Dallas Mavericks at Houston Rockets game 5 preview: fun while it lasted?

Well, friends, we stand on the precipice of history. Facing elimination, the Mavericks staved off elimination Sunday night. What will happen?

Will the Mavs win?

Umm, yeah... maybe? But probably not. Sure, Dallas has looked like a new team in the past two games, or at least the team they were before they traded for Rondo, but history is not on their side. No team has ever come back from a 0-3 deficit to win a series and it's extremely unlikely that this will be the squad that does it.

The Mavericks are beat up, injured, and sporadic. They managed to overcome that sporadicism (is that a word?) to give the home crowd a show in Game 4, which was welcome and...dare I say...actually fun? But, I mean, Dwight Howard played Game 4 like he was hungover. Do you think he will do that again? Actually, he might. But it seems unlikely that the Rockets will play down again in an elimination game in Houston.

Hey, it was an interesting season. I enjoyed it. Much Excitement. So Rondo.

The future, Conan?

What does the future hold for the Mavericks? Simply put, they will have to start from scratch all over again. It's the same story since the championship team. The roster turnover has been epic, impressive even. Unfortunately, they've netted nothing but first round exits, a Game 3 last season to remember, and that one season with Mike James.

We'll discuss the future more, and in depth, here at Moneyball this summer. It's bound to be full of absurd rumors and you can find the reasonable ones here. We aren't like other sites. ZING!

Enjoy the game.

It's probably the last one for the Mavs this season and you still love them. We all do. If you want a team to root for during the remainder of the playoffs, might I suggest the Warriors?

Game information

7:00 p.m. on TNT and TXA21