FireAvery.com – A Dallas Mavericks Blog

Things are not good in Mavs land

Here’s a quick look at a few reactions in the media after the game last night.

Mark Stein in the Daily Dime says that the Hornets were looking forward to getting the Mavericks because they don’t think Avery’s a very good coach.

The Hornets likewise never imagined … that Johnson, getting nothing from his reserves apart from Brandon Bass, would gamble on playing little-used guard J.J. Barea and then pay the price during New Orleans’ second-quarter burst without Paul.

Yet there have been whispers coming from the Hornets’ camp, going back before the series even started, that they looked forward to playing Dallas because they were convinced that Kidd couldn’t hurt them in his current role, given Johnson’s penchant for slowing the game whenever it gets close and an offense not exactly known for ball or player movement, which so often turns Kidd into a weakside shooter.

Jean-Jacques Taylor sees what one of the big deciding factors for this team is going to be in the offseason.

Kidd, anointed a savior for the season when he arrived in February, was a non-factor with three points, three assists and four rebounds. He didn’t shoot, as usual, and didn’t impact the offense with his passing.

If Avery can’t figure out how to get the most out of him for whatever reason, then Cuban needs to find another coach. Or get rid of Kidd.

It’s not that complicated.

And finally, for now, Randy Galloway says it best about what’s in the immediate future for the Mavericks.

And then there’s Avery Johnson, the head coach who almost certainly won’t be by next weekend, barring some kind of miracle revival by his team. Big changes are on the way for the Cubans, changes that guarantee nothing, except the Mavs we once knew will be no more.

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Well, that didn’t go so well

I don’t even feel like writing anything here tonight. I’m just very disappointed right now. I guess I just need to accept that this team just isn’t very good anymore. Josh Howard has become a ghost of his former self. Jerry Stackhouse shouldn’t even be playing right now if he’s hurt. I guess he deserves some credit for wanting to gut it out, but when you’re already declining as a player an injury is not something to fight through. Jason Kidd just can’t handle Paul or any young point guard. It’s becoming quickly apparent that the trade is going to end up being a huge failure and affect this team for years to come.

At least Dirk, JET, Bass and Damp are out there at least showing a little effort. Unfortunately effort alone doesn’t get you wins in this league. And right now this team needs a lot of work.

Of course having your head coach roll out freaking J.J. Barea in the second quarter while you’re holding on to a 9 point doesn’t help matters any. Seriously, what the hell was Avery thinking there? There is absolutely no reason for Barea to see the floor in this series. The kid may have potential, but that’s what summer leagues, the pre-season and early season games are for. Not pivotal game fours in an important playoff series.

To go along with that Stack played for 15:10 and provided absolutely nothing. He shouldn’t be on the floor at all right and Avery should be able to recognize that. I know he probably wouldn’t help, but would at least trying Antoine Wright for a few minutes hurt? I know I just got done saying young guys don’t need to be playing, but at least Wright is healthy. Or if not him put Eddie Jones out there to see if he can give you something besides a combined 4-21 from Stack and Howard.

There’s more to be said about lineups and coaching decisions tonight, but I’ll let you guys handle that.

Just a disappointing game and Tuesday will most likely be the final game for this group of guys. More tomorrow.

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Mavs-Hornets Game 4

Late game 4 tonight but I’m going to be away from a computer most of the day, so putting the post up early.

If the Mavs stick with the adjustments they made Friday they should be able to win this game.  They just have to keep attacking the basket, fighting through picks and just overall be the aggressor in the game.

Part of those adjustments in game 3 included a 7 man rotation in the second half, during which Jerry Stackhouse didn’t play.  It looks like Stack didn’t like that very much.

“I ain’t going to try to overthink it too much,” Stack said. “I’m just going to try to come back Sunday.”

