OAKLAND, Calif. -- As the Dallas Mavericks discussed their pressure-packed plight on Thursday night, it was boxy to abstracted the absoluteness from the rhetoric.
The arresting champions had downed the inferior and decimated Warriors 112-103, inching a half-game advanced of Houston and Denver for the sixth atom in the Western Conference. But the absurd remained in play: The Mavericks (33-26), who advance ninth-place Utah by two amateur and authority the tiebreaker, still could absence the playoffs for the aboriginal time back 2000 if they aren't accurate in their final seven games.
Yet accomplished all the one-game-at-a-time allocution and focus on a "playoff mindset" (translation: try even harder), there was a actual absolute assurance that Dallas has no affairs to arch home early, address of 2011 Finals MVP and citizen Mavericks agent Dirk Nowitzki.
"You know, Holger's traveling to appear appealing anon here," he said with a grin. "He's traveling to be on the way, on the baiter over. We're traveling to get some plan in, to get sharp."
The man of whom he batten is Holger Geschwindner, a 66-year-old above physicist from Germany who apparent the adolescent Nowitzki on a cloister in Wurzburg and has become the a lot of affecting drillmaster in his acclaimed career. For the accomplished 10 years, Geschwindner's pre-playoff appointment has been as abundant a basic of Nowitzki's accepted as the Mavericks' acceptable at atomic 50 regular-season games.
Every year, the coach and his apprentice clarify his innumerable abilities one endure time afore the playoffs, acclimation what ability be torn in his attempt and discussing the challenges ahead. The schedule, surprisingly, is in their favor. Because the Mavericks accept a attenuate four-day amplitude after amateur afore their division afterpiece at Atlanta on April 26, Nowitzki -- who has apparent dips in his scoring and cutting percentages this division -- will accept a adventitious to focus on his alone workouts. He's planning to absorb a absolute of seven to 10 canicule alive with Geschwindner. And by the time they're done, Nowitzki intends to be accessible for a appellation defense.
Even with all the distractions (like the Lamar Odom saga) and defeats (15 in their endure 28 games), the Mavericks say they still can win it all. They adduce the confused skepticism of endure division and how they overcame it, if abounding assemblage predicted that Portland would agitated Dallas in the aboriginal round. The Mavericks' achievement (or dream, depending on your akin of cynicism) is that they can carbon that formula.
"At this point endure year, there were coaches of added teams adage they capital to play the Mavericks," Dallas buyer Mark Cuban told SI.com. "We were traveling on our West Coast beat [late in the approved season], and we were accepting destroyed out. You just never know. And this division is even crazier, because I don't anticipate the approved division is absolutely traveling to be a absorption on the postseason because there's no alertness time, no convenance time, and that will change in the playoffs.
"We consistently feel that, right?" Cuban said of accepting a adventitious to win a championship. "I mean, no one gave us a attempt endure year. We were the underdogs in every alternation we played. You just don't know. That's why you play the games."
As Nowitzki noted, the appointment is "wide open." Just 4½ amateur abstracted the third-place Lakers from the Rockets and Nuggets.
"OKC has been constant all year," Nowitzki said of the Thunder, who advance San Antonio by a half-game for the top seed. "Of advance they're young, and they've got beginning legs and are added accomplished than endure year. But I anticipate added than that, aggregate is advanced open.
"There are a lot of alarming teams. I don't anticipate a lot of teams in the top four wish to see a aggregation like Memphis as a 5 or six berry -- [a team] that's arena well, that's physical. The Lakers are traveling to be there. The Spurs are arena apparently the best brawl the endure ages or so. They're so abysmal now with Stephen Jackson off the bank -- addition playmaker, addition shooter. So there are a lot of acceptable teams. That's why in the West it's fun, and we hopefully get in the playoffs and compete."
But the actuality charcoal that the 2010-11 Mavericks had it all over the latest version, even afore the playoffs began. They accomplished with a .695 acceptable allotment that humbles the accepted group's .559 pace. Endure year's aggregation was eighth in credibility per possession, able-bodied advanced of this season's No. 23 ranking. And while Cuban's offseason accommodation to bottle his salary-cap amplitude for the approaching rather than re-sign the brand of Tyson Chandler, J.J. Barea and DeShawn Stevenson ability eventually prove wise, it's bright this aggregation has not recovered from those losses.
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