Jugular night

- The Stars can effectively bury San Jose tonight with a win. A 3-0 series lead is 99% of the time Church. And the Mavs look like they are taking the sword from New Orleans and slicing their own jugular. They want no part of the playoffs anymore. They'll get beat by double digits tonight.

- The view from San Jose.

Sharks don't need any momentum

Ray Ratto
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

(04-29) 04:00 PDT Dallas -- It is still too early to declare that the San Jose Sharks are the Atlanta Braves of shinny, and it is also too generous. Right now, backed against the ropes by a team that doesn't hit all that much, they aren't even Braves caliber. Truth be told, they actually look more like the Sacramento Kings of the Rick Adelman era - always in the playoffs, rarely for very long.

The Sharks made their annual plea for "desperate" hockey after being smothered again by the Dallas Stars in Game 2 on Sunday night. They said it as though it was an actual strategic plan, like the neutral-zone trap, rather than a "Well, what brilliant idea do you have, smart ass?" statement that betrays both the arrogance of talent and the fear of failure.

And therein lies the problem with Game 3 coming tonight. This isn't so much about whether the Sharks can skate with Dallas, because they can. This isn't even about tactical considerations, because they were doing the things they needed to do throughout most of the first two periods Sunday.

But as they seem to do far too often, they stopped doing it. They were caught surprised when Joe Pavelski hit the deck, lost the puck and surrendered Brad Richards' game-tying goal 32 seconds into the third period Sunday. They were gob-smacked when the underharassed Sergei Zubov spun at the right face-off dot and hit the even less bothered Mike Modano for a one-timer from the left face-off circle that provided the game-winner.

And they accepted their fate too easily thereafter. Not by quitting, which is too easy a buzzword, but deciding to no longer do the things that worked for them before - crowding Dallas goalie Marty Turco, blocking shots, taking care to keep tabs on Dallas' best players, Mike Ribeiro, Brenden Morrow, Brad Richards and, yes, Modano Emeritus.

The fact is, and you don't need stats to prove this although they are easily found, Dallas' best players have enjoyed too much free-range hockey, with the predictable result, and San Jose's best players have been harassed, smothered or simply failed on their own.

Ribeiro has been better than Joe Thornton. Richards has been better than Jonathan Cheechoo. Morrow has been better than Ryane Clowe. Zubov and Stephane Robidas have been better than Brian Campbell, and Turco has been better than Evgeni Nabokov. And San Jose's young players and support staff have done largely nothing.

Hockey is not played as a man-on-man exercise, but when your best lose to their best, you lose. And when your other guys don't dramatically outplay the other guy's other guys, you lose fast.

The Sharks' only hope, then, is not that they have such a swell road record, or that they do well in Dallas, or that they're really good when they're desperate. In fact, what ails the Sharks is that, though they do have some exploitable players, what they really have is a bad case of short attention span. They go good, but if the other team doesn't cave under the Sharks' collective throw-weight, the Sharks sometimes forget what got them there. Contemporary example: They have had one consistently strong game out of nine, and that was Game 7 against Calgary.

This Sharks team, then, is not a Cup winner, not with what it is showing this postseason. This isn't even the Braves.

So what, then, do they have going for them in Game 3 other than the template for winning that actually was working before they abandoned it for whatever Dallas wanted to do? The fact that momentum doesn't hold much water in hockey.

You see, Dallas is capable of playing less well in Game 3 than it did in Games 1 and 2, simply by forgetting to mind its trap well, or getting a squirrelly performance by Turco, or by thinking the job is done before it is done. And though San Jose's trip to the conference finals seems highly unlikely at this point, the Sharks still can win only the game in front of them, which is tonight's.

We are seeing that San Jose is in fact not as good as it persistently has been cracked up to be, and that's not a coaching issue but a talent and devotion issue. But the Sharks are surely better than going down in an uninspired heap, aren't they?

Well, aren't they?




- Turco proving his worth....



Turco has taken his duties, his team to a serious level

By JIM REEVESStar-Telegram Staff Writer

Hockey, by its nature, is a game of scars. The speed, the flashing blades, the violent collisions, inevitably see to that.

That most of Marty Turco's scars are on the inside, instead of the outside, doesn't mean that they have been any less painful.

On the contrary, I would argue that Turco has bled more than most in his NHL career. His hemorrhages have simply been internal. That's the lot of an NHL goaltender.