“I’m still a little apprehensive to go all out,” he said. “Just that hard burst to the right that I always do, I don’t feel as comfortable with it right now. Hopefully, I’ll just continue to build up to it. But I’m getting some looks that I feel I should be knocking down, regardless of what’s going on.”

So the guy is still hurt but he’s upset he’s not playing?  I guess that says something about Stack and what a gamer he is but at the same he’s got to realize if he’s hurt he shouldn’t be on the floor.

For his part Avery said they have a rotation they’re sticking with now.

“But right now, we’re going with the rotation we have now and hopefully he’ll get a few more minutes. He’s not where he needs to be in conditioning and timing.”

The Mavs have to win this game, going back to New Orleans down 3-1 would be the end of this series.

Go Mavs!

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Mavericks Win!

Now that was the team I know that these guys can be. What an impressive show by Dirk, Jason, Josh, Jason, Erick and Brandon.  Adjustments were made, the guys finally played like they were in the playoffs, and just an overall good vibe came out of the AAC tonight.

Quick disclaimer before I get into this post.  I was at the game, but before hand I indulged quite heavily in Hooter’s $1.99 domestic pint happy hour.  So any thoughts in this post are bound to be short or incomplete.

Let’s start by talking about the monster that is Dirk.  32 points, 19 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 blocks.   You can’t ask much more from any player than what Dirk gave tonight.

Jason Terry was also money tonight, going for 22 points including a dagger three with 1:39 left.  He also did an outstanding job guard Chris Paul tonight.

Avery’s adjustments for tonight’s game were very good.  Starting Terry and having him guard Paul was a great move.  Both Terry and Kidd deserve major credit for the defensive job they did tonight.  They fought through picks to stay on Paul all night.  This prevented any horrible mismatches with Dirk, Damp or Bass having to try to guard Paul off the pick.  And having Damp start off on West was a good move as it prevented West from getting easy layups and dunks off the pick and roll.

The overall defensive effort was outstanding tonight.  I’ll take Jannero Pargo going 12-20 and being the Hornets leading scorer any night.  Paul, Chandler and West went a combined 12-43 from the floor.  Very nice.

Avery also keep a much tighter lineup tonight by basically going with a 7 man rotation.  Malik Allen and Jerry Stackhouse only played a combined 10 minutes.  Other than that it was all Kidd, Howard, Dirk, Terry, Damp, George and Bass.  That type of rotation management is going to be key the rest of the games in this series.  Like I’ve said previously, the playoffs aren’t the time to limit Dirk’s and Kidd’s minutes to around 38-40 a game.  They need to be playing 44-46 a night and that worked out for the Mavs tonight.

Just a great game by everyone involved tonight.  The AAC was rocking all night long and it was just fun to watch this team play a game like that.  Of course the Mavs are still down 2-1 in the series so I’m going to hold off on getting too excited until the game Sunday, but if they can keep up the energy levels and just all around solid play tonight they can extend this series out to 6 or 7 games.

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Mavs-Hornets Game 3

This is a must win for the Mavericks tonight if they have any hope of winning this series.  According to Avery on Norm’s show Wednesday Jason Terry will be getting the start tonight.  It’ll be interesting to see what else he has planned to contain Chris Paul tonight.

Eddie Sefko has a column up about where the blame will go if the Mavs don’t win this series.

For Avery Johnson and the Mavericks, their plight going into tonight’s all-important Game 3 against New Orleans is a vivid illustration of the thin line separating players and coaches in the blame game.

On one side, the players are the only ones who can truly impact a game. On the other side, the coach, management and ownership decided on which players to get and are responsible for putting players in position to succeed.

This is where the Mavericks are right now. And the bottom line is if both sides don’t pull together, they can all get together for one long look in the mirror to see why they won’t get past the first round.

The AAC will be banging and the Hornets haven’t won a game there since ‘99 (I think, that’s off the top of my head, I know it’s been a while).  I’ll be there watching the game so it’ll probably be tomorrow before I get a reaction post up.

Go Mavs!

