Backward March? Mavs not worried

[kriD]

Backward March? Mavs not worried

11:28 AM CDT on Friday, March 16, 2007
By EDDIE SEFKO / The Dallas Morning News
esefko@dallasnews.com

The first inclination is to panic.

But if you've watched the Mavericks lose twice in three nights and felt a twinge of paranoia flicking through your body, you may be caught up in the moment and forgetting history.

Think back one year, when the Mavericks lost three games in a row and five out of seven, and just about everybody was quick to disbelieve in what would become an NBA Finals team.

The Mavericks' record last March: 9-8.

"We didn't have a great March last year, and then we were able to come back strong," Avery Johnson said. "Who knows what's going to happen this time?"

Nobody knows, of course.

But what the Mavericks absolutely know is they must learn from what has transpired in the last two games. And it starts tonight against Boston, a game that looked pretty bland a week ago, but now carries substantial weight.

A loss tonight would send the Mavericks to Detroit with a three-game losing streak. And the Mavericks have lost in two of their last three trips to face the Pistons, who are playing well.

While another loss still wouldn't induce panic city, the Mavericks would rather not tempt fate or their standing in the Western Conference, still a solid three games in the loss column over Phoenix.

"We like still winning in our down stretches," point guard Devin Harris said. "We may play poorly and still win. We don't like losing around here. But if we don't play our best, we still have to find a way to win.

"Hopefully, we won't have to go through that [last March] again. We had three of our top four guys out. Hopefully, we'll keep everybody healthy."

Johnson left no doubt that he doesn't mind this state of affairs for the Mavericks. It's a little easier to keep players attentive in film sessions when you're coming off a pair of losses, and the miscues are more tangible.

When the Suns' Amare Stoudemire shreds the defense by getting great post position, then forces his way to the bucket, it stings a little more when the scoreboard reads the wrong way.

"It's great," Johnson said. "We get a chance to practice a little bit, play another game and just keep on evaluating and keep on getting better. That's what the focus is on for us. It's always a learning process for us."

Added Harris: "We're trying to correct things defensively that we've been doing a poor job of lately. Obviously, we're not playing that bad of basketball. We lost by two last night, and it was a couple little things that could have gotten the job done."

Clearly, the debacle against the Suns – losing a 16-point, fourth-quarter lead and a six-point advantage in the last 30 seconds – reinforced that the Mavericks are fighting some untimely mistakes.

But it's not only at crunch time. Johnson said the Mavericks were making the same mistakes that cost them down the stretch against the Suns early in the game, too.

"It's humans we're dealing with," he said. "None of us are perfect. And the team that makes the least amount of mistakes normally is the team that wins. But our guys didn't like what they saw on video."

The film session was extended Thursday, lasting nearly an hour.

As much of a pain as it was to watch, it will be worth it if the Mavericks don't have to see a rerun of that horror show that occurred last March.