It's no coincidence that the Dallas Stars have advanced this deep in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in five years with Turco playing at a higher level.

We can talk about how Mike Modano owns San Jose, or Brad Richards' four third-period points in Game 2 Sunday night, or even the dramatic return of defenseman Sergei Zubov, but make no mistake about it, the Stars are where they are, leading the Sharks 2-games-to-none in this best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal series, because Turco has been, hands down, the best player on the ice.

As the Stars and Sharks line up tonight for Game 3 at the AAC, there's not a single player on either team who doesn't know that.

This is the new and different Turco, the one we actually saw emerging during last year's seven-game, first-round loss to Vancouver, when the Stars won three times only because he pitched shutouts.

This Turco, the father of two young daughters, doesn't laugh as much as he did when he was 27 and coming off a modern-day NHL record-setting season after replacing Eddie Belfour and posting an amazing 1.76 goals-against average in his first full year between the Stars' posts.

Subsequent playoff failures, when the fickle finger of blame found itself, more often than not, wagging in Turco's direction changed his outlook, changed his approach, even changed his persona.

Like most of us, he simply didn't know then what he knows now.

"For me, the complete understanding of what I need to do for this hockey club has come to me," Turco said in San Jose, where the Sharks threw everything they had in his direction and it still wasn't enough. "I've always known that stopping the puck and moving it and giving these guys confidence is what I've wanted to do, but I'm just at a better place now.

"You always wish you'd known more things when you were younger, but there's nothing I would change now that got me to this point."

He understands and appreciates the first-round losses now as learning experiences, a process that he needed to go through and absorb to become the goaltender and person he is today.

"Experience is a huge thing for anybody, experiences you can draw on to keep you calm," Turco said. "My game has developed with a lot of confidence to trust my instincts and abilities, to remain in position and to remain patient and to be strong for the whole game.

"Every facet of being a professional athlete has been tremendously better. It's been a lot of hard work, a lot of sacrificing, but that's exactly what I wanted."

Stars' play-by-play TV and radio announcer Ralph Strangis has had a front seat for Turco's metamorphosis from cocky playoff failure to quiet, efficient brilliance.

"Losing humbles you. It slaps you in the face," Strangis said. "I imagine life had always been pretty easy for Marty Turco. He'd won at every level, played on two national [collegiate] championship teams.

"Then he had to wait behind Belfour, and I'm sure he thought he would step right in and [win Stanley Cups], too, and he didn't."

At least not yet. But this Turco, who owns a 1.99 goals against-average for the first eight games of the 2008 playoffs, has the talent, and now the maturity, to do exactly that.

"What you're seeing is the maturity of becoming a veteran goaltender, accepting his role on the team," coach Dave Tippett said. "His leadership has evolved and his leadership is essential for our team.

"That's his personality. The combination of recognizing that he's one of our best players, of doing the job, has a big impact on him being a leader. Those are all situations and processes you go through."

If that means he doesn't joke around quite as much as he once did, or that the smiles are fewer because of how seriously he takes his responsibility now, it's a small price to pay.

"It's not just me out there that's out there working and thinking," Turco said. "It's for my guys.

"It's about winning, and that's all that I want. It's always been about getting better in order to win and give these guys confidence."

Turco is so confident in his own ability now, he's almost surprised on those rare occasions when the puck winds up in the net behind him.

"There's not too many goals, and I mean probably less than you'd think, that I shouldn't have had," he insisted. "There's something inside me that thinks I actually should stop all of them.

"But you have to know that mistakes are going to happen, never mind just goals and bounces, whatever. My job is about kind of forgetting and moving on. I've played enough, in big games and in overtime, to know that it's all about the next play, the next save and that my teammates look at their goalie as a wall. It's something I cherish dearly."

He has been that mighty wall throughout these playoffs, the Stars' last and most formidable line of defense.

"To say that I trust myself, it's true," he said. "But it's been a long road.

"I'm not perfect. I'm not the best ever. But I think I can help this team win."

Five years after his first foray into the postseason, a wiser, stronger Turco is all about proving he can do just that.




- You knew it was coming.....the bandwagon Dallas sports fan is tearing ass down the tracks trying to hop back on to the Stars train.



Hockey hot again in Dallas

04:50 AM CDT on Tuesday, April 29, 2008
By CHUCK CARLTON / The Dallas Morning News
ccarlton@dallasnews.com

As the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs progressed, people sitting near stressed Stars fan Linda Rich at American Airlines Center fretted.

