Something to prove in the playoffs: Sean Deveney - SportingNews

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Something to prove in the playoffs
By Sean Deveney - SportingNews

Sean Deveney
SportingNews.com

Nine years ago, copies of a tape were making their way through the ranks of college coaches. The 15 minutes of grainy VHS footage showed a teen, built like a stick of Juicy Fruit, standing 6-9 and cruising easily around, past and over opponents in Germany's junior league. International scouting was in its infancy at the time, so few stateside had heard the name Dirk Nowitzki -- plus, the handful of scouts who were in Europe simply did not look for basketball talent in Germany.

Nowitzki's father thought attending college in America would be his son's best route to the NBA, and Dirk's coach, Holger Geschwindner, assembled the tape. Kansas coach Roy Williams was intrigued. Boston College was ready to offer a scholarship. Cal was considered the front-runner.

Lanny Van Eman, a former coach at Oregon State, was doing some consulting at the time and watched the tape. "Here was a 6-9 kid who had a beautiful shot, hit everything from the perimeter," Van Eman says. "He was very athletic, could run the floor, could drive past the defense and looked like he would just keep developing. It looked like the only thing he really needed was his post-up game."

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Much has changed. Even without attending college, Nowitzki caught the eye of NBA scouts and was the ninth pick in the 1998 draft. He has become one of the NBA's best players, the first legitimate MVP candidate in Mavericks history and the team's only All-NBA first-team player. Yet the scouting report on Nowitzki remains remarkably similar to the mental notes Van Eman made nearly a decade ago: Excellent shooter. Great size. Runs the floor. Handles the ball. Lacks a back-to-the-basket post-up game.

It was that weakness, in fact, that stuck with Nowitzki, a 7-footer, after last year's playoffs. He had been awful throughout the postseason, averaging 23.7 points (down from 26.1 in the regular season) and shooting just 40.2 percent from the field. Houston stifled him in the first round by defending him with small forwards Ryan Bowen (6-9) and Tracy McGrady (6-8). The Suns played Shawn Marion (6-7) on Nowitzki.

In the baggy-eyed hours after the Mavericks were eliminated in the conference semifinals by Phoenix, Nowitzki sat at a podium in Dallas and said, "I take a lot of blame myself. I want to be at the point where it doesn't matter who plays me. If they put a smaller guy on me, I want to post up, and if they play me with a big guy, I'll take him outside. I'm going to have another summer of hard work."

Nowitzki took that determination back to Germany in the offseason. The Mavericks are a talented team, and the emphasis coach Avery Johnson has put on defense makes them championship contenders. But Dallas will not have a chance to win a title if Nowitzki continually struggles against smaller defenders in the postseason. In these playoffs, Nowitzki could find himself guarded by players such as the Grizzlies' Shane Battier (6-8), the Spurs' Bruce Bowen (6-7) and Marion. If he doesn't provide consistent offense against smaller defenders, the Mavericks won't win.

That has been the focus of Nowitzki's work, and the results have been impressive. Nowitzki is having his most productive season, with career highs in points (26.6) and shooting percentage (.482). And the one skill he has lacked since his teens -- the post-up game -- is improving.

"I have been here five years," Mavericks assistant Paul Mokeski says, "and every year, we get to the playoffs and they match up smalls on Dirk. I think he has figured out how to handle that. He has always been able to shoot, and that is a big problem when you have a power forward guarding him -- he can take you outside and make his shots. Now, he is better at putting the ball on the floor and going to the basket stronger. He is backing down smaller guys in the paint and shooting over them."

There is no shortage of players, coaches and franchises that enter this postseason with something to prove, but in the coming weeks, Nowitzki and the Mavericks will have the most on the line.

The same question about Nowitzki haunts the franchise: Can regular-season success translate to the playoffs? Dallas has averaged 56 wins over the past five years but has made just one trip to the conference finals. The Mavericks have been labeled soft, and Nowitzki, as the team's mainstay for the past eight seasons, has been given the same tag.

But, in any sport, years' worth of labels are easily peeled off with the strength of one championship run. This season may represent Nowitzki's and the Mavericks' best chance. "We can do it," says Mavericks point guard Jason Terry. "We are deep. We can score. We play defense. And we have the big guy. We're ready."

