There was no sign of Mark "Cutback" Davis or Bob "Jungle Death" Gerard in the waves off Pillar Point on Saturday, but 24 of the world's ballsiest surfers were there to test their mettle against the huge, angry swell that is the Mavericks break. When the foam cleared and the judges scorecards were tallied, it was 24-year-old Greg Long from San Clemente, SoCal that ended up taking home the title of Mavericks Big Wave champion for 2008.

Attrition has been one of the Warriors' best pickups this offeseason. While the Warriors have taken some baby steps forward, many of the Western Conference rivals have been moving in the opposite direction.

When looking at the Warriors chances to make the playoffs this year, it runs from the bottom up.... [continue]

There is no doubt that coach Don Nelson and his sidekick Chris Mullen have reshaped the Warriors, and the team now has a pretty strong pool of players from which Nellie can choose to implement his failed system of up-tempo small-ball.

On Saturday, the roads of west Marin and southern Sonoma counties were rife with those two-wheel vermin known as cyclists. Nearly 2500 of them. No, Critical Mass didn't make a drunken wrong turn on Friday night. This was an impressive gathering of the tribes known as the Marin Century.

This past Sunday, under blazing blue skies in the City's snuggly warm SOMA bosom of Yerba Buena Gardens (YBG), there were no microphones, no stage lights, and no admission fees (and sadly no news coverage). There was plenty of energy though in the form of 10,000 spectators watching 267 actors in 77 different shows on 10 stages for the fourth annual San Francisco Theater Festival (SFTF).

The festive and well-attended public event filled not only the outdoor venues of the YBG like the Stone Stage, the Waterfall, and the Rock Circle, but also filled up indoor venues the Metreon and Zeum.

The San Francisco Theater Festival is an annual free event intended to build the theater-going audience by acquainting people with live-theater performance in the Bay Area. "It's always a bit of a crapshoot" SFTF Executive Producer Bill Schwartz told SFist on Tuesday, but he loves what he does and hopes that people will continue to join him in making the Bay Area a truly great theater town.

Ahhh, du Galibier. Switchback after switchback of asphalt hell. Hell if you're on a bike, but heaven if you're watching the world's best cyclists do the work. For 18 kilometers, a ribbon of pain and lactic acid wobbles and weaves its way up the grotesque, treeless slopes of the great French kingmaker.

Yesterday in Stage 9, between Val-d'lsere and Briancon, the boys on the bikes rolled themselves up not only les col du Galibier and du telegraphe, but also the Beyond Category (HC)-rated Col de l'Iseran climb. Three rated climbs, 159.5 kilometers, more than 4 hours. Lots and lots of opportunities for General Classification (GC) contenders to attack and try to put time into their rivals.

Judgement day.

American sports fans, do you know what you're missing right now? -- the magical, the legendary, the completely captivating Tour de France. Yup. In fact, the Tour has already reached its first rest day after eight straight days of racing.

Let's face it: for cycling fans, the Tour is the pure Nirvana. Thanks to the Versus (formerly OLN) network, US fans (all 12 of them) of skinny tires, incredible bike handling, and human suffering can watch cycling every day for three straight weeks. It just doesn't get any better than this. It's like the NCAA tournament, the US Open, the NFL playoffs, the NBA Finals, and the World Series all rolled in to one. Every night -- every goddamn night -- cycling fans can kick back in their recliners (or on their stationary trainers), drink in the international flavor, and let the joy of cycling wash over them. Every night! For three straight weeks!

" . . . and with the 18th pick, the Golden State Warriors take . . . Marco Belinelli."

Uhhh, come again?

It's been 365 days, one failed first round draft round pick, a new/old coach, a franchise-changing trade, and an improbable playoff run since last year's NBA draft, and guess what? The Warriors needs coming into today's 2007 NBA draft haven't changed one bit from last year.

They still need a big body down low that can board and command the paint, and they need a defensive stopper.

Let's face it, the great American cycling novel has yet to be written (not lately, anyway). And what cycling-related literature there is falls into one of three categories: inspiration, celebration, or perspiration. If you want to read about a one-legged mother of six who bicycled across the country to raise awareness about the papilloma virus, or Lance Armstrong's latest deep philosophical musings, or Chris Carmichael's detailed instructions for sprint repeats and heart rate monitor training, the world is your oyster. But if you're looking for compelling, engaging prose that explores the relationship between literature and cycling, well you're basically stuck watching Breaking Away for the 20th time (yeah, we know it's a movie).

Fear not for cyclerature though, because into the breech have stepped editors Paul Diamond and Erich Schweikher with a little ditty they like to call Cycling's Greatest Misadventures, a new anthology of original nonfiction cycling stories from Casagrande Press.

Bust out the Thin Lizzy Warrior Nation, because the boys are back in town.