She was so tense and uncharacteristically quiet that they wondered if she was sick or facing a personal crisis.

Not to worry, Ms. Rich said. It was just the tension of the playoffs.

Ms. Rich might be in rare form tonight. The Stars will make their first AAC appearance of the second round, having taken a surprising 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 series against the higher-seeded San Jose Sharks.

The Stars might have made some of their fans anxious by going five years without a playoff series victory before defeating defending champion Anaheim last week in six games. Their six wins in these playoffs are more than they have achieved in the last three postseasons combined.

Perhaps this postseason run will improve their standing in the local big league sports scene, where they have fallen greatly since winning the Stanley Cup in 1999 and reaching the Finals again in 2000.

"I'm beyond belief excited," said Ms. Rich, a dog groomer from Wylie and a Stars season ticket holder since 1995.

She isn't alone. A sellout crowd made the clinching victory against Anaheim sound like the Stars' halcyon days at Reunion Arena.

"The fans have been as eager as we've been to get out of the first round," said center Mike Modano, the face of the franchise. "It seems like they're waiting to erupt, and they're waiting for us to give them something to cheer about.

"I think they were missing it as much as we were."

Team owner Tom Hicks admits to a soft spot for the Stars, his first pro team in a sports empire that includes the baseball Rangers and Liverpool FC, the renowned English soccer team.

"We're getting our season-ticket base back, and that's what it is all about," Mr. Hicks said. "Dallas is a city that loves winners. Whether it's the Stars or the Mavs or the Cowboys – and hopefully someday it's going to be the Rangers again – there's a lot more interest when they feel like you're going to win."

Consider where the Stars' local pro neighbors stood when they held their championship parade in June 1999. The Rangers actually were their closest competition, having won division titles in 1996, '98 and '99 – but having gone 1-9 in Division Series play following those title runs. New Cowboys coach Chan Gailey got the 1998 team back into the playoffs, but it lost at home to Arizona. The Mavericks had just completed their 10th consecutive losing season.

When the Stars franchise moved from Minnesota in 1993, it was a novelty. Team executives like Jim Lites and Jeff Cogen sold the experience as football on ice.

Ms. Rich, an Oklahoma transplant, was smitten after watching her first Stars game during that 1993-94 season. She told her husband, Wayne: "I don't care if we go to another football, basketball or baseball game. I want season tickets."

She wasn't alone. In 2000-01, the Stars had 16,500 season ticket holders. The total now: 12,500.

The 2000 Finals finale, a loss to the New Jersey Devils at Reunion, drew a 28.7 TV rating and a 47 percent share in the local market. During the 2007-08 regular season, the Stars averaged an 0.8 rating on local over-the-air broadcasts vs. a 4.8 for the NBA Mavericks.

The Stars' decline in popularity wasn't totally tied to playoff shortcomings. The move from Reunion to AAC in 2001 alienated some fans who feel the new arena is too impersonal. And there was the unique loss of an entire season because of the NHL lockout of 2004-05.

Ms. Rich kept her season tickets, but she noted other familiar faces who quit attending games as first-round eliminations negated successful regular seasons.

"That's about the worst situation that you can imagine," said Daniel Howard, chairman of SMU's marketing department. "Good enough to raise hopes – not good enough to win."

Mr. Cogen replaced Mr. Lites as team president last fall and likens the current situation to what he faced in the mid-'90s during his first tour with the Stars, with some advantages. He credits Mr. Hicks for building the eight Dr Pepper StarsCenters, which Mr. Cogen said function as "fan factories."

The Stars have already announced lower ticket prices for most upper-bowl seats next season, in hopes of luring back fans and gaining new ones.

"Would they come back at a price? Probably," Mr. Cogen said. "Would they come back at a price and with some success? More probable."




- Whoever doesn't think this team has tuned Avery out, I present this.....



Dallas Mavericks practice for Game 5 without coaches

03:58 AM CDT on Tuesday, April 29, 2008
By EDDIE SEFKO / The Dallas Morning News
esefko@dallasnews.com

NEW ORLEANS – After Game 4 confirmed suspicions that this season just isn't meant to be, it seemed clear that the only thing left for the Mavericks was to close ranks and pull together.

Instead, they might be pulling apart as the season's end lurks as early as tonight.

