Full-Court Press

General: "Why should we be tight?"

It’s been suggest the Mavs haven’t been able to loosen up against G-State. Watching the first three games, I would tend to agree. The General doesn’t.

“Why should we be tight? That should be the last thing we should be,” Avery said today. “We should be excited and pumped up and ready for the challenge.

“I know as a player, when I’ve been in their situation, I know I wasn’t tight. That wasn’t the word. Was I peeved about some stuff? Was I ready to knock somebody and crack somebody upside the head? Yeah, and hit them in some other spots.”

Ouch. The Mavs need to dish it out tomorrow night in Game 4. If not, their collapse in the NBA Finals will seem tame in comparison.

“It’s almost a Game 7 situation,” Dirk said. “We can’t go home 3-1 down.”

A win ties the series 2-2 with a win and Dirk and Co. regain the home-court edge heading to the Game 5 on Tuesday at AAC. Nellie’s Warriors have won Games 1 & 3. Will the league’s best road team hold serve in the even-numbered affairs.

“We know the playoffs is an emotional roller coaster,” Dirk said. “It feels like if you win one game, ‘Yeah, we’ve got these boys.’ You lose one game and you think you can’t win again.”

-- Art

Shout it out: Mavs prez and Jackson

I read somewhere that Mavs president/CEO Terdema Ussery didn’t have a shouting match with G-State's Stephen Jackson in Game 2. That might have been the same place I read Avery and Cuban didn’t have a contract dispute last summer.

Well, fiction can be fun. You’ve got to consider the sources and I trust mine, which include plenty of people from both teams that know exactly what happened in the tunnel between Ussery and Jack. Ussery claims he was just trying to calm Jack down. That’s not his job. That’s his spin job.

And for some of us our job is to report the facts.

-- Art

Mavs fall, down 2-1 to G-State

Has the Mavericks’ season really come to this?

A team driven to make history could be on the unthinkable end of the ultimate in NBA playoff upsets.

Golden State is halfway home to being the third eighth seed ever to knock off a No. 1 after ripping through the Mavs 109-91 Friday night at Oracle Arena.

The Warriors lead the first-round series 2-1 would move within a victory of the Western Conference semifinals by winning here Sunday. No eighth seed has won a best-of-seven series since the NBA adopted the format in 2003.

“We’re going to stay the underdogs,” Warriors guard Baron Davis said after scoring 24.

The Mavs now face as close to a must-win without being a must-win before heading back to North Texas. The defending conference champs won’t be returning to the NBA Finals, much less the next round, without correcting a number of breakdowns from Game 3.

“Our goal is to beat them and that’s really what we’ve come here to do,” Mavs swingman Jerry Stackhouse said. “Nothing less than just winning this series. That’s all it’s about. Whether you win it in four games, win it in five games or win it in seven games, it’s about winning this series and moving on.”

-- Art

Why were the Mavs flat in Game 1?

We’ve gone over the “Mavs being flat” angle for Game 1 enough, but Stack had an interesting take on why they were flat. It had nothing to do with rust. It had more to do with the regular-season finale being too easy.

“The Seattle game was not a good game to have because everything came so easy,” Stack said of the 31-point rout. “They’re one of the worst defensive teams in the league and that was the last bump-and-grind before the end of the regular season, so that put us in a passive mode.

“We got it back pretty quick. We still haven’t played offensively the way we’re capable of playing. That’s a good sign for us. All of the sudden we’re figuring out some things we can do against their defensive schemes. We’ll get better as the series goes on.”

-- Art

Stack: "This is a series now."

It’s a series now and it won’t be decided tonight. At least that’s what Jerry Stackhouse said before Game 3. The Mavs are used to playing from behind in a series. Tonight, they can take a lead.

“We win by 30 tonight, it doesn’t mean anything,” Stack cautioned. “It’s the first to four games. That’s how we’ve always looked at series from our very first season together being down to Houston. We’ve always looked at it as it’s not a series until both teams won a game. This is a series now. Both teams won a game and now lets see what happens.”

-- Art

League action (for) Jackson

Warriors swingman Stephen Jackson was fined $50,000 by the league Friday for his actions after he was ejected in Game 2, which presumably includes his heated exchange with Mavs president Terdema Ussery.

Jackson was escorted off the court through the midcourt tunnel behind the scorer's table following his ejection in Wednesday's game. He appeared to be using a little bit of foul language and didn't exactly leave the court in a timely fashion.

It was another poor showing for a player who was involved in the 2004 player-fan brawl in Detroit while with the Pacers.

