FireAvery.com - A Dallas Mavericks Blog

Cute Shirt

Mark Cuban was wearing a cute little t-shirt today that said “Avery’s Team”. There has been talk in the press that Mark is unhappy with Avery since the Kidd trade and this is probably his way of downplaying it. And I know owners have to support their coach during the season or go ahead and fire them, and there’s no way Avery’s getting fired before the season’s over. We’ll just have to wait and see after the season if Cuban can do what needs to be done.

But with the Internet being the wonderful thing it is, you can now have a Fire Avery t-shirt.

Couple of disclaimers here. I will make NO money from this, the markup on the products is set to $0, so what you see is CafePress’ standard price. This is just for fun, I just whipped the template up in Photoshop and threw it on there.  I haven’t actually ordered from anything from CafePress before so I’m not sure how their quality is, but I’ve heard it’s pretty solid. 

But with all that said, if you do get one of these and wear it to a game, take a picture and send it in.

Buy FireAvery.com t-shirts here

Or if you want to make your own with an iron-on printout or something, here’s the template for the shirt.

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This season is over

Well, this season is done. Here’s hoping they fall to 9th in the West and get a draft pick this year. Then Donnie and Avery can both be replaced this offseason and this thing can get somewhat of a fresh start. That is as long as Dirk didn’t tear his ACL and is out until this time next year.

Much bigger post coming later tonight, for now leave you thoughts and comments here.

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Biggest game of the year

So far at least. A loss pretty much ends any hopes the Mavs have of moving up any in the Western Conference standings. They’d be 3 games back of San Antonio and Phoenix for 6th, but only 1 game ahead of Golden State for 8th and 2.5 games ahead of Denver. And unfortunately this team hasn’t really shown us anything to make us think they can win the game.

Let’s look at something Avery said the other day.

“I don’t think you can really be a good team if you consistently lose two games or three games in a row… I just don’t think that can happen. You got to find a way to break it.”

Well Avery, here’s your change to prove you’re the coach for this team and find a way to break this streak. Because right now by your own definition this isn’t a good team. And it almost sounds like he’d be advocating his own firing if they can’t pull this game out.

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This is just depressing

Another close game, another blown 4th quarter lead and now the Mavericks are 0-7 against teams with a .500 record or better since the Kidd trade.

Dirk had a ridiculous game tonight with 22 point and 19 rebounds. Kidd had 11 boards and 9 dimes, but only 2 points. Even Josh Howard had a good game with 24 points and 6 boards. But in the end they couldn’t hold onto a 7 point lead with 9 minutes left. And this time it’s hard to blame the coach.

Yeah, he didn’t put Kidd, Dirk and Damp back into the game until the lead had shrunk to 3. And a timeout could have been called with :31 seconds left after Allen made the 3 that made it a 2 point Celtics lead.

But at the end of the game the starters were on the floor and they couldn’t get the job done. And that’s going to be on those guys tomorrow.

Now I only saw the 4th quarter tonight, I forgot to setup the game to record and got home late, so if I missed something early in the game post in the comments.

And here’s what Avery had to say after the game.

“I loved our effort,” Avery said. “We played the best team in basketball. There are no prizes for second place, but if you look at our effort consistently throughout this game, the effort was there. The energy was there.

“Guys were focused. They battled. Some things didn’t go our way, but we hung in there and dug down in there.”

I’m so tired of hearing him say that, effort doesn’t freaking win games. He needs to say something publicly to get this team going. They’re already quitting on him anyways, so might as well go for broke. Call them out for not being able to hold on to a lead, say anything about why they aren’t winning these games. Just do something.

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And so it begins…

Apparently Avery and Mark Cuban had a disagreement after last night’s game. Is this the beginning of a rift between the two? I can’t imagine that Mark is happy that the extra $17 million he’s paying out this year because of the Kidd trade is currently being wasted. I would love to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation…

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Three Years Ago Today

Three years ago today Don Nelson stepped down as the Mavericks head coach and Avery Johnson was named his replacement. At the time this was a great move. Don Nelson had quit on this team and Avery had pretty much been the coach the entire season. Then Avery got off to an amazing start, going 66-16 over his first 82 games, the best pace in NBA history for a first-time coach. Then Avery became the fastest coach to every reach 100 and 150 wins. And things should still be going well, but Avery is very quickly proving not to be right for this team and now it’s come to this.