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Avery the Motivator

This was too good not to post up, as I continue to shamelessly borrow content from Tim McMahon.

We all know how Avery is supposed to be this great motivator, but even that is apparently failing him now.

Jaime pointed out that Baron Davis dominated the Mavs in the BPUIMPSH, and that Chris Paul is doing the same thing this series. “Is there something within players that just makes you step up and say, ‘I’m just not going to let this guy beat me again’?” Jaime asked.

“You know what? I may hire you tomorrow,” Avery replied. “Then you can give them that speech, because that is so true.

“Sometimes it just takes players just to step up and say, ‘I’m just not taking it anymore. I want to play better defense. I want to play better offense.’ “

So it’s all back on the players for not performing up to their standards. Maybe if they had a decent offensive and defensive plan to go by they’d play better offense and defense. Of course the sarcasm is so thick in Avery’s response it’s hard to tell what he means.  But, maybe he’s finally noticing that his team may be tuning him out.

Oh yeah, Larry Brown has resigned as the 76er’s VP. Let the wild speculation truly begin!

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Thursday Notes

Just a couple of quick links for today.

Read this quote from Dirk about Avery taking the blame carefully.

“A coach is always going to do that to protect his players, but the players have to ultimately be out there and get the job done,” Dirk said. “Whatever the systems are or whatever the defense is, we’ve got to scramble more and we’ve got to make some stuff happen out there. It’s really up to every player to get himself ready and get himself fired up for this big game.”

I like the part where he says that have to play “whatever the systems are.” There’s a good chance I’m putting words into his mouth, but it sounds like Dirk’s not too happy with the offensive game plan so far.

Jennifer Floyd Engel has some interesting thoughts on Cuban’s and Avery’s relationship right now, along with a FireAvery.com shout out.

Let’s start with Avery because he is the guy everybody seemingly wants to fire. www.fireavery.com was humming Wednesday as was much of the blogosphere.

Interestingly, neither blogmaverick nor Mark Cuban has jumped into the argument with a heartfelt defense of Avery. He’s not souring on his coach, is he?

This is something to watch, especially if this series stays on its present course. A divorce might be coming, by mutual agreement.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Wednesday Cleanup

Avery finally took responsibility for this mess today, too bad it’s in such a sarcastic tone.

“I take full responsibility about everything,” Avery said. “And that’s my job. But at the same time, we have a game plan. We’ve got to have a high level of concentration, and we have to have a high level of physicality, which I haven’t seen yet. We’ll get there. We’ll keep prodding them and cheering them on and challenging and doing all that we do to try to get the team ready to play.”

“It all starts with me,” Avery said. “Whenever something goes wrong with the team – if we’re not making free throws, if we’re not making layups, if we’re not defending – it’s not the players. It’s me.”

So he says he takes responsibility then in the next sentence basically says it’s the players fault. Nice. The sarcastic part is the second quote, about how it’s his responsibility that the guys are missing free throws and layups. It just makes it seem like the only reason he accepted any responsibility at all is because of the reaction of everyone that he always blames it on the players. Just a bad way to handle the situation.

Read the rest of this entry »

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This team is done

What an absolute embarrassment tonight. I don’t even know where to start and I know I could rant for quite a while. I’ll try to make this short though and just let this game speak for itself.

The entire game was downhill from the start. Avery had the team attempting to trap Paul for about 10 minutes before completely abandoning it. Every time Paul was trapped he had no problem finding the open man. Dirk and Damp just aren’t good/quick enough to be able to handle Chandler and West. And what happened to the plan to let Howard try and guard Paul? I saw that happen just a couple of times. And having Eddie Jones on him was just a freaking joke.

