MacLeod to Mavericks: Dream Along With Me

“MacLeod,” the John MacLeod story, would not star Dennis Weaver. Too excitable. No, the coach of the Dallas Mavericks is sooooooo mellow, he should probably coach some team like, well, the Lakers maybe.

MacLeod dresses like Pat Riley and coaches like Perry Como. Most of the time, MacLeod looks so laid back, he could be reclining on the bench contemplating Laker jerseys of mellow yellow.

Just imagine what MacLeod said to the Mavericks at a team meeting Tuesday. The laid back MacLeod laid them out.

He did this for a very good reason.

“I’m about as laid back as Rambo,” MacLeod said.

There’s only so much a former Army Reserve tank driver can take. Right about now, it’s getting pretty ugly out there on the battlefield for MacLeod. This man has a master’s degree in history, which tells us it’s not very easy to fall behind, 2-0, in a playoff series and come back to win.

That’s just what the Mavericks must do now after losing to the Lakers, 123-101, Wednesday night at the Forum.

So what’s the new strategy? Can the Mavericks come up with something different the rest of the way, like win a game?

“The Lakers are probably feeling pretty confident right now,” forward Mark Aguirre said. “Truly so, they should be.”

Truly so, all right.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, MacLeod laid into the Mavericks after Game 1 when he discerned a noticeable lack of effort in a 15-point loss. It worked out so well, the Mavericks lost by 22 points in Game 2.

“You haven’t seen the real Mavericks,” forward Sam Perkins said. “Unfortunately, you have seen the real Lakers, though.”

MacLeod thought the Mavericks played much better than they did in Game 1, no matter what the scoreboard said. Even though the Lakers have steamed the Mavericks pretty good, the crease has not left his slacks, so things may be looking up.

“We’re 0-2, but there are five games left,” MacLeod said. “We’re going to bounce back. We’re a better club than we’ve showed.”

Let’s hope so. At least the Mavericks still feel OK about themselves, which is probably a good place to start.

Guard Rolando Blackman talked about the Mavericks as if they were grocery coupons.

“We have to redeem ourselves,” he said.

“We know what’s happening out on the basketball floor,” Blackman said. “I don’t feel embarrassed. I probably should be embarrassed, but I just feel bad because we didn’t play well.”

They certainly didn’t play as well as MacLeod dresses, but that would probably be asking for too much anyway. Donald Carter, who owns the Mavericks, said a little bit of MacLeod is rubbing off on him.

Carter’s taste in clothes is pretty Texan. It tends to run this side of J.R. Ewing. But Carter said MacLeod’s influence is changing him. For one thing, Carter brought a coat along with him for Games 1 and 2. His western shirts are different now, too. Carter described them.

“Medium starch, medium stripes,” he said.

“I figure if I fix my hair just right, they can put me in there on the bench and I’ll be him,” Carter said.

He may not want to be him right now. Each day, MacLeod runs up to 5 miles to keep in shape and that’s a lot longer distance than the Mavericks ran in Game 2 when the Lakers consistently beat them to the offensive end.

“We must have a mental block or something,” Blackman said. “We’re just standing around watching the ball bounce. We have to take care of that pretty quick.”

Of course, when you’re talking Mavericks and mental blocks, you’re also talking Aguirre. Sometimes the two seem inseparable.

Aguirre acquired 12 points in the first quarter and had 18 at the half, but when he committed consecutive turnovers and was called for an illegal defense, MacLeod summoned him to the bench five minutes into the third quarter.

He sat there the rest of the quarter, which ended with the Lakers leading, 89-70. Even though Aguirre came back with 10 fourth-quarter points to finish with 28, he was not a factor. Aguirre argued he couldn’t do much damage from the bench.

“I felt good out on the floor, but some coaches think something different and they want to try it,” he said. “You just have to adjust to it.”

MacLeod is going through his own period of adjustment. After all, he spent the first 14 years of his pro career coaching the Phoenix Suns before General Manager Jerry Colangelo fired him from the job from which MacLeod thought he would retire.

While the Suns sank into a messy drug scandal, MacLeod wondered about what had gone wrong.

“The toll it took was the realization that players were taking drugs while I was coaching them,” he said. “And that certainly affected our winning and losing.”

Colangelo, who has since fired John Wetzel, MacLeod’s former Suns assistant and his successor as head coach at Phoenix, said MacLeod couldn’t have come out any better than he already has.

“John MacLeod did a good job in Phoenix, but in our profession there is a certain time where it is best to part company,” Colangelo said.

“Maybe we could have handled it better. Maybe we should have done it at the end of the year (MacLeod was fired after 56 games last season). But he’s landed on his feet with a very good team.”

MacLeod said there are two differences between his last season in Phoenix and his first season in Dallas.

“At Phoenix, we played five rookies and two second-year players,” he said. “In Dallas, we have two rookies and the two rookies aren’t playing.”

No, but it’s those guys who are playing who have put MacLeod in this mess. And it’s up to those players to get themselves and their coach out of it.

“It’s up to us,” Blackman said.

It’s the Lakers’ fault, Perkins said. “They went a notch higher,” he said. “We just couldn’t do enough. Every time we did something, they just came back and did something better.”

Now, the Mavericks must come back and do something better again. Something better had better be soon.

Carter could have hired Don Nelson, as club vice president Rick Sund suggested, but didn’t when Milwaukee wanted too much in compensation. MacLeod quickly became the Mavericks’ man.

“He has an air of grace about him,” Perkins said of MacLeod. “He’s confident and upbeat and pretty tough, even though he looks laid back and kind of suave. Don’t be fooled by him, either.”

Carter was fooled at first. “I thought he was too laid back,” he said. “But he’s tough. He’ll knock you out. You’ve got to watch him. Some people are visionaries, and some people are reactionaries. We’ve got a visionary here.”

Way down deep in MacLeod’s chest, beneath his silk tie, beats the heart of a coach who can envision an upset victory by the Mavericks in this series.

“It’s do-able,” he said. “But only as long as we think it is.”