The irony is that it really wasn't KVH poor defensive play, but his poor offensive play at the end of the game that was the problem. Regardless, KVH is their offensive sub, and they HAD to score the previous possession to stay in the game. You can't coach for what will happen after that with only 20 seconds left in the game, because there may be no after that. Again, imo, AJ made a number of successful coaching changes in the 2nd half that pretty much dictated play for 15+ minutes. Of course, JVG countered, and held up his half of the bargain. After that, it was just a matter of too much T-Mac and not enough Dirk. It was a 2 point win, that could have been a 2 point loss. Such a slim margin.
Was it JVG that insisted on playing Yao as a high post screen and then dive to the basket? It worked so well last night between Yao and TMac. It usually ends up a Yao's dunk or a TMac's jumper or drive. Don't blame KVH for not running to TMac at the last shot. He was afraid that Yao would run down and get an easy basket for a TMac assist ...
While I have tremendous respect for you as a poster, I could not disagree with this statement more. That goes for SamCassell's mention of Ryan Bowen having no defensive skills as well. IMO, defense is the most difficult and often most impossible skill to teach a player. You cannot teach anticipation, lateral quickness, and cajones. Players like Steve Francis and Keith Van Horn will NEVER be good defensive players. It doesn't matter who teaches them or how much effort they put in on the court. Both of them lack the requisite anticipation from a mental standpoint to cut off or counteract an offensive player. Yao can be decent post defender and excellent team defender because he does have good anticipation. However, he will never be a great defender outside the paint because at 7'6" he simply doesn't have the lateral quickness a la Hakeem. Our very own Michael Finley does have all the physical tools and can play good defense in stretches, but he is never going to be a big defensive stopper because he quite simply a p***y who cannot impose his defensive will on most decent NBA players. Now you might say that Ryan Bowen is not the quickest guy. But I disagree. He actually does have quite good lateral quickness, especially versus a guy 3-4 inches taller than him. But more importantly, he is an extremely intelligent defender who can anticipate and try to deny entry passes, step back and recover when Nitwitzki tries to get a first step on a drive, and time his jump and hand in the face to perfection when Nitwit attempts to fire off a J. And he can do focus on doing this for every second he is guarding Nitwit, in spite of the tickytack fouls called on him, the no call elbows, trips, and jabs he gets, and the fact that Nitwit is a great great scorer whose will to get open looks is just as big as Bowen's will to shut him down. All these things for the most part cannot be taught by any coaching staff, IMO. Whether Bowen was born with all this or acquired some part up to age 10 or age 19 or whatever I am not sure. But I am certain that "good defenders are [NOT] usually made."
Good point there Doc. Plus it is important to remember that Mark Cuban & Donnie Nelson have been turning over the Maverick roster for the past 3 years now so they aren't as cohesive a team as they would have you believe. AJ is a fine coach who brought an end to the Don Nelson country club atmosphere on the Mavericks and installed some edge, defensive effort and personal accountability. But this team's biggest weakness lies not with its rookie head coach but with its owner, that guy in the MFFL t-shirt, who doesn't know when to leave well enough alone. Don't forget who resigned Shawn Bradley, who didn't handle the negotiations with Steve Nash well and who brought in Keith Van Horn. Never forget that the Mavericks are a reflection of what their owner wants them to be.
Saying someone was 'outcoached' is a cliche people love to throw around. You can't boil a game in which 224 points were scored down into one posession where a coach decided not to call a timeout and say that decided the outcome. As DoD pointed out, there is plenty of expertise on the Mavs' bench. It's not like some coaches have some secret strategy for winning games that everyone else is trying to figure out. What some coaches do have is better players, and that's the case in this series, as it is in most every other one.
