No, this is not an old article that I wrote five years ago from May 2006. While they will end up playing a familiar foe in the finals, this is a whole new Mavs team. Watch the team, it’s been overstated at this point, but the only two holdovers from 2006 are the teams’ top two scorers, Dirk Nowitzki, the Mavs’ best player, and Jason Terry, the teams’ emotional leader off the bench. This team is different though, this team prides itself on defense and clutch execution. Not to mention level headedness and the ability to understand the type of team they are. Don’t believe me? Ask coach Rick Carslile.
The coach is where all of this success begins, Rick Carslile is entirely different from his predecessor, Avery Johnson. Avery was well known around the NBA for his loudness and even today people remember images of him in a san Antonio jersey barking instructions to David Robinson and Tim Duncan as the starting point guard on the 1999 championship team Spurs. Avery translated that intensity into his coaching, he coached to his personality and he was successful for 2 years as a Mavericks head coach. What further evidence of this other than bringing his team to 2 wins from a 2006 championship before an epic collapse to the Miami Heat. Avery gets his fire from his panic, and it showed, when dallas collapsed in game 3 in Miami, Avery decided that the team had too many distractions and moved them to a different hotel between games 3 and 4. As a result, Dallas came out flat in game 4 of those finals. If you’ve ever been on a vacation and had to switch hotel rooms, you know it disrupted everything and your relaxation flow. Imagine then that it was the NBA Finals, and your team just had a bad beat. Game 5 didn’t prove to be much better for Dallas, as they lost a very close game with a Nowitzki missed free throw. That Dallas team panicked. The Coach was loud, he was abrasive and nobody on that team had that same personality to fight back at him. And it showed, veteran leadership was missing from this team. Their oldest player was Adrian Griffin and he wasn’t exactly an outspoken player either.
Fast forward to 2011, five years later, Mark Cuban’s mavericks are completely reshuffled. The only holdovers being Dirk and Terry. Josh Howard now plays for the Washington Wizards, Devin Harris is in Utah, Coach Avery Johnson is getting a second opportunity with the New Jersey Nets. Even Erick Dampier, the poster boy for bad contracts (something that Cuban has become infamous for), now plays for, yes, the Miami Heat. These are not yesteryear’s Mavs.
The current coach is Rick Carslile, a guy who has taken his licks, like his team, with Detroit and Indiana, where he reached two conference Finals, oversaw the Melee at the Palace and dealt with the subsequent suspensions. He also was the assistant coach with Indiana when they made it to the finals in 2000 and lost to the LA Lakers. Rick knows what it’s like to be almost at the brink and lose. Rick also knows that if you practice what you preach, you are more than likely to get positive results from your team.
When asked about what he thought of his coach, Mavs center Tyson Chandler said that “you know what you’re gonna get, he never gets too high and he never gets too low” he is who sets the tone from the bench. Carslile’s calm and composure is the exact opposite of his predecessor. Carslile is successful this year because he understands the type of team they are, and he is always able to take advice from his team.
We shall see if the next two weeks hold a different narrative for the Aging vets from Dallas or if the same-old-Mavs show up. You know, the ones that choke away big leads and crumble when the going gets tough.
If you are to believe Cuban, these mavs “are not done yet”
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