The lineups were a huge mess again. Late in the first quarter Stackhouse and Jones were in the game at the same time. Sorry, but I just don’t even see that being a good idea. Then to start the second quarter this gem was on the floor: Terry, Howard, Stackhouse, Bass, Allen. What the hell? How could that possibly be considered a good option? Malik Allen can’t get off the bench in game one and all of a sudden he’s in the game when the Mavs are down 10? Dirk didn’t get back in the game until 7 minutes were left in the half. Devean George didn’t even see the court in the first half. With 2:24 left in the second Damp and Kidd are taken out of the game and replaced by Jones and Bass. I honestly stopped paying attention there, but I’m sure the second half wasn’t any better.

Damp played a total of 16 minutes while Bass played 29. Might not seem like such a bad idea since Bass ended up with 19 points and 8 boards, but the guy cannot play defense. Not that any Mav was too keen on playing D tonight anyways. Avery and his staff have to come up with some way to slow Paul down, but I don’t really see that happening. Having Del Harris on the bench to help out with seems like it would be a good idea right now.

It seems pretty obvious to me that Avery has completely lost this team. Nothing he says seems to have any effect on them. For the past three days Avery has said that they have to play better defense and then they come out with this type of performance. On TNT they showed a bit of Avery’s speech in the locker room. He ended by saying “Let’s score about 10 points in the paint to start this quarter.” The first basket of the quarter by the Mavs? A 16 foot jumper by Dirk.

There are going to be some people that say that the Mavs are still ok, that the Hornets just did what they had to do by holding home court (I’m looking at you Brad Davis). While technically true, has this team and coached showed anybody anything that should breed any confidence going into Friday’s game?

I know this post is pretty disjointed and rambling but I’m just so frustrated by seeing what this team has become when they have so much more potential. A change has to be made and I really wouldn’t mind if it was made tonight.

This site needs your help to be even a tiny bit effective. Spread the word, tell your friends, and get people to come post their thoughts in the comments. The more reaction by fans that this site gets the clearer the picture can be for Cuban and the front office.

Edit: One more thing. Has Avery been wearing his Spurs championship ring before tonight? I couldn’t believe it when I saw that he had it on. Is that supposed to be some kind of motivational tool? If I was a player I’d just be pissed that my coach was wearing something with another team’s logo on it. Just another ridiculous decision by Avery.

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Mavs-Hornets Game 2

Game two tonight, post here during and after the game.

Jean-Jacques Taylor has a suggestion for Avery.

A word of advice to Avery Johnson before Game 2 of the Mavericks’ playoff series against New Orleans: Do whatever it takes to get the Mavs’ running game going.

If that means not drawing up plays for Jason Kidd while the Hornets are shooting free throws, so be it. If it means spending much of the game sitting down and observing instead of calling plays, that’s fine, too.

The Mavs won’t win if they don’t run. Their half-court offense simply isn’t good enough to get the job done.

Besides, Avery’s way hasn’t worked for a while.

And John Hollinger comments on the chess match aspect of game one.

(Side note: It’s a little too much like that, actually. From sticking Jannero Pargo on Jason Terry to changing his coverage on Dirk Nowitzki from Wednesday’s approach to the mysterious absence of hard traps in the backcourt on Paul, it seemed Scott was playing solitaire chess in Game 1.)

Stackhouse is staying in the starting lineup tonight. Can’t wait to see what adjustments Avery has made.

Go Mavs.

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Apparently Avery already wants to be gone next year

Over on DallasBasketball.com, scroll down a little bit to see it, Fish has an interesting story about Avery possibly already planning on being gone next year. Here’s a quote from the article.

Our friend ol’ Randy Galloway apparently made some radio noise late last week about his pal Avery’s future, suggesting that a) friction between coach and owner could cause a breakup, b) Avery might initiate the breakup by resigning, and c) giving up his $20-mil contract here won’t be an issue because Avery will “get another job right away.’’

My very educated guess is that the coach himself has some involvement in this tale. The tale is disturbing. The timing is inappropriate. But this is Avery’s Pandora’s Box.

