Author: katadmin

Terry cashes checks mouth writes

By JONATHAN FEIGEN
jonathan.feigen@chron.com

DALLAS — Through three games of the NBA Finals, the Miami Heat had generally shut down Jason Terry. But they could not shut him up. Few ever do.

Terry openly doubted whether LeBron James could keep up with him through the series, saying he would wear James out. “We’re going to see if he can do it for seven games,” Terry said.

He sniffed that the Miami defense, then controlling the series, was not as strong as the defense Dallas conquered in the first round. “Portland, by far, has the best D,” Terry claimed. He pledged again and again that the shots that had been clanging would begin to fall.

By the time he drove the Mavericks past the Heat on Thursday, he seemed ready to declare that James’ muscles were fake and that, with Dallas leading the NBA Finals 3-2, Mark Cuban needed to pack just one T-shirt for the trip to Miami.

“We all know Jet is a confident young man,” Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki said. “He always has a lot to say to us in the locker room. He’s always talking. He’s just an energetic guy. He loves to talk, and he loves to hear himself talk.”

Terry does not deny it. As the forerunner of the recent wave of Seattle-bred NBA talent, he comes from the Gary Payton school of on-court decorum.

“It’s something I grew up with, watching my idols like Gary Payton and guys like that,” Terry said. “Being from the inner city, it’s just a part of my game.”

It was not, however, part of the Mavericks’ style or an easy mix with Nowitzki. When Steve Nash, Nowitzki’s closest friend in the league, left Dallas for Phoenix, the Mavericks signed Terry to provide a needed jolt of backcourt scoring. He was never expected to coolly run the offense as Nash had, but through their first season together, Nowitzki struggled with the change in style.

“We have a kind of love/hate relationship,” Nowitzki said. “We ride each other a lot. We talk to each other a lot. We argue a lot, even during games, but it’s all because we want to win.”

At times they come off like a weird German television version of Shrek and Donkey, with Nowitzki the put-upon, stoical hero bouncing between annoyed and amused as Terry runs his mouth.

Terry, however, has come as close as anyone to becoming the Mavericks’ second star, Nowitzki’s co-closer and a key to the series. After Dallas’ Game 3 loss, their second in the series and the second in which James shut down Terry in the fourth quarter, Nowitzki challenged Terry every bit as much as Terry had called out James.

“Jet hasn’t really been a crunch-time, clutch player for us the way we need him to,” Nowitzki said. “He’s a big reason why we’re here, because he’s one of the great fourth-quarter players we have in this league. But they’ve been able to really take that away.”

That changed in both games since, with Terry twice bolting past James in the closing minutes of Game 4 and shooting over him in Game 5. On Thursday, he added six assists, including an outstanding pass to set up Jason Kidd for a late 3-pointer.

“If you look at the whole playoffs, he’s been playing terrific all-around basketball,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. “With a great player like .?.?. Dirk, a guy of that magnitude, everybody wants to try to find who the No. 2 scorer is. Jet is a great scorer, he’s a great shooter, and he’s a great player.”

More than anything, he thinks of himself as a player with too much confidence to be denied, especially by himself.

“Regardless of what’s going on throughout three quarters of the game, in the fourth quarter I know I’m depended on to come through,” Terry said. “It’s my job. All season long, ever since I’ve been a Maverick, I’ve been the guy in the fourth quarter they depended on to either make plays or make shots. I really relish in that role.”

Mitchell remembered for his community work

By Jerry Briggs
jbriggs@express-news.net

Long after the cheering stopped for one of the best players in Spurs history, Mike Mitchell tried to deliver a message of hope to troubled kids.

The former sweet-shooting small forward dedicated the last years of his life to that mission.

“He loved it,” former Spurs forward Mark Olberding said. “That was his passion. He had some personal issues he was going through as a player, and he turned (around) and gave back to the community, helping those at-risk kids.

“He did a great job. He’ll be forever remembered for that.”

Mitchell, a 1980s-era Spur, was memorialized in a ceremony attended by about 300 people Thursday night at the Antioch Sports and Community Center.

A San Antonio resident and longtime member of the Antioch Baptist Church, Mitchell died June 9 after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 55.

The crowd at the service was an eclectic mix.

Several former NBA players, including former Spurs Olberding, Paul Griffin, Larry Kenon, Mike Gale, Keith Edmondson and Reggie Johnson, turned out.

They all sat in a section with some of the Baseline Bums, the team’s long-time fan group.

Also, former Cleveland Cavaliers standout Campy Russell made a trip from Cleveland, where he works as the team’s director of alumni relations.

Russell was a fifth-year player with the Cavaliers when Mitchell came into the NBA as a rookie in 1978.

“Today was the first day I realized that Mike was gone,” a tearful Russell told the group. “We were always close. We hit it off right away, and we played the same position — can you imagine that?”

Other less-familiar faces with important jobs in the San Antonio community also attended. One was Roy Washington, superintendent of the Cyndi Taylor Krier Juvenile Correctional Treatment Center.

Mitchell, as CEO of a non-profit that focused on drug counseling for youth, often held court several years ago with kids at the Bexar County-operated Krier center.

“Mike was very personable,” Washington said. “Those kids paid attention to him.”

