SPORTS
Mavericks are going to the NBA finals, jump on the bandwagon
The Dallas Mavericks are going back to the NBA Finals for the first time in 13 years after dispatching the tortured Minnesota Timberwolves in game five on Thursday night on the road.
Dallas is playing the Boston Celtics, who had the best record in the league this year, in the finals with the first game scheduled for June 6.
It has been awhile since 2011. That year the Mavericks upset the hated Miami Heat and franchise stalwart Dirk Nowitzki completed the ultimate challenge of delivering a title to Dallas after trying and failing throughout the previous decade.
That accomplishment and his continued loyalty to the franchise for all 21 years of his career is why there is a bronze statue of him outside of the arena.
That peak was the beginning of a steady decline for the franchise for the next seven years as the Mavericks tried to contend even with father time taking its toll on Nowitzki in his 30s.
The team bottomed out in 2018, but thankfully that got them a low draft pick they used, with a trade involved, to nab the next big European import.
Slovenia’s Luka Doncic came into the league as the most accomplished European top draft prospect in history at the time. Most of the time, they are picked based on potential, but Doncic had already led his team to the championship and been named the league’s most valuable player all by the age of 18.
Despite not being able to fly high above the rim or explode past people with otherworldly athleticism, he has used unbelievable skill, his size, strength, IQ and competitive nature to become one of the best players in the league pretty much since his second year.
That convinced the franchise to build exclusively around him since when the ball is in his hands he can either make tough shots or find one of his teammate a usually wide open shot. He does things other players cannot do and makes it look easy while also being magical, hence his nickname “Luka Magic.”
Up until this season, the high point for the franchise was two years ago, when the team made an unexpected run to the conference finals before getting outclassed by the eventual champion Golden State Warriors, winning their fourth title in eight years.
That team lost a big piece as guard Jalen Brunson had become an unexpected sidekick to Luka. The team failed re-sign him and he went to the New York Knicks where he has been the best thing to happen to that franchise in decades.
We’ve learned through the years that having Doncic do everything is too taxing for him in the playoffs, so having another great ball handler who can do similar things was key.
Unfortunately, those players are hard to find. Midway through last season, the team took a big chance and traded for Kyrie Irving.
On the court it seemed like heaven. He had won a title playing second fiddle to Lebron James in Cleveland. He can handle the ball like the best street ball player you have ever seen while finishing wild layups against guys a foot taller than him with either hand all while being able to shoot and create for himself and others.
However, there was a reason he was available. Since he had left Lebron, he failed to lead a young Boston team as the No. 1 option and left after three seasons with hurt feelings between him, the franchise and the city.
He then teamed up with Kevin Durant in Brooklyn and that situation never seemed to go right due to injuries, chemistry and more recently, off the court situations.
Irving made choices that knowingly limited his availability during COVID-19 and then shared support for a documentary that shared anti-Semitism views among other conspiracy theories. He was coming to Dallas with that kind of baggage.
It did not turn the season around last year as the team was just barely contending for the playoffs.
The franchise made the unpopular move to start to tank, intentionally lose, the last few weeks of the season, giving up a potential playoff spot for a marginally higher draft pick.
Somehow the Mavericks were rewarded for that as we used it to draft Dereck Lively. He is a very athletic post player, whose skills include running, jumping, playing defense and catching lobs.
Somehow, Lively came into the league ready to play from day one and even earned the starting job early on, though injuries have sometimes limited his availability.
The team was playing better this year as Doncic and Irving got more reps playing off each other, but were still sniffing the outer edges of playoff contention.
At the trade deadline in February, the team made two trades, one for wing PJ Washington and the other for post player Daniel Gafford. Both became starters right away. Washington proved to the be tough defensive wing that can do other things the team needed.
Gafford took over the starting center position instead of Lively since he has proven to be a bit more durable and physical, though the two provide the team with a great two-person punch all game as they play similar minutes.
That combined with the unheralded Derrick Jones Jr. ascending to a starting spot thanks to his defense and improved shooting despite coming into this year known only for his prodiguious dunking exploits, and the team made a turn.
Since the trade, the team’s defense has been one of the league’s best and the team went 21-9 to end the season and earn a fifth seed.