The players stepped out on their own Monday afternoon. After coach Avery Johnson spoke briefly with the team at American Airlines Center, he canceled practice and said he would see everybody at the team plane for the flight to New Orleans.

But several players said that they wanted to practice. So they did, without the coaching staff.

"After the conversation, the players decided to have more of a players-only practice, and from what I heard, it went pretty good," Johnson said at the team's New Orleans hotel. "Somebody amongst the players decided that they thought they needed some sort of practice."

It was not disobeying a direct order. But it was clear the players felt they needed to organize themselves away from authority figures. Though no players were made available to the media Monday, Johnson's commentary on his team spoke volumes.

He sounded like a coach who was not excited that his team would go beyond simply having a players-only meeting by actually doing court work. Players-only meetings happen all the time. But a players-only practice before a possible playoff elimination game?

"We're in a situation where I don't know if we need another drill," Johnson said. "We've been having drills and scrimmages since the first day of training camp and if you don't have it by now, I don't know if you're going to have a CliffsNotes session and get it.

"I was just thinking about keeping the legs fresh and meeting on the plane. But they decided they needed to go down on the court and do something. We'll see what type of carryover it has."

The Mavericks are down 3-1 to the New Orleans Hornets. Game 5 could end their season tonight at New Orleans Arena. Eight teams in NBA history have come back to win a series after falling behind 3-1, the most recent being the 2006 Phoenix Suns against the Los Angeles Lakers.

There already has been talk about the future of the Mavericks if they lose this series. Everything from the security of Johnson's job to the roster spots of pretty much every player not named Dirk Nowitzki are open to question.

Johnson talked openly Monday about whether the players are still in his corner. He said he will continue to run his team the way he believes it should be run. He said that since the trade for Jason Kidd, the transition has been rocky.

"Overall, these men have been very loyal to me," he said. "It's a tough spot for us. Sometimes, we haven't played our best basketball. Maybe another team at that particular time was just a better team. But it's not because the men don't listen or don't try.

"This is a team that hasn't been together for a while. We've tried to incorporate a very tough situation. And we just haven't had the type of carryover like we want.

"But we're still alive. We're playing this game [today], and we have every reason in the world to think we can win it."

The Mavericks have had trouble on the road all season. In Game 4, at home, they had trouble with so many of the same things that made them a No. 7 seed in the eight-team playoff bracket.

Nowitzki said Game 4 was a microcosm of everything that has gone wrong.

"All season long we've lost leads way too quick," Nowitzki said. "We gave up fast-break points, way too many. We left some of their shooters wide-open and just didn't have the composure you need there when things got tight."

None of the Mavericks had it. That's another reflection on the coaching staff.

As for his job security, Johnson said he knows what people have said and written, adding that it hasn't bothered him and he hopes it doesn't distract his players.

"I don't think what we've done, we have to be ashamed of," he said. "We try to lay it on the line and get the team in the best shape as we can to go out and perform. From there, obviously, you need some of the guys to really step up and play well."





- Hollinger on Josh Howard. I was seeing this 3 years ago. Why was everyone so blind? I guess they needed to see absolute rock-bottom before everyone started to see what I saw as far back as 2005.



The disappearance of Josh Howard
When I looked at these teams before the series, it seemed as close as you could get to a dead-even matchup, and the Hornets' home-court advantage was the main reason I picked them in seven.

It hasn't worked out that way, even though Dirk Nowitzki has had a very strong series. But he isn't getting enough help, thanks mainly to Josh Howard's complete and total implosion at the offensive end. Forget this week's controversy about his confession that he smoked marijuana in the offseason -- it's his game that's gone to pot.

In the series, he's mustered just 12.8 points and 6.5 boards while shooting a dismal 15-for-58 (25.9 percent). By Sunday night's Game 4, the Hornets were leaving him wide open for jumpers throughout the second half, but he clanked all of them.

It's not like he's got Michael Cooper on him either. His primary defenders have been Peja Stojakovic and Bonzi Wells, neither of whom is known for putting the clamps on opponents. While Peja's D probably is a little underrated, Howard faced plenty of good defenders this season and averaged 19.9 points and 7.0 boards on 45.5 percent shooting.

As a result of his struggles, a position where Dallas expected to have a sizable advantage has become a surprising plus for the Hornets. And not surprisingly, the unexpected minus at the small forward spot also has put the Mavs at a minus in the games department, 3-1.



