DALLAS—It was one of the easiest lobs Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle has smashed back in the media’s collective face this season. He was being quizzed about Jason Kidd’s basketball IQ.
“Savant-like,” Carlisle quickly said, before rattling off names like Larry Bird, John Stockton, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson as deserving of being lumped with Kidd on the all-hoop brainiac team.
In these Western Conference finals starting on Tuesday, maybe more than ever, success will be all in the Mavericks’ head.
It certainly won’t be in their legs, where they will be at a distinct disadvantage. This series represents the old versus the new, the experienced versus newbies, the wise versus....
Well, after their two series wins against Denver and Memphis, it would be unwise to call the Thunder unwise.
But there’s no debating that the biggest thing the Mavericks have working for them is their vast amount of experience to draw upon against an Oklahoma City team that is built around three terrific young players who were about ready to start elementary school when Kidd was a National Basketball Association (NBA) rookie.
The old man is going to have to be ready for the young bucks.
Youth will eventually be served. But the Mavericks hope this isn’t the time. Oklahoma City comes into the conference finals with virtually no big-time experience other than what it has amassed in the first two rounds of this playoff run.
There are two schools of thought on the experience factor. If you’re a believer that it matters, Jason Terry has your back.
“We pride ourselves on being veterans who have been in this position a few times,” he said on Monday. “We take that in and use it as an advantage. Will it factor in? You never know.”
Asked when it would, he quickly said: “Close ball games.”
Indeed, the Mavericks have been very good all season when games are decided late.
But then there’s the other side—which also would be Rick Carlisle’s side—that suggests none of it matters.
“When the ball goes up in the air, most of that stuff is out the window and you play,” Carlisle said. “That’s a pretty experienced team now. They just won a seven-game series. Even though they’re young, they’ve got a lot of experience under their belt.
“If that’s an advantage [for the Mavericks], great. But for me, that doesn’t guarantee anything. We’ve got to approach Game One and the entire series possession by possession, the same way we approached the first two.”
Charles Barkley, TNT’s analyst, recently said: “One thing has been proven in these playoffs—it’s about the young guys.”
Hey, 38 is young when you compare it with 50. The Mavericks have the benefit of knowing they won’t have to play any more back-to-back games until next season. And even though the conference finals are an every-other-day proposition, that’s not exactly hazard duty.
Besides, it’s not like they do a lot of practicing anyway. After the nine-day break between games, when they had live scrimmages three times, they won’t have that kind of workout again during this series.
Kidd said the key to exploiting wisdom over youthful exuberance is not to allow the Thunder to take advantage of their main asset.
“We’ve got to put them in a position to do that,” he said. “You’ve got to put them in a position they haven’t been, to be able to use that wisdom. If you don’t, they’re just as talented as any of the teams left in the playoffs.
“We have to use our strong points. And our strong points are our depth and our veteran leadership. I think those will be key in the series.”
To get an idea of the value of experience, look no further than the last series the Mavericks played. The Lakers had made three consecutive trips to the NBA Finals. But the Mavericks drew upon their heartache from recent years in the playoffs—and they played like the better, stronger, more confident team.
And really, that’s what it boils down to.
The way the Mavericks see it, if they keep playing that way, it won’t matter how much experience or inexperience either side has.
Dirk or Durant?
Which superstar would you want leading your team at this point in the playoffs?
Kevin Durant or Dirk Nowitzki?
It’s one of those questions that has no wrong answer and is super subjective. For instance, folks just north of the Red River might think Durant is the obvious choice, while fans immediately south might side with Nowitzki without a moment’s hesitation.
That’s what makes this Western Conference Finals series between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Dallas Mavericks so intriguing. For the first time in the Thunder’s 2011 postseason, it will share the court with a team that fields another bona fide superstar. The ultimate winner of this showdown could be decided by which big gun is able to prop his team on his shoulders the most.
“He’s a great, great player,” Durant said of Nowitzki. “He’s playing very, very well in these playoffs, and he’s been doing that for 10 or 11 years. We have our work cut out for us, but it should be fun.”
Nowitzki is in the midst of one of his finest postseasons yet. He’s averaging 26.5 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.8 assists. He’s shooting 49.7 percent from the field, 60 percent from beyond the three-point line and right at 90 percent from the free-throw line. He’s had three games of at least 32 points this postseason and has shown the toughness and grit that he not long ago was routinely blasted for not bringing.
Durant, meanwhile, goes into his first-ever West final with a head of steam and a stable of confidence. He’s averaging 28.9 points this postseason, along with 7.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists and one blocked shot per night. He’s shooting 45.8 percent from the field, 38 percent from downtown and 82.2 percent at the stripe. Like Nowitzki, Durant has silenced some critics by proving himself to be a reliable closer in these playoffs.
Durant is averaging 37 points on 50-percent shooting in closeout games thus far. The Thunder is 2-1 in those contests.
Of course, Durant isn’t seeking to turn this series into a battle of the stars.
“We can’t really think about it as us against Dirk, or me against Dirk,” Durant said. “I think we just go out there and play our games and have fun. That’s what I try to tell the guys all the time, just to have fun.”
Although their time on the court together was limited during the regular season, Durant and Nowitzki still managed to put on pretty impressive performances.
Durant averaged 29.3 points, six rebounds and four assists against Dallas in the three-game regular season series. He made 52.4 percent of his shots from the field in 41 minutes per game.
Nowitzki was limited in the regular season series due to injury and played only the first game and the first half of the second meeting. He averaged 23.5 points on 61.9 percent shooting in those two appearances, which averaged out to just 25.5 minutes. He had a game-high 34 points in the Mavs’ 111-103 win on November 24.
“He’s as skilled as an offensive player as I’ve seen, and he does so many things,” said Thunder coach Scott Brooks of Nowitzki. “Very fundamental basketball, but then he throws stuff at you that’s not fundamental. He scores off the wrong foot, spinning the way that you don’t think he’s going to spin, and he makes the fadeaway shot look very easy.”
In Photo: Kevin Durant (left) and Dirk Nowitzki are delivering roughly the same numbers in the scoring and rebounding departments.
