[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF5LuWeLf1g]

We’ll stop beating the Mavs drum soon…. or not. Check out these highlights from the playoffs.

Dallas Mavericks 2011 Playoffs Promo from Wren Culp on Vimeo.

Here’s a quick creative piece by a Mavs fan promoting the 2011 NBA Playoffs. Go Mavs!

I wanted to have some words of hope for you Mavs fans, but I keep coming up short. It’s not that Dallas can’t still pull this series out. It’s that they’ve given up a tremendous surge of momentum.

One win in Portland was all I asked. Just one. Dallas had a 23 point lead with 13 minutes left in the game. TWENTY THREE. Do you know how huge that is? I was sitting at home VERY comfortably, thinking to myself even Dallas can’t screw THIS up!

Sigh. A 3-1 lead would’ve meant this series is in the bag. Win one of three remaining games and it’s over. Just one. But no.

Brandon Roy did have a magnificent 4th quarter. The kind we were expecting Nowitzki to have. Roy appears to be building confidence one game after another. Fortunately, he won’t have the home crowd energy tonight, which might nullify some of his emotional high.

Coach Carlisle is right, though. “We need our fans to be like these fans were out here,” Rick Carlisle said after Game 4. Mavs fans need to show up with SERIOUS energy tonight. If American Airlines Center resembled the Rose Garden, we might see one of our hometown heroes pulling a Brandon Roy in the fourth quarter.

Players feel the passionate support of their fans. They feed off it. Some teams can feed off the negative energy when playing away games, but the home team needs the crowd energy to push beyond their normal limits, especially when the two teams are as evenly matched as they are in this series.

According to Marc Stein’s twitter stream, New York is buying out Corey Brewer’s contract. This leaves the obvious question: who wants him for a playoff run?

According to Stein,

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/#!/STEIN_LINE_HQ/status/42342401582448640"]

Could the Mavericks really use another small forward? Absolutely. Brewer may not be a long-term solution, but he wouldn’t hurt a deep playoff run.

For his career, Brewer has averaged 25.7 minutes, 3.3 rebounds, 1.3 steals, and 9.1 points per game. Nothing astounding, but he can keep up with faster forwards on the defensive end. Obviously an asset if Boston, San Antonio, and OKC are all interested as well.

Ever since the meltdown last year, the majority of Mavs fans and writers have criticized the Jason Kidd trade. Worst of all, we told ourselves and the world that Jason Kidd can’t shoot, and therefore can’t score.

And yet, Kidd has repeatedly punched game-changing three pointers throughout this 2008-2009 season. He did again last night. Dallas came from behind to tie it up in the 4th Quarter. First Dirk, then JET, then Kidd. Suddenly, Mavs are up by 8 and climbing. But it was that clutch three pointer by Jason Kidd that really got my attention.

Why do I get this instant sick feeling in my gut whenever he lobs a three into the air? What is it that draws immediate and instinctual criticism from me as though he’d just made the most foolish decision of the game?

It’s his reputation as a bad shooter. We all hated the trade because we lost a slashing scorer for a no-shooting assist freak. But assists weren’t enough. We were angry. We were disappointed. How could Mark Cuban give up so much youth and energy for such an aging passer? Sure, he’s a GREAT distributor, but the Mavs are low on consistent scoring threats. That was our rationale.

But now that the regular season has ended and the Mavs face off against 3rd seed San Antonio in Round 1, could we finally take a step back, reevaluate our biases, and realize that Jason Kidd produces assists, rebounds, steals, and clutch threes consistently enough for us to lift the love ban? Spread a little love Jason’s way. Surely he’s earned a renewed reputation as a clutch shooter.

And when the playoffs start, he better keep it up.

Randy Galloway predicted yesterday that tonight would be Avery’s last game with the Mavs. That’s assuming the Mavs lose, of course, and that Avery is the problem in Mark Cuban’s eyes. There has been obvious tension between coach and owner this year, as the Mavericks failed to perform to expectations for the second year in a row.

Now we’re hearing more praise for the great Don Nelson, who left when the Mavs were flying high, and thus earned himself some ungrateful jeers. These days, the story is a little different. Now we’re seeing Don Nelson’s years in Dallas as the Golden Years, where he built a championship team that Avery and Cuban thwarted and dismantled.

Look for more coverage on the crumbling Mavs at MavsUpdate.com later today.

In a rough Game 4, Dallas was outcoached and outplayed. Well, maybe just outplayed. Does any real coaching go into handing Chris Paul the ball and watching him score? In a surprising twist, Jason Kidd was ejected from the game due to a flagrant foul. Just minutes later in the fourth quarter, a fan was ejected for talking trash to Chris Paul as he came flying into the stands under the basket.

The New Orleans Hornets have a 3-1 lead in the first round of the playoffs, and Game 5 will be played back in New Orleans. Disappointed Mavs fans will likely blame the Kidd ejection for the loss, but that would be short-sighted. The Mavs lost because Chris Paul is unstoppable and because they take too many outside shots without getting to the rim for offensive rebounds.

Kidd’s flagrant foul and ejection was just the nail in the coffin. Dallas was already outmatched. At the current level of play, New Orleans is simply a better team. Dallas fans don’t have much to hope for as this series returns to New Orleans for a potential playoff ending game for Dallas.