I can not figure it out.  For the last few days, I have been depressed, angry, sick to my stomach and unable to focus.  I have cried uncontrollably, kicked my dog and chased my cat around the house flicking  Dirk Nowitzki basketball trading cards at her.

To top it off, this morning I woke up sitting naked in an seat in an empty American Airlines Center screaming “KMART’S A THUG”, again flicking.  This time flicking imaginary beer and popcorn on imaginary Denver Nuggets fans seated next to me.

After posting bail, I rushed home to see if I could self diagnose the mysterious symptoms that have overtaken my body.

I did an exhaustive Google search. I  researched medical journals. I even scheduled an emergency visit with a sports fan psychologist.  Much to my relief, I finally found the answer in an obscure article entitled “Sports Fanatic Psychosis, Diagnosis and Treatment“.  The article was put out by the South End Of The Island Of Grenada School Of Medicine. I am suffering from “Season Over Syndrome“(SOS). It turns out there are seven stages of “SOS”.

1.  SHOCK AND DENIAL

This feeling is generally manifested in a  heightened awareness of situations and individuals that will be left behind after the season is over.  You find yourself with overwhelming feelings of sorrow and sympathy for players making millions of dollars per year who are already sitting on desert islands sipping Cuba Libre drinks, banging hot women and partying with the Dos Equis Man as they live vicariously through themselves.

2. PAIN AND GUILT

As your body goes through the withdrawal of countless nights of playoff drinking and debauchery, you suddenly realize that your condo has not been cleaned in weeks. Your  unwashed laundry stinks.  Your girlfriend has left you.  You can longer see your feet or your “Johnson” from drinking and eating so much.  The fat slob in the mirror overwhelms you with pain and guilt.  The rest does not bother you that much.  That’s what maids and strip clubs are for.

3.  ANGER

Your guilt turns to increasing anger as you realize that you look like shit, your baseball team sucks, football is months away and your your now eliminated NBA team wont have a 1st round draft pick because they traded it for a Slobovian point guard named Meloosh.

4.  DEPRESSION AND LONELINESS

Just as all your friends think you are over the disappointment and ready to move on, you become very reflective of the season that was.  You begin inviting your friends over to show them your new Tops Basketball Card Collection and  watch endless reruns of movies like Hoosiers, The Fish That Save Pittsburgh, Celtic Pride, Like Mike, And Space Jam.  After one night of this, your friends begin discussing an SOS intervention behind your back.

5.  FEELING BETTER

You start to adjust to a boring summer without the benefit of good tickets to playoff games to pick up hot women. That’s ok though because the night club scene is improving.  Out of contention and out of work NBA players, groupies and douchebag wannabes converge on the club scene  with guns, entourage and gangsta attitude in tow.  “Celebrity Beatdowns“  are a weekly nightclub event.  They help wean you off the Jerry Springer and TMZ addictions that are  symptoms of SOS.

6.  RECONSTRUCTION AND REDEMPTION

November is rapidly approaching. Time to get your body back shape for the long grueling season. Pre-game happy hours, post game happy hours, post game private parties.  An intense heckling regime to be rehearsed.  Have to look good for the Jumbotron or any impromptu national television appearances.  The gym is now your best friend. Your team is not looking good for the new year so you have to be looking extra buff.  It’s exponentially harder to pick up chicks after a loss. You think Meelosh will be a bust.

7. ACCEPTANCE AND HOPE

As opening day gets closer, the trash talk of a new season begins. You once again begin to feel the hope of a the promised NBA title  despite a bunch of crappy mid-level exception signings, no bench and Meelosh as your starting center.

You will once again experience the joy of basketball, women and making a complete drunken idiot out of yourself all in the name of basketball fandom.  If the team wins you might even get laid this year.  Meelosh is coming around. Life is good.