Mitchell had quite a story to tell.

He played professional basketball for 22 years in the NBA and in Europe, including seven with the Spurs from 1981-88.

A dashing talent with a 19.8-point career scoring average in 10 NBA seasons, he played with Hall of Famers George Gervin and Artis Gilmore on the Spurs. He dueled in the playoffs against the Magic Johnson-led Los Angeles Lakers.

Afterward, he went overseas and thrilled fans in Italy with a feathery jump shot. Part of his story wasn’t so thrilling.

In 1987, Mitchell checked into a rehabilitation center, a victim of substance abuse.

“I wasn’t worried about him,” Russell said. “He had a lot of good people around him. That was really the greatness of Mike Mitchell. He was willing to change.”

Rehabilitation was an experience that prompted Mitchell to found the National Institute of Sobriety, Education, Rehabilitation and Recovery (NISERR), a non-profit designed to combat chemical dependency.

Starting in 2003, following a long basketball career in Europe, Mitchell went into schools and correctional facilities in San Antonio to spread the word. He was encouraging. He was upbeat.

He was loud.

“Mike was pretty dynamic,” Washington said. “He came in and with his height and that commanding baritone voice. He had their attention. He joked with the kids, and they laughed a lot. They apparently (listened to) everything he was saying because they would give it back to him.”

Gritty Mavericks shift momentum

By JAIME ARON
Associated Press

DALLAS — It’s not breathtaking athletic ability that’s gotten the Dallas Mavericks three wins from the NBA title.

Their strength is their resolve.

The Mavs are a collection of guys in their 30s who haven’t won a championship, but clearly know what it takes. They have the determination to keep fighting in every game, no matter how out of it they might seem — such as trailing by 15 points with 7:14 left on the road against a Miami Heat team waiting to be crowned champions since LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwyane Wade last summer.

Instead of continuing on their runaway path to an 0-2 deficit, the Mavericks sloughed off 7??1/2 underwhelming quarters in the NBA Finals and scored 22 of the last 27 points. Their astonishing display of veteran poise completely changed the outlook of this series just in time for the action to shift to Dallas.

Maybe the Heat’s youth and athleticism will still rule. But the mettle of these Mavericks means it might not be the coronation many were expecting. It could produce the first title in the club history.

“We just understand what we’re playing for,” said center Tyson Chandler, the least-experienced of Dallas’ starters, yet in his 10th season. “Some of the guys are on their last legs. We’ve got a lot of guys who may not be here next year. We’ve got a lot of guys that come from situations where they’ve never been this far. We just want to win it for one another. We’re never going to give up.”

The importance of the next game can’t be underestimated. All 11 times an NBA Finals has been tied 1-1 under the 2-3-2 format, the Game 3 winner has gone on to win it all.

The best-case scenario for Dallas is to win the next three games and not even return to Miami. Only two teams have won the middle three games at home on their way to a title, the Pistons in 2004 and the Heat in ’06, against the Mavs.

“You cannot get a split and get a huge emotional win in Game 2 and then go home and lose Game 3,” said Nowitzki, who scored Dallas’ final nine points, getting the winning basket on a layup using his injured left hand. “Hopefully our crowd will be rocking. They’ve been great to us and carried us throughout the playoffs so far.”

Dallas’ comeback was the biggest in an NBA Finals since Michael Jordan and the Bulls wiped out a 15-point deficit in Game 6 in 1992, beating Portland and claiming their second title.

For the Mavericks, it was their biggest comeback win in … 10 days.

That was the night the Mavs wiped out a 15-point deficit with 5:06 left to beat the Thunder in overtime in Oklahoma City in Game 4 of the conference finals.

Three weeks before that, they erased a 16-point, third-quarter deficit to beat the Lakers in Los Angeles in Game 1 of their second-round series.

A few days before that, they bounced back from a 12-point, second-quarter deficit to beat the Trail Blazers in Portland to seal the first-round series.

That makes four times — once each round — that they’ve won after trailing by double digits, all on the road. And all have come while relying on their core of 30-somethings, not youngsters like Rodrigue Beaubois, the lightning-fast guard whom Nowitzki, and the rest of the organization, was counting on to bring “unpredictability” to their attack this season. He’s been hurt and ineffective when healthy, putting the burden back on the guys used to carrying the load.

“We don’t want to get in these situations,” said Jason Terry, who got the latest rally rolling with a jumper, a layup and two free throws in less than a minute. “But if this situation does present itself, we’re a veteran team. And we pride ourselves on being calm, being even-keeled. If there’s time on that clock, there’s still time for us.”

Funny thing is, this club’s reputation coming into this postseason was the exact opposite. They seemed to lack the mental toughness needed to win 16 playoff games.

They got to 14 in the ’06 finals, then melted down. They lost in the first round three of the next four postseasons. Another early exit was in the making when they blew a 23-point lead with 14 minutes left in Game 4 against Portland.

That game has become both a rallying point and a reminder. If a veteran team like theirs can get that complacent and sloppy, then it can happen to anyone. Keep scrapping and there’s no telling what might happen.

“If you’re going to win a championship, you’ve got to have the wherewithal to hang in when things are tough,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “You have to keep believing. All year our guys have believed.”