So, what has Avery given this club in the last three years?

- The first trip to the NBA Finals in club history.

- Blowing a 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals.

- The club’s best regular season ever, going 67-15 in the 2006-2007 season.

- Going out in the first round of the playoffs to the 8th seed Golden State Warriors that same season.

- Playing down to an 8th seed in the playoffs by changing the teams starting lineup that had won those 67 games.

- Having none of the players the Mavs have drafted since 2004 still on the team (Devin Harris, Pavel Podkolzine, Maurice Ager, Nick Fazekas)

- A lack of trust in young players that has lead to this being an old team, with 11 of 15 players being 29 or older. I know aging isn’t Avery’s fault for the guys that have been here, but recent additions to the team have been older players.

- Sitting down a hall-of-fame point guard during the last 30 seconds of an important division game after specifically saying you brought him in to close out games.

I’m sure there are many more, this is just a list of greatest hits. Post up some more examples of what Avery has done for or to this team the last 3 years in the comments.

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More Lakers Reaction

Here’s a couple of quotes from Avery after last night’s game.

“We are disappointed because we don’t like coming in second. But again, every game is a playoff game and they played it early on more like they were playing for their basketball lives and we didn’t.”

“We dug ourselves a big, hole. We didn’t do anything right in the first half. We didn’t execute the game plan. We didn’t hustle enough. Just very disappointing.”

So here’s the question, why the hell wasn’t this team ready to play in the first half? Playing for your basketball lives is exactly what the Mavericks are needing to do right now. The Lakers are in a position where if they have a bad night it’s okay, because they’re in first place right now. The Mavs don’t have that excuse, especially last night. They had an opportunity to move into 6th and end the night 1/2 game behind the Lakers. If the Mavs couldn’t get up for that game then they should just tank the rest of the season and get in the lottery since this years pick that was sent to New Jersey is lottery protected.

Avery also had this to say:

“My confidence is not shaken. I think more than anything, it showed what we can do when we play the right way. Had we gotten blown out, when they had us by 22, had they kept that lead, I think we would have been severely disappointed.”

Hey Avery, you DID get blown out. It doesn’t matter that it was only a 2 point game at the end. And the team only got back into it when Avery was sitting on the bench during the 3rd quarter and let the team play a more run and gun game. His game plan in the first half didn’t work and this team got themselves back into the game. So yes Avery, you got blown out. And he should, and really better be, disappointed. You lost to a team that was missing two critically important pieces and had Vlad Radmanovic and Ronny Turiaf playing key roles. Disappointed is the least of what you should be feeling after a game like that.

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Absolutely Inexcusable

This post is kinda going to be a stream of random thoughts that may not be in order. Just go with it for now and I’ll be back in the morning after some quotes from Avery and the players come out.

I really hope there isn’t talk tomorrow about this being a “moral victory” for the Mavericks. Yes, they came to within 1 point after being down by 25. Yeah, Kobe was held to “only” 29 points after some pretty good defense by Devean George and Josh Howard in the fourth. And Dirk had a great game by going for 35 points, 11 boards and 5 blocks.

But you know what? The Mavericks should have won this game by 10 - 15 points. But now they are 0-6 against Western Conference teams with a record better than them.

If Jason Kidd is supposed to be this great play-making point-guard, why doesn’t Avery let him do his job? He only played 16 minutes in the first half first of all. Which is okay when you’re playing ding-dong East teams and you’re up by 20. But if you’re supposed to be running this team he needs to be out there for 18-20 minutes a half. And Avery’s half-court sets are pathetic. Most of the time in them Kidd doesn’t even touch the ball. There was a stretch of 2 or 3 possessions, all in the half-court, that Kidd didn’t even touch the ball. And instead of letting the team run and be more free-flowing, like there were making the comeback, Avery insists that they play this half-court set that just isn’t working for this team right now.

There’s also no excuse for the lack of defense in the first quarter. Avery’s absolute refusal to double Kobe is amazing. He went 7-11 in the first half. The first double team on him didn’t come until sometime in the fourth. But he only ended up shooting 12-23, so Avery’s brilliant strategy of hoping he misses shots kinda worked in the second half.

Being down 21 at the half to a team playing without two of their three best players should never happen. Vlad Radmanovic should not score 21 on you. His three 3’s in the fourth were an absolute killer, and they were all three open shots.