It was clear that San Antonio had a different game plan from the start.  It was actually kind of bizarre to see Tony Parker consistently step off open three point shots to dish it in to Tim Duncan or another Spurs player.   While Tim generally hits his patented bank shot, it also resulted in several turnovers on Parker’s part.

Parker, while trying to create plays for everyone else, became tentative in his own aggressive style. With Parker not playing the style that makes him great, no one else was able to consistently step up.  Michale Finley, while a great guy and a great shooter, was a brutal defensive liability.  He never really got it going from the shooting side either.  In the end Tim Duncan scored 30 and Tony Parker had 26 and other than Finley,  I could not tell you who was even on the court.

On the other end of the court,  Dirk Nowitzki had his best game of the series scoring 31 pts.  It was clear from his first few shots that his patented fade away had the range that night.  It was  a solid contribution from starters all around.  More importantly was that our role players played solidly. We did not give anything away when Dirk or other starters left the floor.  Josh Howard capped off an outstanding series, with 17 points, 8 rebounds and three steals. He had my permission to blow it out for his birthday!  This birthday celebration was probably more joyous than 2008 when he incurred the wrath of coach Avery Johnson after allegedly passing out birthday fliers in the Mavs locker room after losing to the New Orleans Hornet in the first round last year.  While it would be great to see a re-match in round two as we would have home court,  I would be shocked if the Hornets recover from the playoff record tying Civil War style beat down at the hands of the Denver Nuggets in game 4.

From a AT&T Arena standpoint, the Spurs fans were very subdued from the start almost if, while hopeful, dreading what they ultimately expected when the clock ran out.  Despite a valiant effort from The Coyote, the arena energy never got anywhere near game 1 or 2.  One gentlemen in the suite next to ours wagerd me a bottle of Cristal against a Mark Cuban autogrpahed ball  that the Spurs would take the series.  I usually do not wager but as he was willing to make the wager with the Mavs up 3-1 in the series as well as leading at the half,it seemed like one of the safer wagers I would make in my life.  As someone who has not won in Las Vegas since Bugsy Segal threw down a bet, I could not pass it up.  I will be shooting him an email that I don’t drink and to keep it on ice for the next time the Spurs win a championship.  How long does Cristal keep?  It could be a long wait.

Have you ever experienced DeJa Vu in reverse?   I was sitting in the home court comfort of my regular seat at the American Airlines Center.  I had the overwhelming feeling that I had seen it all before.  Tired start.  Inability to adjust.  Terrible shooting.  I had seen it.  I had seen it just 3 days before as the Spurs demolished the Mavs in a game that was non-competitive from start to finish.  This time however we were in the “Mavs Dimension.”  The Mavs dominated start to finish in its 88-67 wrangling of the Spurs.   It was such a beat down on the San Antonino crew that coach Paul Pop0vich threw in the towel about half-way through the 3rd quarter, pulling out most of the starters.  I never thought I would see that in a playoff game.  Popovich stated:

“I didn’t see where we were going to get back in that one,”

Just two days after the Mavericks had no answer for Tony Parker driving the line, J.J. Barea and Eric Dampier answered all night, denied!  Barea had 13 points and seven assists in his first career playoff start.  Dirk Nowitzki found his vaunted fad away shooting touch. He finished with 20 points and seven rebounds, sitting for the rest of the game when the lead hit 30 pints.  Josh Howard had 17 points and eight rebounds.

Just two days after the Mavs shot poorly,   it was the Spurs who shot 32 percent resulting in the fewest points they had ever scored in a playoff game.

From a twitter standpoint the universe was lively and talkative. I found myself getting frustrated with my iPhone Tweetie application. It crashed several times as I tried to post pics through Twit Pic.  So much so that I tweeted “Tweetie sucks” and asked for advice for better application as my frustration rose.  I also added another innovation for Game 3.  As anyone with an iPhone will attest, the camera application leaves much to be desired. Photos taken from more than 20 feet or so away come out looking like you are across a football field. To combat this I installed an iPhone application called Camera Zoom.  It adds a digital zoom function up to 4x to the iPhone camera.   It produced mixed results in in my Game 3 test.  Pixelization was  poor in the long shots as evidenced by the complaints of my Dallas Maverick Dancers photos.  For Game 4 I am considering either taking my laptop or possibly investing in a Netbook.

