Mavs gather for horror film

Avery Johnson promised last night that his team would spend today watching film from the 102-100 setback to the Lakers. “Horror movie,” he called it then. That’s exactly what they watched this morning.

“The men didn’t like what they saw on it, especially for the first 30 minutes or so of the game,” Johnson said. “We saw some good, but we saw a lot of bad and a lot of correctable errors.”

The heavy lifters were excused from the gym after the film session, while the low-minute reserves went through an actual practice. With less than four weeks left in the regular season, keeping the team fresh has been a point of emphasis for Johnson.

“We had a lengthy film session with our starters and then we got them out of here,” he said. “We had to get some work in with some of our guys that hadn’t been playing that much and that was what today was about.”

The Mavs came out flat and trailed by as many as 25 points before mounting a furious comeback led mostly by the second team. Johnson didn’t need any coaching tricks to get anyone’s attention.

“They were really focused,” he said. “Really focused, disappointed and they saw what we can do when we execute our system and our gameplan and when we hustle. We just didn’t have that burst and that hustle. It seemed like they wanted it a little bit more than we did early in the game.

“But then when we really started hustling and bringing a lot of energy, we didn’t have as many defensive breakdowns. Then we got back in the game. We just can’t wait until we’re 20 down to start playing. We saw that in Utah.”