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Ah caiiiiin't coach, so Ah'll just do what Pop Duuuuuuz.
Johnson seeks lighter camp
By JEFF CAPLAN Star-Telegram staff writer Posted on Sun, Oct. 07, 2007
Could it be that Avery Johnson has gone soft?
"No, no, no. It's getting wise," Johnson countered. "There's a difference between soft and wise."
Johnson was asked that question Friday, one day after he gave the Mavericks the morning off just three days into what was supposed to be four consecutive days of two-a-day practices.
"Tomorrow," Johnson continued, speaking of Saturday's practice, "we're only going to go one time. Now, it might be a three- or four-hour practice."
That workout barely lasted two hours. Then Johnson sprang another surprise for Sunday: a day of rest.
Starting his third full season as the Mavs' head coach, Johnson is making several adjustments.
He believes the Mavs wore down at the end of last season and he hopes adjusting certain areas will help keep his team physically and mentally fresher through the 82-game grind and beyond.
He's altered the team's weight lifting and conditioning regiments and has put a restriction on himself, in terms of how hard and how quickly he puts the pedal to the metal.
"I haven't talked as much," Johnson said. "I'm still going to talk. I like to teach first early on in practice and then we're allowing them to play a little bit.
"I'm getting more communication out of our guys and they're taking more responsibility, which is kind of what maturity does."
Johnson said the Mavs' continuity since he took over as head coach is allowing him to rein in practice time without sacrificing work.
"I'm not nearly as spent now, and it's not because we're not working as hard," Johnson said. "It's mainly because these guys have matured. We've been together and there's just certain situations they know how to respond. We are just so much further ahead in terms of reading situations than we were at this time last year, or absolutely the year before."
In the same vein, the team is taking a wider scope of the upcoming season, no longer fixated on the No. 1 seed as the Holy Grail.
Johnson and the team has taken stock of how San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich eased his team through the early portion of the schedule, despite criticism that the veteran Spurs were too old and too slow, then had the team humming into the playoffs.
"We'd like to build our own model," Mavs swingman Jerry Stackhouse said. "Whatever that is and whatever he [Johnson] sees for that to be.
"We've just got to look at it and not worry so much about what the analysts or prognosticators are saying during the course of the season.
San Antonio took their share of lumps during the regular season about how they weren't playing well or how this was happening, they were looking old, and they hit their stride at the right time."
Sampson hobbled
Recently added center Jamal Sampson, the nephew of Ralph Sampson, twisted his right ankle Friday. He hopes to be ready for Tuesday's preseason opener against the Spurs.
With Erick Dampier (shoulder) out for the start of the season, a strong preseason by Sampson could force the Mavs to make a difficult decision regarding their final 15-man roster.
Ah caiiiiin't coach, so Ah'll just do what Pop Duuuuuuz.
"We not trying to reinvent the wheeeal. We're not starting from scratch. That doesn't mean we skip steps"
- Avery Johnson 2006 Mavs training camp
The Mavs are digging themselves in a deeper hole of disappointment by even thinking they're championship contenders.
They're just not, no matter how much the NBA and ESPN and ABC want them to be.
Just go play your 82 games, win some, then go take a nice summer vacation after getting eliminated by superior defense.
It doesn't matter what you do if another team does it better.
Besides, there's no need for Dallas to think too hard about this season and what they want to do or need to change....they are entering this season the same way they entered last season and the season before..underdogs as far as contending for the championship.
Last edited by SpursDynasty; 10-07-2007 at 05:15 PM.
Johnson and the team has taken stock of how San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich eased his team through the early portion of the schedule, despite criticism that the veteran Spurs were too old and too slow, then had the team humming into the playoffs.
then
"We'd like to build our own model," Mavs swingman Jerry Stackhouse said. "Whatever that is and whatever he [Johnson] sees for that to be.
then
San Antonio took their share of lumps during the regular season about how they weren't playing well or how this was happening, they were looking old, and they hit their stride at the right time."
So, are they trying to emulate the Spurs or are they not?
That's always the case. Every major strategic decision they make is usually prefaced based on what the Spurs do.
Must be a severe case of "trophy" envy
Dear Mavs and Mark Cuban,
You can jabber on about not skipping steps and doing things the right way, and hire all the former Spur player coaches you want. The ugly truth is that you have Dirk, and we have Tim and enough trophies so that they won't be able to all ride on one barge at our NEXT river parade. You can't ever imitate or emulate Tim.
I think AJ needs to push his team harder, not let off the gas. They haven't accomplished jack.
How's more rest supposed to keep the choke out?
? They are the only team standing in the way of number 5.
Agree.? They are the only team standing in the way of number 5.
A Conference Finals Spurs/Mavs would be exciting.
yeah we are!!
The mavs must get their together for this year. I don't know how but they need to be more clutch. Whether that's playing more games before the playoffs or something. I think they took too many games off before last years playoffs and was rusty.
yeah, they was rusty. thats why dirk got completely s shocked and melted down against gsw
That was at least part of problem. The went on such a tear in the regular season that the last few weeks meant absolutely nothing. They lost their focus, their edge, and whatever momentum they had built during the year.
I can remember Barkley saying numerous times, "It's been almost a month since they played a game that really mattered.
The bigger part of the problem is not that they came out rusty, but how poorly they responded as a team to that slow start. I can accept rust being the culprit for them looking bad in the first couple of games, but there were times where it seemed the Mavs were getting worse as the series drug on, and that has to be put on the coaches. With that said, the smart money is on the trophy landing somewhere on I-35 this year.
The only team that stands in the way of #5 are the Spurs themselves.
When they lose, it's usually about what the Spurs didn't do, rather than what the other teams did do.
Dallas Mavs are pretty much a non-factor in the West playoff picture for this season.
Too bad Pop couldn't beat that abysmal coach back in '06. Also, have the Spurs really 'solved' the Mavs? I'm not too sure.
Even with that, there were only two teams who really had an edge over them in a 7-game series: Phoenix . . . and Golden State.
The Spurs definitely upped their game for the playoffs, but they still would have had all their usual matchup problems with the Mavs.
So, luck of the draw matters. But no apologies for 2007 after the heartbreaks of 2004 and 2006.
Damn it, I was hoping AJ would wear their asses out again this year.
Ah, well...
And yeah, they are copying our model Stack. This is the Spurs model: Whoa is me for about 50 games followed by kicking ass to a le. I don't know if we invented it, but it's ours.
they solved them with their fa signing
get outta da way avery.....crazytrain is coming through....
Not that I would ever want the Mavs to win a le, but the irony level would be extremely high if they did it this year after Mario came on board...
IMO the biggest mistake Johnson made last year was making sure the Mavs were not going to be playing GSW in the first round. Even I knew that the Mavs likely would not win that. And they didn't! They could have played almost anyone else in the lower rungs of the Western Conference and done better.
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