Did Eric Dampier follow through on his alleged threat of a Tony Parker beat down?   Yes and No.  He never laid a hand on Parker but a beat down was inflicted.  The Mavs as a team put a beat down on the Spurs such as they had never seen in a playoff game.  Time to rest up and get “up-beat” for game 4!

You can see all of my game 3 photos on my Facebook page.

The tweeting was just not the same for game two of the Western Conference Quarter Finals between the Dallas Mavericks and the San Antonio Spurs.  I was not the same.  I got on the plane to San Antonio already tired, fighting a chest cold,knowing that we would not be returning to Dallas until well after midnight.

The trip down on the G550 was non-eventful and passed quickly.  The plane has directv on it. It was a pleasant surprise that the ESPN Monday Night Baseball game featured my hometown Pittsburgh Pirates. As bad as the Pirates have been over the years, they are my team and I always enjoy watching them on the tube.  Watching the game diverted my attention from the pressure in my chest  and from the anxiety of the impending game 2 between my Dallas Mavericks and the San Antonio Spurs.

By the time we were wheels down in San Antonio I felt even worse.  I was tired and beat down despite the excitement of a possible 2-0 Mavs series lead.  This turned out to have a direct karmic relationship to the way  the Mavs would play that night.

We arrived at the AT&T Center about an hour early.  We sat in the same suite as the night before.  The suites in San Antonio are similar to the suites in Dallas except that they are one level up putting us a little further from the action. It is  still a good view and is always good to enjoy the game with family. There is also a television in the suite so we were able to taken in an exciting Celtics-Bulls playoff game 2 before our game started.

I was also happy that this time I had remembered to bring my iPhone charger to fight the dreaded iPhone 2 hour battery drain.   This was the kind of evening however that with every positive came an equal negative.  I left my regular digital 10 Megapixel camera with 35x zoom on the plane.  I would be relegated the crappy iPhone camera that made pictures look like they were being taken from Oklahoma.

The Mavs came out like I felt, tired and slow. The floor energy draining faster than my phone battery.  San Antonio had clearly made adjustments from the previous game.  Every shot was contested. Every Dirk drive to the lane a battle for inches of forward movement.  Every Tony Parker drive uncontested.  I expected the Spurs to come out hard, doing everything possible to show that game 1 was the exception to the rule.  What I did not expect was the Mavs to be a step slow and an inch off the rim from tip to finish.  No one would dispute that Tony Parker had his way  going to the basket, making the Mavs look like they had never seen his skill set before.

The tweet action on my end mirrored the Mavs play.  I was feeling worse as the game went on.  Other tweeters noted that my tweet action was down from the previous games.   San Antonio fans taunted that I was a “fair weather tweeter”.   In reality I was simply not feeling well.   The overall tweet dialogue was lively and equally distributed between Mavs and Spurs fans.  The pro-San Antonio tweets became bolder and more frequent as it became clear the Mavs would not challenge that night.

In the end the Mavs started and ended  like I felt the entire night, tired and lethargic.   Halfway throught the 4th quarter I was tweeting for anyone who had mstered the Star Trek science of teleportation so I could byass the plane right to my bed free of the forced shots, forced drives to the basket and forced tweets.  Teleporting away from the final act of a “classy’ San Antonio fan below us throwing objects into our suite as the game ended.  A forced and artificial night all around ending in a dissapointing but not disheartening  dominating Spurs victory.  The best part of  Game 2 was hitting the pillow when I finally got home about 2 am.   That was the only part of the night not forced.   You can view the Game 2  Iphone photos of the game on my Facebook page.