Phil Jackson is a neat coach

The Mavs rolled into Los Angeles last night on their big stupid 13-game winning streak, and while they were probably hoping they’d get to play the Clippers, instead they ran into the continually surprising Lakers, who sent them away as losers of a basketball match.

The win was significant for LA for several reasons, not the least of which was that the Mavs are like, good and crap.

Also of note was that the victory was head coach Phil Jackson’s 900th, which is important because it’s a round number. It’s also a number only eight other men have hit – Jackson did it the fastest.

Before the game, when Jackson had only 899 victories, he laughed off the concept of 900, calling it a number, a nothing, “an area code somewhere.”

“It’s a compliment to all the players I’ve had, the great players, the great teams and the great runs that we’ve had,” said Jackson, who is 900-364 in his career.

That is, of course, the big argument against Jackson the “great coach” – that he’s ridden on the spinal columns and accompanying back muscles of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shaq, Kobe, and Scott Williams, among others.

We’ve always said, and continue to say that’s pretty much garbage, considering what he’s doing this year.

Kobe was recovering from knee surgery early, Lamar Odom is out, Kwame Brown is out, Chris Mihm apparently died, and Smush Parker plays a significant amount of minutes on this Laker team.

A lot of people call that Disaster Time, but Phil Jackson makes it into Winning Soup. This was the stretch of the schedule when the Lakers were supposed to slip back to mediocrity, but it hasn’t happened yet – in fact, they’re thriving.

Like Thriving Soup.

Did we just spend a previous sentence implying that not having Kwame Brown can hurt your team?

Yes, you did.

Thanks – we thought we did, but weren’t sure.

Life is strange – just like love, which is what that song from Dirty Dancing prophesized.

Very true.

Oh yeah – late Merry Christmas. (Warning – if your boss would frown upon you perusing pictures of a (once again) bikini-clad Jessica Alba prancing around in the water playing football, you shouldn’t click that.)