By Mike Fisher -- DallasBasketball.com
Want to hear Del Harris go on the offensive? Accuse his Mavs of not trying to go on the defensive, of not trying to make the right organizational moves, of not possessing the right leadership, of taking a lackadaisical approach to practices, of goofing off with too much golf. …
“Our practices are closed,’’ Harris tells DallasBasketball.com, answering critics of the Mavs’ allegedly cushy work environment, “ so none of those people writing that have any idea what we do at practice. I've been running them for 45 years and winning games. Nellie has been running them for 30-something years and winning games. And now all the sudden somebody who's not even there thinks we should do something different, when they don’t even know what we're doing in the first place?’’
In this exclusive Q-and-A, Harris – Don Nelson’s right-hand man on the Mavs bench – discusses the aforementioned, plus the pain of losing, job security, the big free agent who got away, and what moves the Mavs must now make to increase their title chances:
ON THE KINGS SERIES
“They put up a good series. It was a well-played, well-fought series. Sometimes it was played better then others and so forth. … They're good guys. Two of those guys, of course, when I started with the Lakers, Vlade (Divac) and Anthony Peeler, they have remained friends. I Don’t know if anybody would notice but before the jump ball, every time we play them, Vlade will acknowledge me. A little wave or point or thumb up, or whatever. That's even after we have said hello to one another. You know he's a great guy, and Peeler is a really good kid too.’’
ON THE PAIN OF LOSING
“You know, I think depression does actually kinda get me. I have became the opposite (of demonstratively angry). I’m really quiet, sedate, don’t say much, don’t do much (after a loss). When you have a disappointing loss, it stays with me a little longer then it should. It always did. You do get over it. I will tell you when it was hard: not playing Sunday, and then knowing that Game 7 could have been (Wednesday). I went down to the arena and saw the guys. When I went in I knew we weren’t going to practice. But I knew we should be. … When it's all written up, all said and done in the future, it will be ‘Sacramento wiped us out 4 games to 1 and blah blah blah.’ … But we had the ball in our hands with the chance to win or tie three of the four games we lost...and just weren’t able to execute well enough to get one of them in the hole.’’
ON FAILING IN THOSE CLUTCH SPOTS
Well, over the last three or four years, if you look at it, we've been really good at those situations. Of course, each year our team is a little bit different than the team the year before. But we tend to remember the events that happened most recently and we tend to remember most events that have emotion attached to them at that time. For example, the loss to the Lakers two years ago. People will never forget when we had a 26-point lead, because more emotion was attached to that game. But we lost one to Denver this year where we were ahead 26 in the third quarter. But people don’t remember that one because they don’t have the emotion attached to that particular game.
“Our record is really good at holding leads and defending ourselves in the fourth quarter and winning close games. But this year and particularily late in the year, we did not do a good job of it. And that’s what we're going to be remembered for. That’s the way it works, and you gotta accept that as you accept the pats on the back whenever you win one and somebody makes a last-second shot. There is no crying in baseball and. … just a little bit in basketball.’’
ON THE MAVS’ WINNING TRACK
“It's funny. There have been only nine times in the league when teams have won, with the same coach, more games each of four successive years. I was the eighth guy to do it. With the Lakers, we won when I went there, 48 the first year -- they had been in the lottery the year before -- and we had won 48 then 53 then 56 and then 61.... then 12 games into the next season I was fired. That was the shortened season, when we played 12 games in 19 days. we were 6-3 and we played a Monday in Seattle, a Tuesday in Denver, then a Wednesday in Vancouver. … Tough.
“Anyway, and then Nelly did the same thing here. He had been in the lottery the year before. And then we won 40-something, then 53, 57, 60. ... and that was four years and then this year we only won 52. So its not easy to do, to win more game in successive years.
“It does show that you are headed in the right direction if you don’t make too many changes. With me and the Lakers, I only had Kobe at that time as an 18- or 19-year old, and had him for two years. And Shaq was 24 when I got him. …’’
ON THE BENEFITS OF CONTINUITY
“I think that’s the sensible way to look at it, as opposed to knee-jerk reactions. It's not that the organization hasn’t tried to fill in the gaps. You know Mark and Donnie worked last summer. ... It didn’t work out with Alonzo Mourning, and he fell sick and that didn’t work out anyway. Our next guy that we were aligned with was Brad Miller. Obviously if we had gotten Brad Miller, and it was down to us and Sacramento, instead of Sacramento getting Brad Miller, we get him, and they would be talking in Sacramento about what happened and we would be planning our next game and our next series.
