Mavericks’ Marvelous Resurgence
The once-woeful Dallas Mavericks have hit the 30-victory mark and are bearing down on the Denver Nuggets and Sacramento Kings for the eighth playoff spot in the NBA Western Conference.
“If your heart is beating and your blood is pumping, you’ve got to take a look at the standings now,” Dallas coach Dick Motta said Wednesday.
The Mavericks are two games behind Denver and three behind Sacramento with a tough road trip on the horizon. They play at Charlotte, New York and Boston in the next three games.
“We’ll know more about our playoff chances after we come off the next road trip,” Motta said. “If we are going to make the playoffs, we have to win at least one and possibly two of the games.”
There are 15 games left on the Dallas schedule.
Dallas won 24 games in the last two seasons. But Motta, who abruptly resigned as coach in 1987, has turned things around in his first season back.
“We’re having a lot of fun now,” said Jamal Mashburn. “We’ve won 30 games and we only won 13 all of last year. It’s a great feeling. There’s not much you can say about last year. We have some coaching now.”
Quinn Buckner was fired after the Mavs’ disastrous season in which Mashburn chaffed under what he considered a dictatorial rule.
“Coach Motta brings us stability, structure, and experience,” Mashburn said. “He brought fun back to basketball.”
Mashburn said there has been some “ridiculous talk” that the Mavs shouldn’t get into the playoffs because they’d miss a lottery pick.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Mashburn said. “We’ve got to win this for ourselves. This is what we’ve worked so hard for.”
Trials for Blazers
With fresh memories of the boos from the home crowd, the slumping Portland Trail Blazers left on their final Eastern Conference road trip of the season.
The Blazers have lost four in a row, the last three at home, and five of their last six.
They’ve dropped to 36-32 and, with 14 games to play, are just 2 1/2 games ahead of Sacramento and 3 1/2 up on Denver in the race for the final two Western Conference playoff spots.
The local sports talk radio shows were filled with criticism for the players and coach P.J. Carlesimo. At least one Blazer player is fed up with the fans, too.
“They drove here, right? If they don’t like it, they can get in their cars and leave,” Portland’s Rod Strickland said after the team was roundly booed in its lethargic 102-91 loss to Atlanta Tuesday night. “Fans buy a ticket and they can boo all they want, but if they don’t like the effort, don’t come down here and don’t tune in Blazer Cable.”
Carlesimo called his team’s performance a “disgrace.”
Uneasy Rider
Walt Barry, a card-show promoter, said he was filing a $7,500 lawsuit against Isaiah Rider of the Minnesota Timberwolves in an attempt to recover souvenir items that Rider was supposed to autograph and return to Barry.
Owens’ owie
Miami Heat forward Billy Owens missed Wednesday’s game at Washington because of a bruised left calf and is doubtful for Friday night’s game at Boston.