[TheKid]

'Guts And Grins'
Finley Trait MIA In Loss To Minny


By Mike Fisher -- DallasBasketball.com
Basketball people used to laugh at the Mavericks. Now they laugh at the idea that the Mavericks would be foolish enough to trade Michael Finley.
"He's a 'guts-and-grins' guy,'' says Mark Aguirre, the ex-Mav who is now an assistant coach with a Pacers team involved in the first major deal made on the eve of Thursday's trade deadline. "On the west side, in the ghetto of Chicago, they check to see if you have any guts. Then they see if you can grin though what they do to you. Fin’s got it.’’
Tuesday at the American Airlines Center, there were too few reasons to grin on the Mavs side of things, as Dallas lost 117-100 to a Minnesota team that showed an arena-full of guts.
And the Mavs showed nothing – and got blasted by their coach for that.
“It was an extremely hard loss to take, especially since they were undermanned,’’ coach Don Nelson said. “I think that through a season you have some great wins and some tough losses and you know which one this was. We didn’t show up. I couldn’t get a good performance out of anybody. We played about every card we had and we came up deuces.
“This was a huge game for us if we wanted to win our division. We were outplayed, out-coached, out-manned, out-shot, out everything.’’
Kevin Garnett was attending a funeral. Terrell Brandon is out for the year. Gary Trent was an injury-DNP. The T’Wolves had lost five of their last six on the road, and a rare bright spot, All-Star Wally Szczerbiak, is the subject of a new and scathing “ESPN: The Magazine’’ roast that portrays him as a ball-hogging egomaniac.
There was no reason to lose to Minnesota, despite the fact that the T’Wolves, at 36-17, trail 37-17 Dallas by just a half-game for the Midwest Division lead. But Chauncey Billups went nuts, with 36 points -- 24 of them in the third quarter, when Minnesota sprinted to a 22-6 run.
That erased the 11-3 run the Mavs mounted that provided the home team a 56-46 edge, an advantage that, sensibly speaking, should have been enough as Dallas begins a five-game homestand.
But logic doesn’t always apply.
Dallas’ lethargy – an issue as the Mavs have now lost three of four – was evident again. Defensive intensity was lacking (nothing against Billips, but he simply shouldn’t score 16 points all by himself in a few minutes’ span; heck, he shouldn’t score 16 points in a game).
But how could Dallas be lethargic on offense?
Dirk Nowitzki scored just nine points, an astoundingly low number topped only by the fact that he took just 10 shots and made just two of them. Meanwhile, Steve Nash scored 19 in the first half, but was solved in the second half, held (relatively) to just five more points.
Which leads us back to Finley – and the need for a third member of The Big Three.
The rumors keep flying - and keep making so little sense. Example: Utah's Karl Malone makes noise about being shipped out, but his team has won five straight road games while he averaged 29 points, 11.4 rebounds, 6.4 assists and 2.2 steals per game. Why would the Jazz, now holding the No. 6 seed in the West, want to give up on that?
Meanwhile, Aguirre, a confidante of Pacers coach Isiah Thomas, swears that Jalen Rose, shipped to Chicago in a deal that lands Indiana Ron Artest, Ron Mercer, Brad Miller and Kevin Ollie, was never a subject of Indy-Dallas talks.
Dear media, can we make a deal? Before we throw more stuff against the wall to see if anything sticks, can we at least ask around?
The Mavericks have in Finley a two-time All-Star, in his prime, who seems willing to sacrifice his game to allow for the development of All-Star teammates Nowitzki and Nash.
Is Finley without flaws? Nope, and in fact, he may be at his peak at a player. But peaking at 19 points per game is OK, right? Did Finley do enough to help his Mavs win on Tuesday? Obviously not; he scored just 10 points, on an awful 3-of-19 night, and pitched in with just two rebounds.
But with 11 minutes left, Finley was the guy who demonstrated why he is still part of the backbone of the club. In the span of 20 seconds, it was Finley who drove the lane to earn two free throws, and then recorded a steal and an assist to bring Dallas to within 82-81.
Now don’t misunderstand; by choosing this loss as an example of Finley’s value, we’re setting Dallas up to be laughed at again. But even Nellie is trying to convince everybody to not overreact.
“You can’t look very far for what the reasons are (for the loss),’’ he said. “I don’t know, I don’t know if the players know. It was just one of those games, I hope. We haven’t had many of those this year. We haven’t had many hard losses and this is one that stings. This was a great opportunity without Garnett. I want to give them all the credit. We couldn’t guard man-to-man, we couldn’t guard zone. It was one of those games and I’ll accept I as that and we’ll pick up the pieces and hope we have a better effort the next time out.’’
And Finley is a pick-up-the-pieces guy, too, right?
Besides the fact that Finley's new contract and the CBA precludes Dallas from getting full value back, JW makes two other key points in the argument against dealing Finley:


"A big reason the Mavs are becoming the envy of many in the league is because we have a team full of guys who want to play team basketball. They love to play with each other because every player is selfless, sacrificing and they trust each other. Where did that start? Fin-Dog, that's where. He was here when it sucked. He 'gutted and grinned' (as Aguirre said) and is responsible along with Cubes and the Mad Professor for the Mavericks success. Finley should be the poster boy for the success of this franchise!''
Exactly -- as long as pinning up Fin's poster doesn't hurt the franchise. But let JW continue, as he points out that dumping Finley would almost certainly damage the franchise's carefully built image:

"Sure, big-time free agents, come to Dallas, we'll give you a nice contract. We'll name you a cornerstone and literally hang the franchise on your shoulders while we bring along the rest of the young pups. Some nights you may struggle to carry us while your feet burn with pain from plantar fascitis but you won't complain because that's the kind of guy you are. Along the way you may not miss any games and may make a couple of trips to the All-Star game. Give us your all and we will reward you well. Sure, we'll pay you long time and then trade you for a player not quite as good as you....how does that sound, Mr. Free Agent?''
As JW notes, the Mavs would lose all "cred if we trade Fin for anything less than a high-impact player that will lead us to the promised land.''
Said Aguirre: “Finley is a superstar. Those guys are hard to come by. You’re telling me Dallas is just giving away superstars? C’mon!’’
Guts and grins. With Finley, Dallas has more of the former, and will keep collecting the latter – despite the aberration that was Tuesday night.