Thursday night in the vaunted O-rena, the Warriors rebounded from back-to-back shoulda-coulda-wouldas in Salt Lake City to dominate the Utah Jazz, 125-105. In the must-win game 3, the Warriors not only staunched the momentum bleed of games 1 and 2, they completely reversed it. And they couldn't have done it without the uplifting energy and emotion of the hometown crowd -- and of course, Baron Davis.

We were pretty much wrong about everything.

Last night in Salt Lake City, in game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal series, it was the Utah Jazz who had the energy and it was the Warriors who were a step behind. The Jazz looked confident; the Warriors looked hesitant. The Jazz ran the Warriors off the court. Matt Harpring done brought it. And the Jazz backcourt held its own behind the spirited play of Deron Williams. Did we leave anything out? Oh yeah, the Jazz didn't lose by 20, they, uh, won, 116-112.

Game 1 was a back-and-forth nailbiter (16 lead changes and 21 ties) that went right down to the quick. And like a bamboo shoot to the quick, it hurts. The Ws fought hard all night and had a chance to take the lead on a three-pointer by Stephen Jackson with eight seconds to play, but the shot clanked and so did the Warriors fortunes in game 1.

Improbably, almost impossibly, the Golden State Warriors' dream season continues tonight with game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal matchup with the Utah Jazz. The Warriors are into the semis by virtue of their historic six-game stunner over the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks; the Jazz eeked out a game 7 road win over the Houston Rockets.

The Jazz are the fourth seed in the Western Conference, but in our minds, its the Dubs that enter this series as the favorites. The Jazz are undoubtedly mentally and physically drained after their game 7 thriller on Saturday, while the Warriors are riding a wave of emotion that shows no sign of dissipating.

Go ahead Bay Area, whoop it the hell up. Call in sick to work, pick up a twelver at the corner store, order some team gear online, call your boys over, and replay game 6 again and again and again on your DVR. It's time to cel-eh-brate, come on! Last night in the O-rena, before 20,677 fanatics-in-arms, your Golden State Warriors rose up and crushed the Dallas Mavericks, 111-86, to close out their first-round, best-of-seven series, four games to two.

"Ain't nothin' but a ballgame fellas, ain't nothin' but a thing."

That's probably what Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson were telling their teammates Tuesday night on the flight home to Oaktown after letting the Dallas Mavericks slip the hangman's knot in game 5, 118-112.

With the series now a little tighter at 3-2 in favor of the Warriors, the C word (choke) hangs over Tuesday's bobble like Adonal Foyle's contract against the Warriors salary cap. We're still seeing all this as a win-win though. Game 5 was an incredible game for playoff-starved Warriorphiles. Both teams played spirited ball. The Mavericks faced down elimination from the very brink of defeat. The Warriors had a chance to close out their opening round best-of-seven playoff series with the Mavs, but couldn't quite pull it off. The game featured great defense, clutch shots, a little intrigue (again), last-second heroics, and playoff drama -- everything a hoops fan expects from the postseason.

Warrior Nation, can it get any better? Seriously. After Golden State's tenacious, gutty, and spirited come-from-behind 103-99 victory over the Dallas Mavericks Sunday night in the O-rena, the Warriors have taken a 3-1 lead in their best-of-seven series. After 13 years of waiting, nobody in the NBA is more jacked up than the Warriors and their long-suffering fans.

The season has gone from just another shit sandwich to a gravy train with biscuit wheels in little more than a month. From nine games below .500 to .500. Not just a .500 record, but playoffs. Not just playoffs, but most favorable matchup. Not just favorable matchup, but a game one victory to take home court advantage in the series and set the basketball world abuzz.

That huge farting noise you heard last night wasn't Mark Cuban sitting on a whoopee cushion, it was the sound of the air going out of the Warriors playoff fantasy balloon.

In a game that featured sloppy ballhandling, poor shooting, and bad behavior by our beloved hometown cagers, the Dallas Mavericks regained their basketball footing and reclaimed the psychological advantage in their opening-round playoff series with the Warriors.

OK, so we've gotten some flak about picking the Warriors to take down the Dallas Mavericks in six games in the opening round of the NBA's western Conference playoffs. We'll be the first to admit it's a homer pick, because, well, we do really want the Warriors to win, and we'll be the first to admit it.

But our pie in the sky has an empirical basis. Here's five reasons why the Warriors will beat the Mavs in this playoff series.

Revel in it Bay Area NBA fans: this year the Western Conference playoffs mean something, because for the first time in 13 years, the hometown Warriors are part of the party.

So let's take a quick drive down the lane and see what the Warriors are going to have to deal with as they knife their way to the Finals. (Yeah, we know, but just roll with the sentiment. It's been 13 years and there's an abundance of pent-up enthusiasm to be dissipated.)

It's been building for the past month, but fans of the historically woebegone Golden State Warriors, awoke this morning with a dazed sense of disbelief to screaming headlines announcing: THE STREAK IS OVER -- THE WARRIORS HAVE MADE THE PLAYOFFS!

It's been so long since the Dubs got an extended play on their basketball season that neither they nor the fans really know what to do with themselves now that the dream has become a reality.