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Meh.
Foes should fear smile on Nowitzki's face
Mike Monroe
DALLAS — In a Saturday night interview session that lasted precisely 5 minutes, 4 seconds, Dirk Nowitzki uttered the word “fun” five times.
“We're having fun” ... “he's having fun” ... “it's been fun.”
This is a guess, but in one brief analysis of his team's mind-set this preseason, the Mavericks' All-Star forward may have vocalized about basketball as a glee-inducing experience more often than he did during all of last season.
These are the post-Avery Johnson Mavericks, and if laughter is any gauge, they will be back near the top of the Western Conference next spring.
New coach Rick Carlisle never will be mistaken for Jerry Seinfeld, but he has managed to put smiles back on the faces of players who have been scowling for the past two seasons.
Carlisle's emotionless demeanor once prompted a Detroit Pistons beat writer to dub him “Rainman,” but the Mavericks chortle with every no-look pass from Jason Kidd that leads to a fast-break dunk.
After he compiled a 194-70 record as Mavericks head coach, Johnson was fired by owner Mark Cuban, and not just because Dallas was ousted in the first round of the playoffs in 2007 and 2008. His players were tired of turning to the bench on every possession to see which play the Little General wanted. The point guard whose number the Spurs retired in the spring reportedly alienated players to the point a significant number of them demanded Cuban either fire him or trade them.
Basketball had ceased being fun for too many Mavs. First-round ousters weren't Cuban's idea of fun, either, so Johnson was shown the door.
Enter Carlisle, one of the game's masters of Xs and Os, but never confused with seven-seconds-or-less Mike D'Antoni.
What Carlisle found when he got to Dallas was a team capable of being one of the NBA's best at pushing the pace. They had traded for Jason Kidd in February, and even at age 35, Kidd is one of the game's best fast-break point guards.
It was Kidd who felt most shackled by Johnson, and it is Kidd who now seems most liberated by Carlisle's approach.
Nowitzki sees the smile on Kidd's face, and it makes him grin, too.
“Now we're putting him in a place and system where he can succeed and really be himself and just make his teammates better,” Nowitzki said after the Mavs raced past the Kings on Saturday. “I don't think last year he really had the chance. Not pushing the ball, not being himself, he never got a chance to make everyone around him better.
“The system now really favors him, and he can do his thing in the open court and get everybody involved and have fun.”
Part of the problem after the deal that brought Kidd back to Dallas last February was the fact it was made over Johnson's objections. A.J. didn't want to lose Devin Harris in the deal.
No coach can change his offense at midseason, but Nowitzki, the player whose happiness matters most, believed Johnson too stubborn to adjust, even a little, to allow Kidd to be an offensive creator.
Starting afresh, Carlisle has adapted his own rigid approach to accommodate his future Hall of Fame point guard. His fast-break system has few rules. Kidd approves.
“There are no assigned spots, and you play from there,” Kidd said, “and that makes the game so much easier and harder to defend.”
Few point guards in NBA history have found the open man on the break as well as Kidd. Running a system to optimize that skill seems a no-brainer.
If Carlisle had misgivings about players who engaged in a palace revolt, he has found them entirely professional in adapting to him and his staff.
Leadership by example comes from Nowitzki and Kidd.
“It helps having two first ballot Hall of Famers,” he said.
In a Western Conference that will be even more compe ive this season, anyone expecting the Mavericks to slide to the end of the playoff bracket, or even out of the playoffs altogether, is making a bad mistake.
Under Johnson, the Mavericks emerged as a true rival for the Spurs. Cuban stoked the rivalry with insults about the dirty San Antonio River. He was smart enough to understand that antipathy is a marketable commodity.
Now there is another reason San Antonians can despise the Mavericks. Cuban fired one of their all-time heroes.
But there is even greater reason to fear the Mavs: Nowitzki is smiling again.
Meh.
Uh, I don't think so.
They may be smiling now, but they'll be crying in April.
Can't wait to see the Spurs rape when they meet first, Duncan and Tony are damn near unstoppable cuz of the matchups.
They're smiling because they don't have to play defense anymore. That smile won't last.
They're back to playing up and down ball and defense is second again.
It'll be back to losing to the Spurs regularly again as well.
well i always liked dirk. too bad his prime is the same time as manu and duncans.
Yeah whatever. Back to watching episodes as Folk and then The OC. TTYL
Cool!
Spurs will always be a step ahead of them.
Sad that the longest article Monroe has written this pre-season has been about the Mavs.
How's that post game coming along, Dirk?...
<crickets chirping>
But when the pressure's on, that smile will be wiped off.
No kidding.
FOES LAUGH LOUDLY AFTER WIPING SMILE OFF NOWITZKI's FACE!
For a minute there, I thought Monroe had taken a job with the Dallas Morning News.
Fear and Nowitzki should not be in the same sentence unless we are talking about Nowitzki's fear
I don't know man. If I met a 7 foot tall German woman it might be a little scary.
FOES LAUGH LOUDLY AFTER WIPING SMILE OFF NOWITZKI's FACE!
It sure as won't be the Rocket's choking ass doing it.
Have fun continuing to be the 3rd best team in texas, got.
Damn. The Mavericks have been put out of the playoffs by a midget with a bad at ude, a guy with a beard, and another guy prone to riding wheelchairs, but never have they been put out by a 7 foot woman.
Yes and Dirk has really shown he is not capable of leading a team all the way. He had his window there for 2 years, he didn't get it done.
I do think the Mavs' window is closing and Carlisle probably can't magically reverse that, however, he has coached defense before and it isn't clear to me yet what their team will be like as far as their iden y and approach to the game. Yes, there will be more freedom on offense as Monroe mentioned but it's possible Carlisle still might preach some defense.
Or, Carlisle will just go along with whatever Cuban says, get a two year run out of this job, get fired when they continue to suck, and then sit at home and get paid for the rest of his contract.
But for this season, I'm not counting them out just quite yet. The scenario is bizarrely similar to how the Cowboys hired a player's coach after their strict coach left. The team responded well to the new freedom. Comparably, the Cowboys were a more talented team but it's possible they could rebound similarly, at least until December.
They were not in 2006
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