Another botched award ....

Nuggets center Marcus Camby was named the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year today in yet another instance in which an average defender is honored for having gaudy blocked shot numbers.

As if no one learned anything from four-time (mediocre) Defensive Player of the Year Ben Wallace's departure from the Pistons to join the Bulls -- a move that didn't really affect the defense of either team -- Camby is now the latest poster child for highlight defense.

Yes, Camby can block shots and provide weak-side help to make opponents look bad. But when it comes to fundamental principles of defense -- such as, I don't know, defending the pick-and-roll, actually keeping his man from scoring and suitably protecting the paint -- Camby comes up short.

So when you watch the Spurs-Nuggets playoff series and wonder why Denver's team defensive numbers (opponent's PPG, rebounding differential, opponent's FG perc.) are so weak and why Nene -- and not the "league's best defender" -- is guarding Tim Duncan, well, it's because Camby isn't that much of a defensive player.

-- Joe Garza, Mavs Lite

Marcus Camby showcases his average perimeter defense. Could this be a pick-and-roll situation?

Josh's time to shine

This is a series built for slashers and the Mavs’ ultimate slasher is Josh Howard. Oh, he’s also an All-Star. So there’s no shame in J-Ho stepping up into a lead role against G-State with Game 3 tonight in Oaktown.

That doesn’t mean Dirk steps down. It just means this year’s probable MVP tweaks his game a bit, as he’s said and we’ve written since before the series started.

Howard has been the most consistent of the Mavs through the first two games, averaging 21.5 points, 12 rebounds, 2.5 assists and shooting 47 percent. He leads the team in rebounding and steals, and is second to Jason Terry in scoring.

Howard’s 22 points, 11 boards and five steals Wednesday is another example of his ability to impact the game at both ends of the court. “It was more our tempo,” said Josh, the only Maverick with double-doubles in both games. “We forced them to play like we do. We’re going to play our style.”

-- Art

Jackson-Mavs prez exchange words

The league is looking into how Stephen Jackson left the court Wednesday after being ejected. Suspensions and/or fines have yet to the determined.

It took a while for Jackson to vacate the premises. Apparently, there was some confusion on his escape route. Instead of going out of the visitor’s entrance near the Mavs bench, Jackson was circled around the scorer’s table and taken through the midcourt tunnel that’s normally used by Mavs coaches.

He encountered fans along the way -- probably not the wisest choice considering his history in the Indy-Detroit brawl a few year back -- and Mavs president Terdema Ussery. It seems Jackson and Terdema exchanged words. Heated words.

I asked Mark Cuban if he took issue with Ussery injecting himself in what potentially could have been a bad situation. “His job is to protect our fans and organization,” Mark said. “Jackson was obviously being rude and creating a situation that wasn’t positive for the NBA or our fans.”

But was Ussery’s behavior appropriate for a team president? “If the person doing it is smart, as Terdema is, then its the right thing to do,” Mark replied. “Better than a fan or random person engaging him. The guy was looking for trouble, better for one of us to have his attention than a fan or someone that was in the wrong place and wrong time.”

Warriors officials weren’t too happy with the scene, especially with exit play for Jackson. According to one team official I talked to, league security personnel later admitted they made a mistake by not walking Jackson through the normal exit.

“The bench is a lot safer than walking next to the fans who are drunk and screaming at him,” the G-State official said. “A fan literally could have slapped him. There’s a long stretch there where he had to walk through the fans. That Terdema thing would not have happened had [security officials] they not made a bad decision and take him the wrong way.”

As for what Jackson thought of Ussery’s apparent attempts to calm him down: “I didn’t know who he was, but I really don’t care. I still don’t care,” he told my good friend Janny Hu at the San Francisco Chronicle. “He was probably trying to help calm me down, but at that point, I knew that I had the people that were with the Warriors with me, and I didn’t know who he was. So at the time, I wasn’t trying to hear nothing from nobody else. I was with my people. I was going into the locker room. Everybody else that wasn’t with us, I wasn’t concerned.”

-- Art

Watch parties scheduled

If you're not making the trip to the Bay Area for Games 3 and 4, it's a shame. Looks like we're going to have great weather. But I digress...

You can still get in on the Mavs action because they're hosting watch parties at the Dave & Buster's on Highway 75 and Walnut Hill for every road playoff game, including Friday's Game 3 and Sunday's Game 4.

All parties start one hour before tipoff, and fans can win Mavs merchandise and autographed gear.

-- Mercedes Mayer