GO MAVS GO!

We love our Mavs...Yes even when they loose...So let me explain how I finally fell in love with the wonderful game of Basketball.

I am from India, a country where people watch every game that is being played around the world. Can they play basketball? American Football? Baseball? Even regular Football? Or do they have the infrastructure? But they care a damn for all that and enjoy the sportiveness of a game...I guess it is the very fact that most Indians choose education and an 8-5 job instead of pursuing their passion that makes them watch and follow sports around the world so intently.

So growing up with two big brothers influenced me to watch every game and also play them...I did not prefer watching a five day test cricket match but was forced to because my brother's were big and they had the remote...Could not fight them. And that is exactly how I started watching NBA...Ever since India got cable TV and Star Sports my brothers started to follow all sorts of games that never made sense to me...Of which basketball was one...

When I moved to USA, I had the choice to learn three new games...Football (can't get it!), Baseball (Cannot like it!), and Basketball (the easiest of the three)...and so I thought I could handle it once in a while.

It was not until I moved to Dallas that I started to follow the MAVS because the Cowboys sucked and Rangers were even worse and MAVS were coming up after Cuban happened to them. I still cribbed when friends changed the channel to watch NBA...and it was not before MAVS lost to Suns last year (2005) that I really started to enjoy the game. It was fast paced, energetic and we had Dirk, Stack, Terry, and a great team...I felt bad we lost to the Suns and Nash and prayed for a revenge in 2006...

And Revenge we got...For the first time MAVS was in the NBA finals against Heats and we had even won the first two games leading 2-0...and then Came playing at Miami and from then on it was downhill. We can blame so many things from refereeing, bad plays, bad calls, and so on. I don't even want to discuss what happened yesterday night but just the fact that everyone of us were disappointed. We were sure of a 4-0 or at the most 4-2 victory but that clearly did not happen for us. We hoped and were crushed but all that is okay...In the end the team that played better won. Yes we are sad, but we will come back next year to kick Heats just the way we did the Suns this year.

The best thing that Basketball did to us is that it gave us more than one opportunity to meet and do fun stuff every day there was a game, even weekdays. We met to do fun stuff like cook, gym, swim, chat, shop, etc and then relax and watch the game. Yes the loss may have left a sour taste in our mouth but we sure will wash it away with the wonderful memories we carry with us.

So Summarizing how I fell in love with the game:
1) My brothers who forced me to enjoy sports (left me with no choice).
2) Cuban
3) Dirk, Terry, Stack
4) Dallas
5) Fun time with friends
6) We believe and we will do it again! And do it right.

Love
Anu