- The analysis and obituaries are coming from everywhere. Here's the New York Times....



Mavericks’ Only Certainty Is a Cloudy Future

By HOWARD BECK
Published: April 29, 2008

NEW ORLEANS — The itinerary Monday called for the Dallas Mavericks to hold a brief practice, then fly to New Orleans. But the practice was decidedly unconventional and the Mavericks’ ultimate destination is anything but clear.

The team landed here in the Crescent City in midafternoon, with considerable baggage in tow: a former All-Star who has lost his way, a future Hall of Famer who has lost his touch and a coach who may soon lose his job.

The Mavericks play the Hornets on Tuesday night, with their season and just about everything else at stake. The Hornets lead the first-round series, three games to one.

Despite the stakes, Coach Avery Johnson initially canceled practice in Dallas. His players decided to practice anyway, without the coaches. The unofficial workout allowed the Mavericks to skirt league rules on news media availability, and thus avoid many nagging questions.

Chief among them: How is a team that was supposed to contend for the title facing first-round elimination for the second year in a row? Wrapped up in the answer is Johnson’s future.

He guided the Mavericks to the Western Conference title two years ago, but since then they have produced mostly disappointment. Dallas had a 2-0 lead over the Miami Heat in the 2006 finals, but lost the next four games. The Mavericks won a league-best 67 games last season, but were bounced by the Golden State Warriors.

Despite trading for Jason Kidd, a future Hall of Famer, at midseason, the Mavericks struggled to make the playoffs and finished as the seventh seed. Now they are fizzling again, against a New Orleans team that is younger, grittier and more confident.

The Mavericks are 3-11 in their last 14 playoff games under Johnson, including 0-8 on the road.

These are not the marks of a contender, which is why speculation is growing daily that the owner Mark Cuban will fire Johnson when the season ends. If Cuban’s anger runs deep enough, he might just jettison everyone but Dirk Nowitzki, last season’s most valuable player.

When Johnson met with reporters at the team hotel early Monday evening, he acknowledged, albeit indirectly, that his job could be at stake.

“Whatever decisions that were made, it will have to be discussed at a later time,” he said. “Right now, we’re still alive.”

Johnson added, “We have to let it run its course, and then we’ll have to adjourn after, whenever that is, and we’ll take a look at it, put everything on the board and see at that point.”

A year ago, the heat fell mostly on Nowitzki. But Nowitzki has been more than solid against the Hornets, averaging 28 points, 11.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists, while shooting 50 percent in the series. It is the rest of the roster that is failing.

Josh Howard, an All-Star in 2007 and the Mavericks’ No. 2 scorer this season, has been an unmitigated mess in the playoffs. He is shooting 26 percent from the field and averaging 12.8 points. He has been alternately tentative and overeager with his jump shot and has failed to attack the basket consistently.

Kidd was supposed to be the missing piece of a championship team but instead has been a disappointment. He is averaging 7.3 points and 6.3 assists, and he has hardly made an imprint in the last three games. He has also failed to do the one thing he did best in Phoenix and New Jersey — make his teammates better.

Kidd’s most noteworthy moment in the series came in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s 97-84 loss, when he was ejected for a flagrant foul on Jannero Pargo. The N.B.A. reviewed the play Monday but determined that it did not warrant a suspension.

As it stands now, the bold trade for Kidd — which cost the Mavericks the young point guard Devin Harris — looks like a mistake.

“Whenever you do something or make a decision, I think there are going to be ramifications of that decision,” Johnson said.

It was yet another subtle admission that the Mavericks are more of a work in progress than a polished product. The trade was clearly the primary reason. The Mavericks still feature five of their top six scorers from the 2006 finals (Nowitzki, Howard, Jason Terry, Jerry Stackhouse and Erick Dampier), but they lack cohesion.

With everything up in the air, Johnson seemed to be asking for understanding — from fans, from the news media and perhaps from Cuban.

“I think over all these men have been very loyal to me,” Johnson said. “It’s just a tough spot for us. Maybe another team at that particular time was just a better team. But it’s not because the men don’t listen or don’t try. But again, this is a team that hasn’t been together for a while. We’ve tried to incorporate a very tough situation. And we just haven’t had the type of carryover like we want. But we’re still alive.”




- The new fan favorite....


- Punk Roenick gets nailed.