If this is at all true then Cuban should just fire Avery right now and let Westphal or Del Harris coach the rest of this series.  If he is seriously using Galloway to plant seeds as why he won’t be here next year there is no reason for him to still be on the staff.  This is not the way to act heading into the playoffs.  Or at any other time of the year.  It’s just embarrassing, if it’s true.  Go read the article on DB.com, it’s quite enlightening.

It really isn’t that surprising though.  Avery has never really taken blame for any of this team’s shortcomings.  It’s always the players fault, they aren’t executing the plan, they turn into a jump shooting team, their defense is weak.  While that may all be true, after a season of those type of excuses shouldn’t  the coach figure out that it’s his plan that isn’t working?

Avery also had an interesting comment today about reaction to the Dirk and David West spat in game one.

“More than Dirk doing something about it, I would have liked for somebody else on the team — preferably in the center position — to do something about it.”

Avery paused for effect at this point.

“Was that clear enough?” he asked.

Is that the best way to call out your center, a not so veiled comment to the press?  Shouldn’t something like that  be handled behind closed doors?

As the head coach Avery should be there to go down with the ship if this team doesn’t advance out of the first round again.  Instead it looks like he’s trying to hop on the closest lifeboat to save face and his own good name.  This surely can’t go on for another season, can it?

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Mavs-Hornets Game 1

After being up twelve at half-time, and at least somewhat controlling Chris Paul up until then, the Mavericks looked to be in good shape for the rest of the game. Then Byron Scott proved to be the better coach as he actually made adjustments during half-time while the Mavs were just trying to not lose. Of course that didn’t exactly work out for them.

The Mavericks had a 7 point lead going at the end of the first quarter. So what does Avery decide to do to start the second? Run a lineup of Eddie Jones, Juwan Howard, Jason Terry, Josh Howard and Brandon Bass. I’ll never understand his insistence of putting the entire second unit on the floor at the same time. While that lineup was on the floor the Hornets cut the lead to 3. The rest of the second the Mavs had much better sub patterns and ran off to a 12 point lead at the half.

At the start of the third quarter the Hornets immediately went on a 8-2 run. Late in the quarter the Hornets had a 16-3 run. Overall the Mavs were outscored 36-20 during the quarter. It just goes to show who the better coach on the floor was yesterday. Byron Scott made adjustments during half-time and his team was better for it. Avery failed to react to what was happening on the floor and the Mavericks were outscored by 16.

Things didn’t get any better in the fourth quarter which opened with a 15-4 New Orleans run. For some unknown reason that run involved almost 2 minutes where Dirk was on the bench. It just seems strange to me to sit the guy who is obviously your best player on the night during a run by the other team.

The lack of lineup changes based on how Stack and Howard were playing especially questionable. Stackhouse didn’t make a bucket until the fourth. If a guy that is coming off an injury is shooting 0-7 during the first three quarters and not exactly doing all the much on the defensive end maybe he should be taken out of the game a little more. Giving Eddie Jones, who is a better defender, or Devean George, also a better defender, more looks might have been helpful.

Josh Howard was also depressing to watch. In the first quarter he was getting inside the lane and to the basket and shot 3-4. After that he became jump-shooting Josh Howard and didn’t contribute much at all the rest of the way.

Avery is now 2-6 in game one’s in the playoffs. That should be very telling to anyone who thinks he’s the coach this team needs to win. He’s incapable of making adjustments during half-time of these games and apparently has some problems coming up with game plans. Here’s what Avery said about the momentum in the first and second half.

“Between settling for jump shots and turning the ball over….the momentum swung. We had the momentum in the first half, they had the momentum in the second half.”

Yes, the Mavericks did start taking a lot of jumpers after the half. But isn’t Avery the guy that’s supposed to get them to stick to whatever game plan they had? And what does it say about him that his team apparently isn’t doing what he wants done?