And yes, that foul call on Stack at the end of the game was a bad call. But the team shouldn’t have been in the position for that call to matter.

Hey, at least Houston lost tonight.

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Avery’s defensive plan for Kobe

“Hopefully he misses shots like he did against Houston. I didn’t see Houston with any trick defenses, and I didn’t really see them double-teaming him a lot. He just missed some shots.”

“Unfortunately, in our situation, we caught him on some nights when he’s been hot.”

So the guy goes for 52 against you two weeks ago and you can’t be bothered to even think about changing up your defensive strategy for him? And it’s not like that game was the first time he’s lit up the Mavs. Since Avery took over as coach Kobe has averaged 36.4 ppg against the Mavericks. That includes a 52 and 62 point showing. And after all that Avery can’t come up with anything different to try against him? Let’s all hope that the Mavs never have to face the Lakers in the post-season.

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He said what?

Avery said something that didn’t make a whole lot of sense yesterday.

“It’s disappointing that we were involved in it last year, but I don’t think homecourt advantage is going to mean as much as it did in years past. I think, as you’ve seen already, a 7 seed, an 8 seed, a 6 seed - if you win one game on an opponent’s floor, you can win the series.”

Really? Does Avery not realize that this team is 29-4 at home, but only 15-19 on the road? And that they just went through a stretch where they lost close road games to the Spurs, Lakers and Jazz? It’s almost like he’s trying to get us to expect that the Mavs aren’t going to move up any in the standings. Of course if they go and blow these next three games on their home court it doesn’t matter any way.

Then Jason Kidd had this to say about being benched in San Antonio during an interview with the Morning News:

“I would have understood, exact same thing, being traded, close game, this is a rivalry and they’ve seen each other a lot of times. People have to look at that situation deeper. Rivals know one another’s plays. Every play they’re going to draw up, (opponents) are going to take away the first option. You’re probably going to need to go to the second option, third option.”

Kidd’s probably right that the Spurs knew exactly what the Mavs were going to do. Which makes him sitting on the bench instead of being on the floor, to perhaps give the Spurs a different look, make even less sense.

Anyways, the Spurs lost last night, so they now have the same record as the Mavericks at 44-23 after blowing a 22 point lead to the Celtics. This is their 6th loss in the last 7 games but having Sacramento and Chicago next should right the ship.

And the Lakers are in town tonight in what again is a must win for the Mavericks. They will be playing without Pau Gasol, so there’s no excuse for the Mavs not to win this game. A win would move the Mavs into 6th place ahead of the Spurs along with only 1/2 game behind the Lakers for 5th.

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Weekend Update

The Mavs did what they had to do and finished this stretch of games against weak East teams 5-0. They beat the Heat yesterday 98-73 in a game where the Heat looked like they’d rather be doing anything else but playing basketball. As good as this stretch was for the team I’m glad it’s over, it was getting a little boring watching them win by 25 every night during it. The home-stand featuring the Lakers, Celtics and Spurs is up next and there’s a new poll today asking which of these teams the Mavs will lose to this week.

The Spurs have now lost 5 of their last 6, but are getting a pass as usual in the national media for the most part. Yeah, they’re the defending champs and should still be the team to beat, but if that’s the case they shouldn’t be losing to Philadelphia this late in the season. But they do have an easier set of games coming up that should right their ship.

The Rockets have won 22 in a row, and as good as that is, I still don’t think they have anything for the playoffs. It’s probably not fair to be this down on them after what they’ve done, but I just don’t see them beating any of the West teams in a 7 game series, except maybe Golden State. So they’ll want to hold on to that number 1 seed if they want to finally advance out of the first round.

The Lakers lost Pau Gasol on Friday night and he’ll most likely still be out during tomorrow’s game against the Mavs. If he doesn’t get back soon the Lakers are going to get passed up by Phoenix in the standings and fall down to the range the Mavs are in right now.

The West is getting wilder each week. The Mavs are only 2 1/2 games out of first place and 1 1/2 games out of second. If they can take down the Lakers and Spurs this week there’s a good chance they would be in 2nd or 3rd in the conference at the end of the week.

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Just for fun

Here’s a nice little clip of Jason Kidd blocking an Avery Johnson lay-up attempt, back in Kidd’s first swim through Dallas.

