Sports Radio Interviews

Carlisle And The Mavs Prepare For A Busy Summer

Owner Mark Cuban was hopeful the trade for Jason Kidd and the hire of Rick Carlisle were the parts that would get the Mavs back into the NBA Finals. After a poor start, the Mavs were one of the best teams in the NBA in the second half of the season.  They overcame injuries and Rick Carlisle (like he always does) had his team playing hard night in and night out.  Truth is, they just lost to a better team in the Nuggets.

The biggest concern for this team moving forward is the pending free agency of Jason Kidd. Although the Mavs reached the semi-finals in the West this season, Kidd has stated his intentions on playing on a team with a shot of winning an NBA Championship. If the Mavs are one of those teams with a shot in his opinion remains to be seen.

The series with the Denver Nuggets that eliminated the Mavs lacked drama (outside of game three) on the court as the Mavs were beaten four games to one. The intensity in the stands sure made up for it though. With Cuban yelling comments at Kenyon Martin’s mom and the Dallas fans’ ill behavior throughout the series, most notably in game four, you would have thought this was a dead even series with evenly matched teams.

Lucky for Coach Carlisle, the ill will seems to be directed outwards at this point, and the fans seem amicable to the Mavs exit from the playoffs.

Rick Carlisle joined ESPN Radio in Dallason Friday to talk about his team’s future and on the playoffs overall. Carlislealso plays a mean keyboard live on the intros and exits to both segments!

Carlisle was asked how long of a winding down period there will be after the Mavericks game 5 loss to the Nuggets:

“It takes awhile to wind down. Once the season’s over, it takes a good week or two to kind of sort things out. Yesterday we had a meeting with the players, and we had an exit interview with all the guys and everyone was upbeat and felt like we accomplished some things but we came up short of our goal so really starting now we’re looking to get better. Next year, (we’re) looking to get the guys who are going to be back better and looking to make the team better. I don’t think there will be much of a winding down time between now and when we’re looking toward getting this thing going even further more in the right direction.”

On what he thinks the team needs to improve and focus on next season:

“We’ve got to get Josh (Howard) healthy, that’s the first thing. We’ve got to continue to develop some of the guys who have stepped forward, (JJ) Barea, Antoine Wright, (James) Singleton, (Brandon) Bass. We’ve got a job to resign some of the guys we want to have back. Jason Kidd is a big topic and what’s going to happen to him. I’m very much in favor of having him back. He was a huge, huge part of our team this year. We’ve got to get Bass resigned, and there are some other guys too. Those are the priorities, and then you get into the debates about position ally of what kind of players we need to get around Dirk (Nowitzki) to enhance him and make his job a little easier.”

On if he ever became annoyed with Jason Kidd’s attacking the rim only to pass a player on the wing:

“He understands that there are times when he needs to be more aggressive, and I think its something that he knows going forward that we’re going to need him to do. This summer, that’s something I’ll talk to him about a little more. When he’s aggressive to score it makes the game easier for everybody, him included. It puts less pressure on him when he penetrates and if he’s looking at the rim and can finish.”

Carlisle was asked upon being hired if he felt the players had too much power, a trait Owner Mark Cuban has instilled in them:

“I think they (the team) gave me every opportunity to coach them and we went through a difficult time early. I’m going to be honest I didn’t do a good job at the beginning of the year with this team. We had a difficult schedule, but 2-7 was a terrible start. We needed to adjust some things, and they stuck with it. This team was different than any other team I’ve had. The personality of it isn’t as dynamic as some of the other teams that I’ve had.”

Listen to Part I and Part II of Rick Carlisle on ESPN Radio Dallas with Randy Galloway and Company

Tags: Dallas Mavericks, Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Mark Cuban, NBA playoffs basketball interviews, Rick Carlisle