The team battled through an old foe in the Los Angeles Clippers, a team Doncic had lost to in the first round on two previous occasions, and won in six games 4-2 as they played better as the series went on.
They then played the top seed in the conference, the young Oklahoma City Thunder. The experience of Dallas paid off against the OKC’s inexperience and the Mavericks also won in six games 4-2.
This set them up against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Minnesota had just knocked off the defending champs Denver Nuggets in seven games. All season the Timberwolves had the best defense in the league.
They were also led by a young, charismatic player in Anthony Edwards who despite being just 22, was the type of throwback explosive athlete of a scorer that people used to compare to Michael Jordan before that became both cliché and blasphemous.
Add to it the Timberwolves have been a tortured franchise it’s whole existence, making it this far in the playoffs only once 20 years ago, and people were ready to pick Minnesota.
Still, Dallas showed experience in the playoffs pays off against a team full of players going through a deep run for the first time.
The first three games went down to the wire and again and again Doncic and Irving led the Mavericks by making impossible to defend plays when it mattered most.
It was highlighted by Doncic making a go ahead 3-point shot while being guarded by the league’s defensive player of the year Rudy Gobert in game two with three seconds left.
Minnesota made an effort in game four to not get swept, but then Dallas came out to make it definitive in game five, leading by as many as 36 at one point and winning 124-103 to get the Mavericks back to the NBA finals.
Jump on this bandwagon if you are a Dallas sports fan. Games will be broadcast on ABC with a start time of either 7 or 7:30 p.m. starting June 6.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.
The Bowie community lost one of its most well-known graduates with the passing of Temple Tucker on Dec. 7.
Tucker moved to Bowie in junior high after first living in Mercedes and Corpus Christi. He cut an impressive first impression for his classmates as even back then he was on his way to standing 6 feet 10 inches.
“He was tall,” echoed classmates Gail White and Ben Hill.
At first his height seemed to hinder him more than help on the basketball court as he is described as tripping over himself.
“He couldn’t chew gum and walk down the street at the same time,” White said.
It took good tutoring, first from principal Paul Tover and then Coach Raymond Mattingly to turn Tucker into one of the best basketball players in the state.
Tucker graduated in 1954 and has the distinction of being possibly the most accomplished athlete in program history, no matter the sport. He was a part of four straight state championship basketball teams, where he featured as the team’s center down low back when post play ruled the sport. He was named to the all-state team his last three years.
Playing in an era where more than 10 of his teammates went on to play college basketball and coached by Raymond Mattingly, who was inducted into the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame and was a member of the Texas High School Coaches Association Hall of Honor, Tucker was far from a one-man show.
His last two seasons saw Bowie go on a 69 game winning streak, only snapped the year after Tucker and his teammates graduated.
He then went to Rice University and played for the Owls. Freshman were not allowed to play back then so when he starred as a sophomore he averaged 22.1 points and 12.7 rebounds and was a third team All-American selection and a second team all-southwest conference selection.
As a junior, he averaged 15.1 points and 10.5 rebounds while earning second team All-SWC again. His senior year he averaged 13.5 points and 8.8 rebounds while being picked as Rice’s most valuable player.
He was later inducted into the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Honor, the Rice University Athletics Hall of Fame and the Bowie High School Hall of Honor.
Tucker then was drafted in the fourth round of the NBA draft by the Philadelphia Warriors. Instead of pursuing professional sports, which were much less lucrative than they are now, he decided to use his bachelor of arts degree in economics to work for Northwestern National Life Insurances as a financial advisor. He lived in the Houston area and was living in Cypress with his wife of 41 years, Anita, when he passed. He was previously married to Doris Neville.
“He was my gentle my giant,” Anita said. “Everyone knew that is what I called him.”
Described as a humble person, many of his family and friends only learned later from other people and from discovering packed up trophies in boxes the extent of Tucker’s athletic achievements.
He had five children: Kevin, Brian, Carol, Rick and Marva. His oldest, Kevin, described Tucker as the stereotypical Christian-centered father growing up.
“If you had to define a father, he was a great traditional father that grew up in a Christian household,” Kevin said. “Taught us about the great outdoors, sports and how to live life.”