“We're not that far away. A Brad Miller on our team – well, I can’t say his name now, it's like tampering, saying we gotta have him or whatever – but we did try to get him...had we gotten him I think we would have been able to compete with anybody.
“And so now we move on and try to figure out a way -- without blowing up the entire ship -- where we fill in where we possibly can. We need a better defensive presence inside, a guy who can score some points but doesn’t feel the need to have the ball all the time, who wouldn’t lay down on you if he doesn’t get so many number of shots per game. A player with a good defensive mentality, and you know those are hard to find. The teams that have them are still playing, and we're not still playing.’’
ON THE MAVS’ PRESENT COLLECTION OF CENTERS
“Shawn Bradley is a guy who, when he was good for us, helped us. We have Eddie (Najera), who at only 6'7", because he just works so hard against a lot of teams, he's really good for us in there, even at center. It doesn’t make much sense, but because of his heart, e does at least as good a job as anybody, maybe better than anybody on our team in that particular defensive position.
“We tried (Antoine) Walker there. He was out of position. It produced at least positive effect toward the end of the season, on offense. But Walker as a center is probably not the answer, I wouldnt think.
“And then of course we brought in Scott Williams and we got Danny Fortson. All of those guy have a little piece of the puzzle but none of them are the guy for that position. … and that’s what Mark and Donnie will be searching for.
“I'm sure they understand that the whole team isn’t bad, and it doesn’t need a major overhaul. But we do need some help in there.’’
ON HIS JOB SECURITY
“Well, it’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell!’ We’ve got good contracts for the next two years. Anything can happen in the NBA, but we're not expecting anything negative to happen as far as the coaching is concerned.’’
ON 'THE BOTTOM LINE'
“The difference between (Kings coach Rick) Adelman and Nellie? Adelman's a real smart guy because his team scored two more points in three games than Nellie's team did, and the difference between of that one shot made the difference between Nellie being smart or dumb. That's sports. It's the pitch you let get away. It's the ground ball that goes between your legs. It doesn’t matter if you fielded 50 in a row -- if you dont get the one that counts then you’re held accountable. We have to accept that as part of our jobs.’’
ON CRITICISM OF DALLAS’ PLAYING STYLE AND PRACTICE HABITS
“Obviously when you look back over the year and you see whatever the results are, you try to make plans for the next year. You try to do things a little bit different, something a little better, and then again try and maybe get a little bit of different personnel to help in the areas where you're deficient. But as far as the people that are not at the practices, our practices are closed, so none of those people writing that have any idea what we do at practice. I've been running (practices) for 45 years and winning games. Nellie has been running them for 30-something years and winning games. And now all the sudden somebody who's not even there thinks we should do something different when they don’t even know what we're doing in the first place.
ON CRITICISM OF NELLIE
“Nellie has won the second most games in the history of the NBA. And you know, I've had 40-something years of successful coaching. Having said that, we do make adjustments every year and we make adjustments during the season. As far as playing golf (the accusation that Nellie is on the golf course when he should be working) is concerned: we get called on it because Nellie talks about it a lot and such, but you know, we don’t really get out to play much. It's just when we do, Nellie is usually doing an interview from the golf course or whatever. So it seems like maybe he's there more than he really is.
“But you do have some spare time. You're going to do something with those hours. You know you can’t practice the guys too much. There is a limit to what you can get out of athletes. The answer to some people is, ‘Well, if two hours of practice a day is good, then lets do it for four! If one practice a day is good, then lets have two a day! If that’s good in training camp lets do it all year!’ Well, they're not in touch with reality of professional sports.
“Same thing with the coaches’ time. We look at our films. We make our plans. And then, when that’s done, you don’t go back and do it all over again. You can just overanalyze. You look at your films. You make your judgements. And then you wait for the game.
“So you do it however you want. Some guys sleep. Now, we seldom play any golf. Maybe I played golf the day of the game once this year. … Maybe other coaches go to a movie. To keep your mind fresh, you should do something a little different from basketball. I know this: Nelly wasn’t playing much golf before I came here. And when I came here, he thought it would probably be the last year we’d coach, nd he just wanted someone to come who he enjoyed being with, who he can relate to, who can maybe can go out and play some golf with him, have a drink with him or something. I came in, we started doing that and we won 15 out of 20 games (to close the year). So we said, ‘Hey, let’s try this again next year.’ So we did that and we won 53 games. So lets continue this on. … He has been more relaxed and less uptight. He's taken more of an interest in golf than he had in the years where he was uptight -- and losing all the games. So it’s a good thing.’’