Chron: Rivalry may be coming off back burner

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/3148727

Rockets-Mavs hasn't been a big deal, but it soon could be — it IS us vs. Dallas, after all
By FRAN BLINEBURY
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Houston vs. Dallas. It's a rivalry as big as Texas.

They'll talk about our cockroaches. We'll talk about Jerry Jones.

They see us as a disorganized mess with no zoning. We see them as snobs.

Houston, to them, is the place where humidity came to live. Dallas, to us, is the place where silicone goes to die.

Houston vs. Dallas is a division that's deep and wide and hot and passionate with no room for a middle ground.

Everywhere except in the world of sports.

Sure, the Cowboys have all of those Super Bowl titles. But those were won in the days when we used to have another NFL team in town.

Remember Texans 19, Cowboys 10?

Our football team is still taking baby steps. Theirs is trying to get back up off the floor.

The rivalry barely registers in baseball. Does anybody outside Drayton McLane's house really care who wins each year's "Silver Boot" series between the Astros and Rangers?

We have no NHL hockey in Houston. Come to think of it, neither does Dallas this season.

So now we have the NBA playoffs, starting today at American Airlines Center, and maybe the start of a sibling feud that's long overdue.

The Rockets and Mavericks have been slam-dunking, jump-shooting cousins for 25 NBA seasons, yet distant relatives when it comes to the playoffs.

In fact, their only previous postseason meeting was so far in the past that Ronald Reagan was still president, Pope John Paul II was finishing up his first decade at the Vatican, and there were only three chapters to the Star Wars saga.

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away — well, 1988 at Reunion Arena — it took 42 points from Sleepy Floyd and help from a still "H-less" Akeem Olajuwon to give the Rockets their only playoff win over Dallas. But the Mavs won the best-of-five series 3-1.

Is that any way to stoke the flames of a rivalry?

Perhaps we got a taste on Dec. 2, when Dallas' Dirk Nowitzki poured in 53 points and the Rockets' Tracy McGrady 48 in an overtime thriller that the Mavs won 113-106.

Where's the I-45 traffic?

You'd think Interstate 45 would be bumper-to-bumper with tales of great exploits like that through the years, the lanes covered with treadmarks from the burnt rubber of all the fast breaks run between the Bayou City and the Metroplex.

Trouble is, bad timing. When the Rockets were battling to a pair of NBA Finals appearances in 1981 and 1986 against the Boston Celtics, the toddling Mavericks were still in diapers. When the Mavericks had learned to flex their muscles in the late '80s, the Rockets had fallen off their first peak.

By the time the Rockets climbed to back-to-back championships in 1994 and 1995, the Mavericks were stringing together horrid seasons that had them barely impersonating a pro team. When Dallas finally got its act together at the dawn of the 21st century, the Rockets were rebuilding.

Both teams have had their moments in the playoffs against San Antonio. The Rockets were victorious in two memorable series against the Spurs in 1981 and 1995 that sent them to the NBA Finals.

Olajuwon's dismantling of Spurs center David Robinson in '95 is one of the great memories in Houston sports history. The Mavericks lost to the Spurs in a gripping Western Conference finals series in 2003, and there is always an added spark when they play.

It's the kind of electricity that has been lacking in Rockets-Mavs. Until, perhaps, now.

"I went to the Improv the other night and saw (comedian) Lewis Black," said Rockets owner Leslie Alexander. "He said, 'The only thing I know about Dallas and Houston is that people hate each other's towns.' And that started everybody in the place screaming."

Mavericks owner Mark Cuban nodded in agreement.

"That's gonna make it interesting," he said. "Definitely the (TV) ratings in Texas are gonna be high, the tensions will be high, and that's what makes exciting NBA playoff basketball. Maybe it's the start of a rivalry. We've had something going on with San Antonio, and maybe this will expand things.

"When I first took over the team, the Rockets weren't all that far removed from their championship years. There used to be more Rockets fans in our building than Mavs fans. So I think the whole thing is ripe for rekindling, and I think you'll see a lot of it."

Stars from overseas

Both teams have foreign-born stars in Yao Ming and Nowitzki, and both are thinking they could go a long way if they can get past that first-round series. The Rockets and Mavs are the two hottest teams in the league as the playoffs begin, and that should only fan the flames.

"It will be spine-tingling," said Alexander. "I think a lot of these games will go down to the wire, which will create a lot of memories for fans of both teams.

"But I look at it differently. I look at it more from a strictly basketball standpoint. Great series are epic within themselves. It all comes from the plays that are made, the fantastic finishes," the Rockets owner said. "When Hakeem did what he did to David Robinson, that made the rivalry with San Antonio.

"This is gonna be a great series. The Houston-Dallas thing adds to it. But it's not an old rivalry like the Yankees and Red Sox. That is it. We don't have that yet. Maybe someday we will."

fran.blinebury@chron.com