Avery Johnson sneered, a rare facial condition for a coach normally so smiley. The Mavericks had just been trounced, 114-102, by the Warriors, essentially ending Dallas' hopes of winning the Southwest Division and gaining the West's top seed. Johnson said it was the most disappointing game he ever had coached. The team should give back one-eighty-second of their paychecks, he added. "Seventy-nine games," Johnson said. "I have been waiting 79 games to get some internal leadership. I haven't gotten it yet."

In the locker room, Nowitzki stood wrapped in towels and tried to maintain perspective. "Our offense was not great," he said. "But we don't worry about our offense. It's defense. We have to get our defense ready before the playoffs."

Indeed, the Mavericks' postseason concerns -- leadership and defense are part of that checklist -- go beyond Nowitzki's ability to work in the paint against small forwards. Johnson has stressed defense to this group, and it has responded. Just two years ago, Dallas ranked 28th in points allowed (100.8). That improved to 14th (96.8) in last year's regular season, but the Mavericks allowed an average of 106.8 points in the playoffs.

This year, Dallas' first full season under Johnson, the team is seventh in points allowed (93.2) and 10th in field-goal percentage allowed (.442). But the Mavs have been inconsistent. "When we play defense like we know we can," Nowitzki says, "we can beat anybody. We have to be at our best."

"They have got the defense to win it all, and that is the key," says Warriors assistant coach Mario Elie, who won championships with Rockets center Hakeem Olajuwon and Spurs power forward Tim Duncan. Elie disputes the notion that the Mavericks can't win without inside scoring from Nowitzki.

"Dirk right now is the best four-man in the league," Elie says. "He is not the same kind of player as Tim Duncan, where you throw it to him and run your offense. But they can win with him getting his points outside. I seem to remember Michael (Jordan) and the Bulls winning a lot without having a dominant scorer inside."

True, but the Mavericks don't have Jordan. Other than Jordan's Bulls, every championship team in the past 15 years has had a player capable of taking over in the paint. One reason is obvious: inside shots are high-percentage, especially late in tight games. But a good back-to-the-basket scorer also forces opponents to double-team, which sets up passes for open shots on the perimeter. This is a skill players such as Duncan and Heat center Shaquille O'Neal have mastered. Nowitzki still is learning.

"He is going to get his points, but you probably don't want to double-team him," one Western Conference scout says. "Their offense is still one-on-one play, with isolations and mismatches. They are not set up for him to get the ball inside, then dish it outside. Teams will do the same thing they did last year -- guard him with a smaller player and make him put the ball on the floor. It is still not his strength."

Nowitzki acknowledges that paint play never will be his best skill, and Johnson is careful not to push Nowitzki too hard into the post -- what makes him unique is his combination of size and shooting ability. He makes 40.9 percent of his 3-pointers, and the Mavericks don't want Nowitzki to emphasize a weakness at the expense of a strength.

In the loss to the Warriors, he burned power forward Troy Murphy for 15 points on 6-for-8 shooting in the first quarter. But after the Warriors switched defenders, mostly using Mike Dunleavy on Nowitzki, he was 5-for-14.

Still, Nowitzki appears better equipped to make opponents pay for going small, and, for Mavericks fans, the most heartening sign is an April 7 win in San Antonio (their first win on the Spurs' home floor in 2 1/2 years). Nowitzki, guarded mostly by Bowen, scored 30 points and passed up perimeter jumpers in favor of forays to the rim.

The Mavericks also were able to expose a weakness in the small forward-on-Dirk philosophy -- Josh Howard, the Mavs' slippery small forward, outmaneuvered Duncan and shot 9-for-13 from the field. When Nowitzki is matched against a small, quick defender, it almost always means Howard is guarded by a big, slow defender.

After that game, Mavs guard Jerry Stackhouse told reporters, "I don't think they're going to be able to play Bruce Bowen on Dirk anymore and put Tim Duncan on Josh."

Perhaps. But in the playoffs, the best strategy against Nowitzki still is to guard him with a smaller player. That was his team's undoing in last year's playoffs. He spent a summer working to change it. But this is what he was working toward -- the postseason. The playoffs are here, and if Nowitzki has fixed the longest-standing problem in his offensive game, now it the time to prove it.

Sean Deveney is a staff writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at sdeveney@sportingnews.com.