The problem I see with this analysis is that it totally discounts the last time the Mavs freed Dampier in the paint and the Rox sent him to the FT line. As Damp prepped for the FT's, the TV cameras focused on Barry, then Yao and then Wesley (who wasn't even in the game) all discussing defensive coverages with Van Gundy. After the FT's, Dampier was never free in the paint again. If that's not coaching, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Van Gundy is taking AJ to school By JOHN P. LOPEZ Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/3155766 Shawn Bradley comes to town with the imprint of Tracy McGrady's No. 1 on the back of his head, the victim of the most heinous dunk you'll ever see. Dirk Nowitzki comes to town wondering if the next thing he'll have to hand over to Ryan Bowen is the set of keys to his favorite car, considering Bowen and friends already have taken everything else ?Nowitzki's game, his confidence, his aura of being unstoppable. Mavericks big men Erick Dampier, Keith Van Horn and Bradley arrive with two fouls apiece. OK, not officially. But the way Yao Ming is working the paint and working them over, it won't take long. Down 2-0 in their opening-round playoff series with the Rockets, the Mavericks have issues, to say the least. They can't stop McGrady, can't ignite Nowitzki and can't match up with Yao. But here's their biggest problem. The one looking most sickly and unsure as the Mavs come to town is the one who is supposed to make it all better. Postseason is different Mavs coach Avery Johnson, a former Rockets guard and Houston resident, is a beloved fellow. He played with a lot of heart, made a lot of friends, learned the coaching ropes from some of the greats and is hard not to like. But that doesn't mean we should ignore the fact the biggest matchup problem the Mavericks face is on the bench, not the court. Johnson is getting outcoached by Jeff Van Gundy. Badly. Johnson did a fine job for the Mavericks in the regular season, taking over for Don Nelson and making all the right moves as Dallas sprinted to the playoffs with a 17-2 burst (including Nelson's last game) to end the year. But these are the playoffs. This is where Van Gundy's experience, his knack for meticulous preparation and, most importantly, the trust he has earned from his team have been huge factors. Johnson is not a bad coach. In fact, he probably will be a very good one. But when it comes to winning in the playoffs and building that indefinable bond the Rockets seem to have, X's and O's are only a small part of the equation. Players have to believe The secret to great coaching is not coming up with something brilliant to tell your guys. The secret is your guys' believing that it's brilliant. Van Gundy could well be shoveling a bunch of slop in timeout huddles and at practice. But at this point, the mix is so right, the belief in him so strong that it tastes like victory. McGrady has acknowledged that never has he had the faith in a coach that he has in Van Gundy. Jon Barry, a 13-year veteran, states flat-out that Van Gundy is the best coach he's ever had. Yao's improvement and confidence is obvious. And speaking of turning slop into savory delights, could the decision before Game 1 to start Bowen against Nowitzki have worked anywhere else? Could it have worked had these Rockets not had that confidence in one another and in what some call "The JVG Experience?" Imagine what would have happened back in the Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley, Mo Taylor and Jim Jackson days. Imagine if Van Gundy told that group exactly how the Rockets could beat the Mavs. "Ryan, you've got Dirk." After enjoying a hearty laugh and picking themselves up off the floor, most of the Rockets would have ignored their coach. But from the opening moments Saturday, there was a sense among these Rockets that, yeah, this is going to work. It did. That same confidence was clear in the looks on the Rockets' faces as Van Gundy spoke during the final timeout of Monday night's 113-111 win in Game 2. Yes. This is going to work. The Mavericks, on the other hand, have more questions than answers. They have yet to figure out how to solve Bowen's defense and all the help he is getting whenever Nowitzki makes a move. Coming into the series, Van Gundy recognized that if there is a weakness in Nowitzki's game, it is his passing. The Rockets challenged Nowitzki to kick the ball to the open man or find the open shooter. He has failed. So, too, have his teammates. The Mavs also have failed to keep Yao off the low block, which certainly is getting much more difficult than it once was, considering his increased confidence and strength down low. Dallas also hasn't exploited a weakness in Yao's game by bringing him out of the lane to defend the pick-and-roll. Why? Who knows? Perhaps Johnson has swallowed his whistle. That's what he accused official Joey Crawford of doing during Game 1, but officiating has had nothing to do with either Mavs defeat. Two moments Monday night showed just how much the Mavericks and their