Followill Takes You On His 09-10 Mavs Sked Journey

   As I believe I said last summer this is always one of the most exciting days of the off-season for me because we get to see the road map if you will of how we will be spending six months of our lives.
   So let us begin the journey: Here’s my Quickie Analysis of the Mavs’ 2009-10 NBA Schedule:

    Glance through the schedule and buckle up. ...

    There are a lot of reasons I would expect nothing like last year's 2-7 start and certainly the schedule will be a little bit easier. Remember last year in the first nine Dallas played the NBA finalists (the Lakers and Magic), Western Conference finalist Denver, a fully healthy Rockets team and Cleveland who won 66 games.

    This year the Mavs do have roadies against the Lakers, Spurs and Hornets in their first nine but with home games against Wash, Tor, a much different looking Houston squad and on the road with the Clips and TWolves … I just dont see another stumble like that out of the gate - assuming good health of course.
   I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that Denver doesnt come in here for their only visit until March 29.  Given the events of May I would suspect that is one of the most highly-anticipated games of the year in Dallas, but perhaps the NBA wants as much distance as possible from last spring with the hope that a lot of the angst over what happened will have subsided. It’s not like the Mavs are coming into prime dates in Denver either - a Sunday night right after Christmas and a generic Tuesday in February.
   January will be a tough month - their most road games with nine, including visit to the Lakers and Spurs and their longest road trip of the year, a five-gamer to theNortheast (a week in New England in January? Yeah, I better get my winter clothes ready now). 

  Also, from Jan 17-to-Feb 16 its 10 of 14 games on the road. 
 This is my ninth full season with the Mavs and while I haven’t done the research to back this up, the 20 back-to-backs seems like the highest number in that time. At least one of them is the Lakers and Clippers in LA so no travel...they have a couple of those first-game-in-the-day/second-game-at-night back-to-backs, too.

   Right now they appear to have more quality depth so hopefully that helps em out with the back to backs as well.
   By my count the Mavs went 9-11 in games on ESPN, TNT or ABC last year. It should be noted that seven of those losses were by double digits including by 24 or more points to Utah, Cleve, Bos and Phoenix.
   I'd have to assume that those performances are part of the reason why the Mavs are making only 13 appearances on the NBA's major broadcast partners this year. (TNT has four, ESPN has nine but ABC has zero! Wow!)
   Playing six-of-eight at home to end the season last year of course helped the Mavs jump from the eighth
seed to the sixth and set them up for their first-round win. This year it’s five of last nine home … and three of the road games are Memphis, Sac and the Clippers. Now, the Mavs lost on the road to all three of those teams last year but at least theoretically the Mavs have a shot for a nice run up to the playoffs again
   Just because these are important personal things to look at:

   *The Mavs are on the road to Houston the day before Thanksgiving and Indiana the day after (ironically the exact same schedule as the 07-08 season).

   *The Mavs play eight of 10 at home from Dec 5 to Dec 26 so the Christmas shopping is a little easier.

   *Tim Thomas and I share the same birthday (Feb 26). There is a game in Atlanta that night but we're off there the night before. I wonder if Tim and I are getting bottle service together somewhere - because I'm sure he is breathlessly awaiting the chance to party with me!
    *Oh and make note of Feb. 19 and April 1 … because that's when we get to be Kicked in the Gortats all over again.

 Chuck Cooperstein's DB.com Mavs schedule analysis is here