Kevin said the seeds for his faith were planted throughout his life by his dad. When he eventually came to embrace it while in college, his father was there ready to forgive him.
A big part of Tucker’s life was being apart of and then spending time as the president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes Greater Houston chapter. His father was a minister and Tucker’s faith was a big part of his life even as a teenager says his classmates.
“I never heard anyone say a derogatory word about Temple Tucker,” 1954 senior class president Gail White said. “He didn’t run around with the guys, but he was always with us when we were in a big group.”
“He was the best of us,” Ben Hill said.
The only time Hill, his teammate and the last surviving starting five member from the 1954 team, said he heard Tucker swear was a funny story.
Several of the key basketball players failed to hide from Coach Mattingly in the gym during track practice and were forced to run the 4×440 yard relay against the varsity track team.
“Temple was running the first leg and I was running the second,” Hill said. “The race started and old Temple come around the first curve. It’s a gravel track and he has on tennis shoes. He dropped the baton and when he turned around to get it he fell down in the gravel. Of course I was just on the ground laughing. He got up and got his baton and he wanted me to keep running. He said run, you SOB, run.”
It was one of several stories the two shared in their last phone call earlier this year.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.
Bowie
First team
Rayder Mann, quarterback; Tyler Richey, wide receiver; Hunter Fluitt, offensive lineman; Noah Metzler, defensive lineman; Hunter Rodriguez, free safety
Second team
Justin Clark, running back; Preacher Chambers, defensive lineman; Griffin Richey, linebacker; Moh Azouak, cornerback
Honorable mention
Lane Whitfield, linebacker; Bradley Horton, strong safety; Hayden Rodriguez, offensive lineman; Jorge De Leon, defensive lineman; Zac Harris, tight end; Austin Cheney, outside linebacker; Jett Black, offensive lineman; Braden Rhyne, wide receiver; Boston Farris, cornerback
Academic all-district
Moh Azouk, Austin Cheney, Justin Clark, Jorge De Leon, Boston Farris, Hunter Fluitt, Simion Givens, Zac Harris, Hayden Rodriguez, Robert Stice, Rayder Mann, Hunter Rodriguez, Bradley Horton, Griffin Richey, Tyler Richey
Nocona
First team
Matthew Johnson, offensive lineman; Jake Pribble, defensive lineman; Kasch Johnson, defensive lineman
Second team
Jax Fuller, running back; McCrae Crossen, linebacker
Honorable mention
Jayce Lehde, defensive back; Matthew Johnson, defensive lineman; Walker Murphey, linebacker
The Bowie soccer club played its first games of the season on Tuesday night to make history.
The Lady Rabbits beat Burkburnett 4-2 while the Jackrabbits lost against Wichita Falls Memorial 2-0.
Girls
The Bowie girls found themselves behind 2-0 early on against the Lady Bulldogs. The first goal of the season was scored by midfielder Heidi Siebert in the 23rd minute, which cut the lead to 2-1.
Right before halftime, midfielder Willow Siebert scored from 25 yards out to send the Lady Rabbits into the second half with momentum and the score tied at 2-2.
Early in the second half, striker Grayson Mares, who is in junior high, put Bowie in front with a goal in the 49th minute which was assisted from Willow Siebert.
The Lady Rabbits defense was able to hold for the rest of the second half. Late in the match, midfielder Adamari Alonso clinched the win by converting on a penalty kick to make the final score 4-2.
Willow Siebert was named player of the match, not just for her goal and assist, but her defending as well.
The defense played great after the initial two scores. Goalkeeper Yaquelyn “Yaq Yaq” Alvarez had three saves in the match. The defense allowed only two shots in the second half.
Coach Chad Word liked what he saw from his team considering they got the win against a 4A program.
Boys
The Jackrabbits fell behind early as WF Memorial converted on a penalty kick in the 13th minute. The Mavericks added one more goal early in the second half. Despite that, the defense challenged the Mavericks thanks to goalkeeper Zac Ivy, centerback Jerry Wymore and midfielders Sebastian Martinez and Corban Word. Word and Wymore also served as captains.
While Bowie lost 2-0, it was good showing playing against a 5A program and it being the team’s first ever game. Coach Chad Word saw some good things, but knows there are still things to work on.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.
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