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Dallas Mavericks vs New Orleans Hornets

It’s finally playoff time and the future of the Mavericks depends quite a bit on how they play over the next, if things go well, 2 months.  There seem to be only two options after this season is over, and they both are clear to me.  Make a deep run, which would mean the conference finals at the least for me, and bring back this team next year, Avery included, and give them a full year to grow together and make another run at a title next year.  Go out in the first or second round and changes have to be made.

The Mavs have already helped themselves by getting the most favorable first round match up they could hope for.  Seeing them win games against playoff bound teams down the stretch was encouraging but losses to the Trailblazers and Sonics looked like cause for concern.  But then they came to play in the regular season finale and won a game that had to be won. 

The Mavericks can win this series, and I’m actually expecting them to, but a lot of their success is going to depend on decisions Avery makes.

The rotation the Mavericks use is going to be the biggest concern until Avery shows otherwise.  The starting lineup for game one has to be, and really almost 100% will be, Dirk, Kidd, Howard, Stackhouse and Damp.  Avery knows he messed up last year and wouldn’t dare make a similar mistake this year. 

Substitution choices are going to be interesting to watch.  First, there is absolutely no reason for Juwan Howard to see any playing time at all.  He’s been getting a little playing time the last month due to injuries but now is now the time to get cute and have him on the court.  There is also no chance of Magloire, Wright and Barea getting any minutes at all, as it should be.

That leaves a bench of Terry, Jones, Bass, Allen, Lue and George.  Terry is going to be the 6th man and is going to be important in this series as he’s averaged 22 points against the Hornets this year.  Bass will be Damp’s backup, backup being key word here.  I don’t want to see Bass playing 30 minutes while Damp only gets 16, it has to be the other way around.  George will be the 8th man relieving Dirk and Josh and Eddie Jones will probably be needed about 14-16 minutes a game until Stack is closer to 100%.  Lue and Allen should only be used if absolutely needed.

The main thing I don’t want to see is 4 bench guys playing together at the start of the 2nd quarter, something Avery had fallen in love with late in the season.  Dirk, Kidd and Howard must play at least 40 minutes a game while Stack/Jones and Damp each need 30. 

Read the rest of this entry »

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Good job Mark

That title isn’t meant to be sarcastic.  Mark Cuban deserves some major props for voting against the planned relocation of the Sonics to Oklahoma City.  Cuban and Paul Allen, owner of the Blazers, were the only two owners to vote against the move.   The move won’t be final until all the pending litigation is sorted through this summer, but hopefully the Sonics will still be playing in Seattle next season.  Check out Sonics Central for much more coverage of this whole debacle.

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Mavs heading to the Big Easy

Good win by the Mavs tonight to close out the regular season and clinch the 7th seed in the West. Jason Kidd picked up his 100th career triple-double and the Mavs came back from 11 point deficits twice.  Brandon Bass had a big game which may lead to questionable lineups by Avery this weekend.

There’s no doubt that New Orleans came out to win this game.  At the start of the first half it looked like they may run away with it but the Mavs stepped it up on D and got back in the game.  After trying to give the game away a few more times the Mavs end up with the 13 point win.

But enough about the game, it’s time for the playoffs.

This was by far the best possible outcome for the Mavericks.  They get to play an untested playoff team that’s been struggling down the stretch.  Compare that to possibly having to play Kobe in the first round and that’s no doubt the Hornets are the desirable choice.  There are still plenty of questions about the Mavericks and what Avery is going to do however.

I think it’s a good idea to put a half-court trap on Chris Paul like Avery had them several times through the game.  But it needs to be done with someone besides Dirk or Damp/Bass.  Bringing a big out to trap led to a layup line for David West and Tyson Chandler.

The other thing that’s bothering me right now is Brandon Bass’ play tonight.  Don’t get me wrong, it was good to see and he definitely helped the Mavs win the game, but what kind of impression did it leave on Avery?  There’s no way he would sit Damp and start Bass, is there?

Much more to come in the next few days so keep checking back.

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