JET article from yesterday.

[SMC0007]

The snap of the net as the ball rips through seems louder once the sun is down.

Jason Terry knows that sound. As a teenager in Seattle, he shot baskets in the dark outside his home after he heard Ricky Pierce say in an interview that was part of his routine.

"He said if you can shoot with the lights off," Terry remembers, pausing for emphasis, "when the lights come on you'll be able to knock them down."

What does a seventh-grade recollection have to do with today?

Well, Terry is the league's most prolific sixth man with an average of 19.8 points. It has been 19 years since a player averaged more points off the bench.

You guessed it. Pierce.

"I don't think there's any question he's going to win it," Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle says of Terry's designs on the Sixth Man award. "I don't know of anyone who is close to him in terms of what he's done.

"He's been great all year."

Terry embraces a task many players of his stature abhor. He doesn't view his role off the bench as a slight or a sacrifice.

He views it as best for the team.

This attitude goes back to his college days at Arizona under Lute Olson. Those teams were loaded with talent. Terry never knew if he would start or come off the bench, but he knew he would play.

So what if he doesn't start for the Mavericks? Terry knows he will be on the court at the finish.

"That's what this whole thing is about," Terry said. "Overall team success. If you can't buy into that, then you don't need to be here."

It didn't take Carlisle long to learn what Terry is about. Soon after he took over as coach, before there were chairs in his office, Terry dropped by to say hello.

Carlisle told the veteran he was unsure how to use him. He didn't know if he would start Terry and go small or bring him off the bench.

"I just don't know," Carlisle repeated.

"Coach, I can tell you what you do know," Terry replied. "I'll be ready for whatever role you give me."

That conversation sticks with Carlisle. It's one of the reasons he calls Terry a special guy with a great spirit.

And images of Pierce stick with Terry.

Pierce never won the Sixth Man award when he played for the Seattle in the early '90s. Those came from his days in Milwaukee. But the former Garland High School star was still one of the best in the league.

Terry considers Pierce the ultimate sixth man because he didn't need two or three shots to warm up. He came into the game ready to score. He picked up a lot from watching Pierce with the Sonics.

"If you look at it, the way I catch and shoot coming off screens and the mid-range game, that's a lot of what he did," Terry says.

Soon, the two will share something else: the Sixth Man award.

That's no shot in the dark. It will happen.

"I'm not going to be a guy who complains and sulks about minutes or starting or this and that," Terry says. "Hey, put me in and I'm going to be productive.

"That's how I've always approached it."

Ricky Pierce averaged 23 points in winning the Sixth Man award during the 1989-90 season. Jason Terry's average off the bench is the highest in the 19 years since.




http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...l.37be34f.html