Mavericks fire Avery Johnson? And other NBA playoff news
by Chris 4 comments Leave a comment May 1st, 2008
After Tuesday’s season ending loss to the New Orleans Hornets, the Mavericks have decided to fire their head coach Avery Johnson. How could they do this to the Little General?
This is a guy who won coach of the year in 2006 in just his second year as head coach of the Mavericks. It’s hard to believe Johnson is the reason the Mavericks failed to get out of the first round. This year’s western conference was one of the toughest ever and the Mavericks also had to deal with trying to integrate an aging Jason Kidd into their offense late in the season.
Personally, I would blame Dirk or Jason Terry or any of the other players before I would blame Avery Johnson. But speaking of the NBA tradition of blaming coaches first, it’s looking likely that the Suns will axe innovative coach Mike D’Antoni. If that happens we can thank the Suns ownership for ruining the most fun team to watch in the NBA…
By the way, anyone remember how I dissed the Hack-a-Shaq? Looks like coaching god Phil Jackson also thinks it sucks:
Jackson needs to get on board with the Abbot rule change proposal.
I think Johnson deserved the axe after last season losing to Golden State. One of his biggest mistakes was playing to the style of his opponent and not letting his superior team dictate the style of the game. Like he would go small against small teams.
D’Antoni is a little different but I still think he should go. The Suns were never going to win a championship with the team they had before the Shaq trade. Yeah the Suns were fun, but they weren’t going to win. Also, the mental mistakes by PHX were HUGE in this last series against the Spurs. They should’ve won game 1 and game 5 and been up 3-2 right now. They need more defense so a guy like Parker doesn’t shred them for 40 points.
I guess I should add about the Suns before it gets said, they won’t win with this team either. The point though is this team right now is not right for D’Antoni’s run and gun style.
Also about the Mavs, they should have never gotten rid of Nash. That was their biggest mistake ever. The guy went on to be a 2 time MVP and then Dirk was MVP. So stupid. I personally don’t think Johnson was necessarily a great coach. I mean he came in coaching a really good team and Dirk was just starting to enter his prime. You want to blame the players for the teams failures, well you better be willing to give the players credit for their successes.
I think you’re right about the Suns. They probably were never going to beat San Antonio unless lightning struck, but I still don’t think that means blowing up the team.
San Antonio is a lot like Chicago was in the 90s. They are the creme of the league. Losing to them should be neither surprising or indicative of larger problems with your team.
With the Mavs, I’m not sure what their problem is exactly. It could be that Dirk just isn’t the kind of cut-throat player you need as your leader/star. It could be that Avery Johnson doesn’t know how to motivate them anymore. I still don’t think you fire him though.
I think what is important to remember is that as a team you have a window of opportunity to win a championship. Two-time-MVP Steve Nash has maybe 2 effective seasons left in him. He’s already taking reduced minutes and has back troubles. You have to be really lucky to replace Nash with another all-star, not even MVP caliber PG. After Nash you have Amare as the second best player. You will be wasting his prime too and honestly I don’t think his ceiling gets much higher anyways. He’s good but I’m just not that impressed with his ability to take over a game. Shawn Marion wasn’t the future of this team and he was a moron anyways. He can rot in Miami and think he’s top dog over there, even though most teams would love to have an injured Wade over him. That was why they made the Shaq trade which did and didn’t work. It let them defend Duncan, but it also lost them the series because he couldn’t hit a free throw. Shaq hits a few more free throws a game and the Suns win the series. Now they are saddled with 2 more years of Diesel dragging them down. The team can’t run anymore. The biggest reason D’Antoni should go though is the mental mistakes his players made. You know, he can’t play the game for them and he isn’t in charge of how talented his players are, but its his job to put the talent in the position to win and make sure his players are mentally prepared to play the game. Those two things weren’t met and I think it has a lot to do with the coaching. So you need to shake up the coaching and probably the players too since Nash-time is running out and this obviously isn’t working.
As for Johnson, there is no reason the Mavs should have lost to Miami in the Finals, no reason they should lose to Golden State, and they should have at least made the series close with the Hornets. The Mavs continually underachieve when they should be killing teams. Its always something with them: “Oh the refs are giving all the calls to Miami.” “Oh we just ran into a real inspired team.” “Oh Josh Howard’s shooting is cold.” Less excuses, more toughness. Johnson wasn’t doing it.
The Spurs are lucky. They have perhaps the most underrated player ever in Tim Duncan. I mean yeah the guy gets a lot of credit, but he is one of the best ever at his position and we aren’t treating him like Jordan, Magic, or Bird. Also, as it becomes that Duncan can’t carry a team by himself anymore, he gets guys like Parker and Ginobli coming on strong and taking up the slack. Once Duncan is gone though, I don’t see the Spurs being as good for a while. Add to the fact that no one seems to be willing to stand up to them, and you can see why they win a lot. Everyone sees them as “the champs” and a tough out. Seriously though, Ginobli and Parker are two of the softest guys in the league. Even if you just breathe on them they are going to flop like you are killing them, so you might as well foul the crap out of them. No way should little Tony Parker be driving in on Amare and Shaq. I only saw one time where Shaq made him eat wood. No one gets physical with the Spurs but the Spurs get to mug people with Bowen. Just ridiculous.