Johnson Must Succeed To Avoid Texas Boot

Is Dallas Mavericks coach Avery Johnson on the hot seat?

The question may seem absurd, as Johnson has a regular season winning percentage of .786, the best of any active coach. But Johnson's postseason tally is merely average at .524 (a 22–20 record). In each of the Mavericks' last two postseasons, they've gone from the odds-on choice to win it all, to exiting the playoffs with a spectacular thud. The Mavericks' offseason moves, particularly in contrast to their last two summers, suggest that the chair in Johnson's office may be warming up a bit.

Usually the Mavericks are one of the most active teams in the summer as they furiously retool their team for another run at that elusive title. They engineer draft-day swaps, add salary, move promising young players for veteran savvy, and the like. This summer, barely a peep was heard out of the Mavericks offices. Yes, they gave casual pursuit of free agent prizes Grant Hill and Gerald Wallace. They've also been mentioned as a possible destination for Kobe Bryant (though I doubt anyone takes that too seriously).

Barring a bolt from the blue, the Mavericks' off-season player moves have only consisted of adding three second-round draft picks, picking up the option on center DeSagana Diop, and re-upping with aging swingmen Jerry Stackhouse and Devean George. This weekend, they all but finished this series of tweaks by inking free agent forward Eddie Jones to a two-year deal.

After the Mavericks roared to 67 wins last season — only to bow out in six games during a first-round rout by the Golden State Warriors — you might have suspected major summer changes. Instead, the team has stood pat.

Furthermore, it isn't as if this is a team with a lot of expiring contracts that can be reshaped over one summer. Instead, these are the Dallas Mavericks for the rest of the decade. The team's officials weren't shy in talking title all of last season, as if the team owed one to the fans after frittering away an excellent chance against Miami in 2006. Their moves — or the lack thereof — are big votes of confidence in this edition of the roster. If further changes will be made, they most likely will be on the sidelines.

That's the circumstantial evidence pointing to Johnson's hot seat, and there's also some compelling direct evidence. Both against Golden State a few months ago and against Miami last spring, the Mavericks struggled to match tactics against their opponents.

In game 4 against the Heat, Pat Riley changed the Heat's defensive strategy to surround forward Dirk Nowitzki and force the other Mavericks scorers to beat them. Dallas was slow in adjusting to the new defense and spent the remainder of the series finding their secondary options — Stackhouse, forward Josh Howard, and guards Jason Terry and Devin Harris — only as the shot clock wound down. As a result, the Mavericks went from having a title in their grasp before the end of game 3 (up two games to none with a doubledigit lead in the fourth quarter) to the short end of a six-game series.

The Mavericks failed to tailor their strengths against the Warriors to capitalize on that team's weaknesses. Golden State played a small lineup that was prone to be being over-powered near the rim. Rather than run plays for the 7-foot Nowitzki near the basket, they insisted on getting him the ball in at the elbow and other spots away from the hoop, enabling the Warriors' double and triple teams to bottle him up and strangle the Mavericks' offense. By contrast in the next round, Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan all but eliminated the part of the Jazz playbook that called for power forward Carlos Boozer to take midrange shots against the Warriors, and instead called one play after another that simply fed him the ball inside until he'd worn out every Warrior defender. As a result, the Jazz won the series over Golden State in five games.

Many critics singled out Nowitzki for the Mavericks' playoff failure, but it wasn't as if Boozer and Nowitzki have radically different inside games. Both have averaged about nine boards a game during their career, though Boozer is thought of as a bruiser and Nowitzki is regarded as a European softy. Nowitzki has a deadly threepoint shot and Boozer is a somewhat better rebounder. But there was nothing stopping the Mavs from trying the Utah strategy — except that, evidently, no one thought of it. Rather than tailor their strengths to their opponents' weaknesses, the Mavs again went down by sticking to their regular season offense.

That's the second reason I think that Johnson's seat is getting warmer. The third is that the team hired Paul Westphal, an experienced head coach, to be Johnson's lead assistant. Del Harris, a veteran head coach who is also on staff, has said he's not interested in another head coaching job and it's no surprise why, as he is 70. Westphal is 56 and still wants to run a team.

I don't expect that we'll soon see Johnson doing color commentary on TNT while his agent looks for possible vacancies. While his tactical failures have come on a big stage, they are the usual growing pains of young coach. It's just that most young coaches don't take over title ready teams, and not many young coaches beat either Pat Riley or Don Nelson on their first out. This is Johnson's fourth season running the show in Dallas. If he learns from his mistakes now, then he'll be there a while. But if he doesn't, and the Mavericks make another dramatic playoff face plant, expect Johnson in the broadcast booth: He certainly won't be the first coach to learn his lessons the hard way.

mjohnson@nysun.com