coach have struggled. When the Rockets were charging hard late in the fourth quarter, relying heavily on the hot-shooting Barry and Bob Sura, for some inexplicable reason Johnson directed his team to fall into a zone. It only made getting a wide-open look easier for Sura. Bang. He nailed the first of a pair of crucial 3-pointers. Then, on the game-winning possession, Van Gundy and McGrady took advantage of the smaller Mavs lineup. In the previous timeout, Van Gundy told his star not to call a timeout if the Mavericks tied the game. Just take the ball off a Yao screen and go to work. The Mavs were caught in disarray. Johnson had talked about trapping the Rockets' screen-and-roll. He talked about not allowing McGrady to take the potential winning shot. But there was confusion all around on the play. Josh Howard got caught up in the screen. Van Horn was slow to jump out and trap McGrady or even offer a serious challenge on his shot. Ballgame. Later, Johnson said the Mavericks "forgot" to trap the play. Forgot? In the playoffs? AJ's future might be bright, but right now he's getting JVG'd. john.lopez@chron.com Van Gundy is taking AJ to school
Not one to back down from a challenge Twenty games into his head coaching career, Avery Johnson has an equal number of regular-season and postseason losses. But a 2-0 series deficit won't stop him from battling. By FRAN BLINEBURY Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle RESOURCES http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/3155693 DALLAS - It was a few days before the start of the playoffs, and Avery Johnson had just finished lunch at a local restaurant. The rookie boss of the Mavericks paid his check and stood to leave when somebody at a nearby table said, "Good job, Coach." On that cue, all of the other diners rose to their feet and spontaneously erupted into a standing ovation. "That tells you something," said Mavs owner Mark Cuban. The tale was supposed to speak volumes about the difference in belief among the citizenry this spring, but even more it addresses the dramatic change in this Dallas team that was finally ready to make a serious run at an NBA championship. RESOURCES NBA ROLES Avery Johnson's NBA life: Player Spent 16 seasons with six teams, most notably parts of 10 seasons with the Spurs, helping them to the NBA title in 1999. Assistant coach Originally signed to be a player/coach with Mavericks this season, he decided to concentrate on coaching. Served as acting head coach in Don Nelson's absence for 13 games. Head coach Took over the Mavericks when Nelson stepped down March 19. Led them to a 16-2 record the rest of the regular season. Now, less than a week into the postseason, the Mavs trail the Rockets 2-0 in their best-of-seven series, and everyone is wondering how the express train jumped off the tracks in the first round. The team that closed the regular season with a 16-2 run ?and nine consecutive wins ?after Johnson took over as head coach when Don Nelson resigned on March 19 appears to be without answers. And the focus turns to the new man in charge on the bench. For while there are reasons to examine the lack of clutch play by All-Star forward Dirk Nowitzki, who is shooting 13-for-40 in the series, an even bigger problem for the Mavericks has been their defense. Or lack of it. In two games, the Rockets have averaged 105.5 points, and that is precisely the area where Johnson had concentrated his efforts and supposedly made Dallas better. "I'm severely disappointed in our defense," Johnson said. "Yao (Ming) gets 30, (Tracy) McGrady gets 30, then (Jon) Barry. They're spreading us out all over the place." 'In this together' The Mavericks keep insisting they're not playing poorly. So the burden shifts even more to the first-year playoff coach to come up with answers. "It's not me against the world," Johnson said. "It's the coaching staff and players. We're all in this together. Sometimes when you feel like you're all by yourself on an island, then you tend to make hasty decisions. "We'll come up with some different things. But no matter what, the hunger level has to be there. If you know anything about my history as a player, I had to be a hungry player. Because obviously I wasn't a high jumper, didn't make many 3s, wasn't too big, still haven't grown. "So you've got to have hunger, and sometimes you've got to get it from somewhere. Something has to spark you to get you to the point where you're angry, disappointed, whatever word you want. Hungry. You've got to go out here like you're on an empty stomach, and you're fighting for your last meal." Johnson likes to tell stories of tough love from his father, who motivated him to get out of the rugged Lafitte housing project in New Orleans by stoking the fires of competitiveness and strong will. He was often the smallest player on the basketball court all through high school and in college at Southern University. But that never stopped the 5-11 Johnson from thinking or playing big. He was undrafted by the NBA in 1988, eventually signed on as a free agent with Seattle, and