all thought it.