Just to keep the fire burning until it's game time...
10:22 PM CDT on Monday, April 30, 2007
By EDDIE SEFKO / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]
An authority on the subject, San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich knows exactly what it takes to win it all – one-named wonders.
"I think championships are usually won by the team whose superstar plays the best," Popovich said recently. "If you look at it, when Miami won, I think everyone thought Dwyane Wade was the man. When we won it, Duncan was amazing. ... Hakeem with Houston, Kobe and Shaq when they won. Those guys, if they aren't playing well, it's not going to happen. The stars really bring it."
Mavericks/NBA
More Mavericks
Or not, as the Mavericks are finding out. Fairly or otherwise, Dirk bashing is quickly growing into the No. 1 spectator sport in the Metroplex.
Forget about waiting for an MVP moment from Dirk Nowitzki. The bigger question is whether this is a superstar who can lead an NBA team to the promised land. Once, it seemed like a no-brainer. Now, everybody seems to be uncertain about the big German's qualifications. This is how a legacy can get tarnished.
His numbers aren't terrible. They just aren't great. And at times like this, superstars are supposed to be great.
Tim Duncan has been great. Same for Chauncey Billups. And even though Steve Nash doesn't yet have a le, the two-time MVP has delivered in the postseason.
With Dirk, the what-have-you-done-lately crowd is getting restless.
The week before the playoffs started, Nowitzki knew the spotlight would be on him. There was no escaping it. He had put together an MVP-worthy regular season. But the stigma of faltering badly in the NBA Finals last June still was hanging over him.
"I know for us to go all the way, I know I'm going to have to have another great playoff run, similar to last year," he said then. "I'm seeing more double teams than I've ever faced in my whole career. If that's the case in the playoffs, too, then I got to make some other things happen and make my teammates better.
"I know the pressure is on. We're the best team. A lot of guys expect us to go all the way."
He couldn't have been more prophetic.
The Mavs trail 3-1, and Nowitzki has averaged 20 points, 11.5 rebounds and shot 27-of-66 from the field (40.9 percent). The Warriors aren't allowing him to be a dominator. They have a bunch of players about the same size, and they are running those athletic bodies at Nowitzki early and often.
"I got to take what they give me," he said, "and they don't really give me a lot."
That's precisely the at ude that coach Avery Johnson doesn't want to hear.
"Too discouraged, OK," Johnson said of Nowitzki's frame of mind. "I'm tired of hearing about how they've taken him out of his game and any lack of confidence. You're just not supposed to have that, all right? I wasn't the best of players and didn't have the best of skills here and there, but you're not going to shake my confidence.
"We need all of our players to be confident, to be resilient, to be persistent, and that's what I want to see [today]. If I don't see it in shootaround, I'm going to be highly upset."
The Mavericks' situation is such that Nowitzki is open to criticism. And he isn't the first star asked if he has what it takes to be the anchor of a championship team. It's happened in Minnesota, too, among other places.
Kevin Garnett and Nowitzki have had similar career paths. And Garnett has heard the same insinuations that Nowitzki is bound to hear if things do not turn around in a hurry.
"You guys got to make headlines and do what you got to do to make controversy," Garnett said of the media. "So you sometimes say [smelly] kind of things. It's never fair. But at the same time, it motivates the player. The player really cares less about what you guys think."
Added Randy Wittman, Garnett's coach: "That's always going to be thrust upon the best player on any team when you enter the playoffs and don't win it all. That's been the case for a lot of players. Can he do it? Can he lead the team? Those are questions that every good player faces throughout his career."
Now, it's Nowitzki's turn. But one thing that should not be argued is his toughness. Early in his career, that was an issue. Now, Dirk has a reputation as a player who can dish it out as well as take it.
"Oh, yeah," said Utah's Jerry Sloan about whether Nowitzki is tough enough. "Karl Malone would just walk into him and destroy him when he first started. And that's understandable. But now, he's gotten stronger. And he seems to be stronger mentally."
Sloan, it should be noted, coached Malone, arguably the best and strongest power forward in NBA history. Yet the Jazz never won a le.
Nowitzki's Mavericks are one loss away from having to wait another season to try to get that onus off them.
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"Now, it's Nowitzki's turn. But one thing that should not be argued is his toughness. Early in his career, that was an issue. Now, Dirk has a reputation as a player who can dish it out as well as take it."
WHAT???? Is this guy re ed? I guess since he mentioned Karl Malone, he meant that Dirk got "tough" by developing a "slap down at the ball while a player drives" defensive mentality. Otherwise, there's not a softer 7-footer in the game outside of Rasho Nesterovic.
And Dirk can't even slap hard without looking like a girl - I wish I were in America and not China and had access to copy some of the video I have of Dirk to the message board.
Hey, Rasho won the ring on his first Finals try, Dirk can't say the same thing.
the are you doing in China?
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