changed teams six times in his first six seasons in the league. Yet his many moves never prevented Johnson from expressing his opinions or acting like a leader, even at times when a lot of people would have felt fortunate to be hanging on. "I always had tremendous respect for Avery when we played together," said Nate McMillan, a former teammate in Seattle and now the SuperSonics' head coach. "He came into every practice and every game prepared and ready to do his job. "Avery was never at all shy about getting in anybody's face. If he thought guys were goofing off or not concentrating in practice, he'd walk right up and tell you to knock it off. I guess that's something that was born inside of him." Select company Or perhaps it's a trait that is a necessity when you're spending a life bucking the odds and trying to convince everybody that you belong. He was once cut by San Antonio on Christmas Eve. It wasn't until Johnson's third go-round with the Spurs in 1994 that he was able to settle down, and he stayed on through 2001. He spent 16 years in the league and joined Calvin Murphy as the only players in NBA history under 6 feet to play in more than 1,000 games. When the Spurs won their first NBA title in 1999, so much of the credit went to the big-man tandem of Tim Duncan and David Robinson. But it was Johnson who hit the championship-clinching jump shot and who was the locker room nettle, poking and prodding everyone along. "You've got to be willing sometimes to step on toes," Johnson said. "A leader is definitely not one who is gonna be politically correct. Sometimes you've got to be brutally honest, even if you're wrong." One time when he didn't like something Malik Rose was doing, Johnson confronted him. An argument in the showers turned into a naked free-for-all on the floor. A few days later on the team bus, when Johnson stood up to address his peers, most of them assumed he was going to apologize. He did, in his own way, adding, "This is my team." In public, he can come off as "laid-back Avery," the smiling little man with the Louisiana drawl and the dancing eyes. But the image belies that edge, that cocksureness that made him a locker room force during the Mavs' run to the Western Conference finals in 2003 and brought Nelson to begin grooming Johnson as an assistant coach. Johnson took the reins from Nelson 13 times this season because of Nelson's health problems including shoulder surgery before stepping into the main role on March 19. "It was the right thing to do at the right time," said Nowitzki. "Nellie had done so much for us, restored the franchise and gotten us to a certain point. Not to knock Nellie in any way, but there were times this season when Nellie had health problems, and you could see that his focus wasn't always there. "Avery was a guy who was always heading in the direction to be a head coach. Since joining the staff as an assistant, he'd been talking and putting more of an emphasis on the defensive end. But you can only do so much when you're an assistant. You can't overstep the head coach. "When Avery got the job and took over, everything came completely into focus, and we really became a reflection of him. He's taken this job head-on, and we responded over the last month." Attitude adjustment Johnson changed the Mavericks' character. "In past playoffs, we used to go in thinking that we could outscore anybody and hope to get just a little defense," said veteran Michael Finley. "Avery has made defense the focal point and made us a stronger, tougher team." Center Shawn Bradley nodded his head. "We definitely feed off Avery," he said. "He's taken us to a different place. Not just in the X's and O's of basketball, but in our whole attitude, our approach to the game. I guess he's made us all willing to be more like him ?battlers." Now, however, they have the fight of their lives on their hands. Johnson has to find some way to stop, or at least curtail, McGrady. He has to prevent Yao from dominating on the inside as in Game 2. He must rehabilitate Nowitzki's confidence and reputation, and it all has to turn around fast. "I know personally when I've been in playoff situations and been down or you're facing a situation, I kinda felt sometime that I wanted to take a one-on-one challenge," Johnson said. "Obviously, it's a team game. It's not tennis. It's not golf. But there are times when you've got to take the challenge." Of all the things that have changed so quickly in Dallas, Avery Johnson hasn't. Which, for now, might be what the Mavericks have left to hang on to. fran.blinebury@chron.com
RESOURCES NBA ROLES Avery Johnson's NBA life: Player Spent 16 seasons with six teams, most notably parts of 10 seasons with the Spurs, helping them to the NBA title in 1999. Assistant coach Originally signed to be a player/coach with Mavericks this season, he decided to concentrate on coaching. Served as acting head coach in Don Nelson's absence for 13 games. Head coach Took over the Mavericks when Nelson stepped down March 19. Led them to a 16-2 record the rest of the regular season.