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Four in a row

It’s so nice seeing this team doing what they’re supposed to do against these weak Eastern Conference teams. They’ve now won four in a row against these teams by an average of 23 points. Now only the Heat, in Miami but with no Dwyane Wade, are up before the real test of this home-stand comes. Tyronn Lue had a great game for only playing 16 minutes going 5 for 5 for 13 points. If he can keep that up against the better teams he’ll end up being a very helpful guy to have in the playoffs.

It’s kinda difficult to come up with ways to criticize a coach when his team is in a stretch like this but there were a couple of questionable things from last night. The lineup on the floor at the start of the 2nd quarter was Lue, Terry, Wright, Allen and Bass. I know when it’s a blowout you’ve got to get people minutes, but it almost seemed like Avery wanted the game to get close to keep the guys from getting bored. Of course that didn’t happen, so no harm done.

The other thing was that the 5 starters were in the game for almost 10 minutes in the fourth quarter. This continued even after things started to get chippy with 5 or 6 minutes left. Dirk almost had an elbow land on his throat, Stackhouse took a couple of spills, it just didn’t seem smart to have those guys in the game that long when it was under control. But it turns out there was a reason for it, as Avery explained after the game.

“We try go our zone defense when we had a good lead. And we messed it up. Same thing we talked about this morning. We screwed it up. Again, that’s something for us to talk about. We’ll have to be able to change our defenses some and I wanted to work on the zone more, but we screwed it up so bad, we couldn’t even go back to it. That will be a point of emphasis at practice tomorrow.”

So that’s what they’ve been working on for the past couple of games with these leads in the fourth. They didn’t seem to have that many problems with a zone the past couple of seasons, but maybe that’s because Del Harris was still here.

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The Pacers are here, does anyone care?

The tour of weak Eastern Conference teams coming to town continues tonight as the Pacers visit the AAC. Should be another easy win for the Mavericks as the Pacers are 25-39 on the year and 4-6 in their last 10. Tyronn Lue should get some decent minutes as he continues to learn the team and starts to fit in as the backup pointguard. It’d also be nice to see some more of Antonie Wright as, even with his limited minutes so far, he’s been pretty fun to watch. The Spurs and Hornets have difficult games tonight, at Detroit for the Spurs and the Hornets will have the Lakers at home. So this would be a prime opportunity for the Mavs to make up some ground in the division and conferece.

Found this quote by Erick Dampier on the Mavs Team Report on Yahoo! the other day:

“We’re just out there having fun. It’s amazing when we’re out there having fun the things that we can do as a team. We just have got to go out there each and every night with a consistent effort and do the things that we work on in practice. When we’re moving the ball, running up and down the floor and having fun, we can play with anyone in this league.”

The “having fun” comment has been a popular one with this team since the Kidd trade. Maybe it’s because Kidd can actually distribute the ball and get everyone involved, something that Devin Harris lacked. Or it could be that Avery is starting to back-off a little now that he has a proven point guard on the team and the rest of the guys are enjoying the breathing room.

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Mavs win and Avery does something right

The Mavericks took care of the Bobcats last night in dominating fashion, as they should. Dirk continues to be a monster ending up with 26 points and 9 boards. But more importantly is another apperence by the Real Josh Howard. Josh finishes with 24 points, 7 boards and 6 assist on 9-15 shooting as well shutting down Jason Richardson, noted Mav killer of late, who only had 11 points on 4-16 shooting. It’s so nice to see Josh playing like this again and hopefully we can see this type of play the rest of the season.

So the Mavs now have a 3 game winning streak, which doesn’t seem like much but after that little funk they had been in is good to see. Of course, it’s been 3 games they had to win and a loss in any of them would’ve resulted in an absolute torching of the team. But they’re taking care of business and even better they’re doing it in convincing fashion. Now only the Pacers and Heat stand before the Celtics, Lakers, Spurs run.

Usually I’d have a problem with all the starters going back into a game with 10 minutes left and a 25 point lead, but Avery’s reasoning actually made sense this time:

“We need minutes together… It’s not like we’ve been playing together for five years. So I found another little stretch there for three minutes where we could go back out there and work on something really specific and then we can come and sit down.”

Pretty good move it would seem, giving the guys actual game time to further get used to each other and learning the plays. If someone had gotten hurt though…

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