Rick Carlisle has won a world championship. He has firmly established himself as one of the NBA’s five best coaches.
Yet, his 2016 season — for reasons totally beyond his control — might get lost in the tides of history.
In a season defined by the supreme excellence of the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs, the following statement — while hard to believe — is nevertheless true: At best, Rick Carlisle did the third-best job of any Western Conference coach this season.
Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich have done remarkable work with the Dubs and Spurs. In Portland, Terry Stotts is about to give the Trail Blazers the same No. 5 playoff seed they attained a season ago… only this time, without Nic Batum and LaMarcus Aldridge.
Perhaps you can put Kerr and Pop above Carlisle and slide Stotts to fourth, if you believe in high-end achievement while also placing extra weight on the trauma caused by the DeAndre Jordan flip-flop last July.
Perhaps you’d put Kerr first but then diminish Popovich’s work, given the assets the Spurs acquired in the offseason. You’d then elevate Stotts to second, since he has taken Portland to a greater height than Dallas this season.
Either way, it’s hard — possible, but hard — to make the case that Carlisle has done the second-best job of any coach in the West in 2016. The more reasonable position is that he’s been the No. 3 coach in the West this season.
That, folks, is bananas. It’s a testament to how great the Warriors and Spurs have been… and to how well Stotts has maneuvered in Portland.
In almost any other season, Carlisle would be the runaway coach of the year for what he’s done with the Dallas Mavericks in 2016. Similarly, in almost any other season, the Spurs would be clear NBA title favorites; the coach of a 30-11 team would not have been fired; and Russell Westbrook would be league MVP.
Yet, it’s not almost any other season; it’s this season. Carlisle won’t get coach of the year hardware.
He’ll just have to settle for making the NBA playoffs with patchwork lineup combinations.
The Mavericks’ 101-92 win over the Utah Jazz, Monday night in Salt Lake City, punched Carlisle’s ticket to the playoffs. Despite L’Affaire DeAndre last summer, and despite a flood of injuries which constantly forced him to scramble, Carlisle held together the Mavs with duct tape and a deft touch. This team will somehow make its way to the postseason, one of the finest coaching feats seen anywhere and anytime.
While Chicago and Washington teams littered with big names will hit the golf course this weekend, Carlisle will prepare his team for Game 1 of a first-round series. Dirk will get another trip to the postseason, a small but fitting reward for a player of his stature and skill.
He wouldn’t be where he is without his coach, who made chicken salad out of chicken spit in the final few weeks of the season.
The outlook was grim for Dallas on March 27. The Mavericks had just lost their third game of the season to the Sacramento Kings to fall to 35-38. Chandler Parsons was out for the rest of the season. Deron Williams was injured as well. Where were the Mavs going to find not just the quality, but the depth, needed to survive multiple weeks of late-season basketball and not run on fumes?
Carlisle found a way through the maze.
Monday night, D-Will returned and tossed in 23 points to help the cause in this clincher against the Jazz, but that performance only reinforced how improbable the Mavs’ late-season rally actually was. The team uncorked a six-game winning streak entirely without Williams and Parsons. J.J. Barea — the unsung hero of the 2011 NBA Finals — carried the load, but Carlisle had to scrounge to find minutes from other places to keep his team whole.
Monday night showed why the Mavericks have improbably surged just when it seemed they had nothing left to give.
Dallas and Carlisle unearthed 78 bench minutes against Utah, on the back end of a road back-to-back. David Lee’s creaky body managed 16 of those minutes. Raymond Felton provided 25 and scored 10 points to give Dallas’s bench a 26-point total. Justin Anderson — averaging below four points a game — offered 14 minutes. Salah Mejri contributed 16. Devin Harris added seven.
While no single bench player’s performance might have rated as particularly strong, the more essential insight to make is that no player was particularly deficient. Credible minutes with serviceable defense and just enough scoring punch bought time for Dirk, D-Will, and Wesley Matthews to remain effective when they were on the floor. Those three bright lights all scored 20 or more points and hit at least 50 percent of their field goals.
SALT LAKE CITY, UT – APRIL 11: Devin Harris #34 of the Dallas Mavericks handles the ball against the Utah Jazz on April 11, 2016 at vivint.SmartHome Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2016 NBAE (Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images)
The Dallas bench, in those 78 total minutes, also excelled not necessarily because of what it did, but because of what it didn’t do. The Mavs’ reserves committed only two turnovers in those 78 minutes. Felton aside, they committed only four fouls on a night when the Jazz attempted only 18 free throws.
In ways obvious and hidden, in ways more subtle than imposing, the Dallas rotation — as has been the case over the past two weeks — carved out a winning identity from an assemblage of spare parts surrounding a few older veteran stars.
Rick Carlisle knew where to apply the glue and the other adhesive products which kept his team from falling apart.
The Summer of DeAndre Jordan easily could have been a death blow for Dallas, the kind of moment which would have led to a 12th-place finish in the West.
Instead, the Mavericks will play into the postseason while other more talented teams will stay home, especially in the East.
Rick Carlisle continues to show how great a coach he is… even in a year when he wasn’t the first- or second-best coach in his own conference.
