Dirk Nowitzki News

" Dirk Nowitzki tried deep breaths and long pauses, but his mind and heart told him Wednesday was no time for diplomacy. Not with Avery Johnson out as coach. Not after a second straight Mavericks first-round playoff humiliation. Not with who knows what on the horizon. "For me, personally, I feel like it's another wasted year," he said. "I'm in my prime right now. I'm almost 30 now, so I feel like I wasted another great opportunity to win the title and bring it here to Dallas." "

" The word "warrior" keeps getting thrown around to describe Dirk Nowitzki's performances in the 2008 playoffs. Ironically, it was his play against the Golden State Warriors in last season's playoffs that brought much criticism to Nowitzki after an MVP performance in the regular season. "

"Jannero Pargo had just clocked him upside the head with an elbow on a defensive rebound, but Dirk Nowitzki persevered."

"Dallas Mavericks coach Avery Johnson didn't name names Monday, but he made it clear that Dirk Nowitzki should have had backup after New Orleans Hornets forward David West tapped him on the cheek during a staredown late in Game 1."

"The Mavs' playoff failures over the last couple of years have cost Dirk Nowitzki dearly in prestige, and also have heated up Avery Johnson's coaching seat. Whether that is fair, doesn't matter. Your star player and your coach are always the focal point, in good times or bad."

" The Dallas Mavericks took one on the chin from New Orleans in Game 1, and Dirk Nowitzki took one on the cheek from David West."

"The excitable crew at TNT got all worked up about the Dirk Nowitzki-David West confrontation in Game 1. During the TNT telecast of the Toronto-Orlando game Sunday, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith criticized Nowitzki for not responding when West tapped him on the face a couple of times during a confrontation late in the game."

"In Game 1 of the first-round series tonight, Mavs forward Dirk Nowitzki will probably see double teams and traps by the Hornets in an attempt to make him pass the ball. They've been successful doing it."

"The Hornets are set to face the unique challenge that regularly takes place in the Western Conference playoffs: defending a 7-foot forward with guard-like skills. The Dallas Mavericks' Dirk Nowitzki, who averaged 23.6 points per game this season and has 79 3-pointers, is constantly the focus of opposing defenses. "

" When the most famous spokesperson for your industry is the likes of Michael Jackson, you've got PR issues. For the record: Dirk Nowitzki never actually slept in a hyperbaric chamber, either with or without a monkey. He did, however, catch a few movies in one. "

" Nowitzki and coach Avery Johnson have decided together that there is no need for Nowitzki to sit out the final game or two of the regular season. He was in his usual spot in the starting lineup Sunday against Seattle, less than 24 hours after playing 40 minutes against Portland."

" Dirk Nowitzki has enough to worry about with his bum left ankle. He doesn't have to worry about any headhunting by Utah's Andrei Kirilenko. The last time the Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz played, Nowitzki planted a flagrant foul on Kirilenko, which ended up costing Nowitzki a one-game suspension. Kirilenko said Wednesday there is no lingering ill will between him and Nowitzki. "

" In every NBA franchise, there are people behind the scenes who help make everything run smoothly. In the Mavericks' case, they have someone whose job it was to help Dirk Nowitzki run smoothly. "

"The triumphant return is part of team lore. The adrenaline rush has subsided. Now, the Mavericks must settle into the reality that Dirk Nowitzki probably won't be quite right for the remainder of the season. "

"Dirk Nowitzki is convinced his early return means his ankle is the best it's going to get. Coach Avery Johnson is resigned to crossing his fingers that he's right. He doesn't want to think about the alternative."

" Dirk Nowitzki put in 45 minutes of court time in front of coach Avery Johnson on Tuesday. It's possible the forward could be in uniform Wednesday night against Golden State, just 11 days after suffering a high left ankle sprain."

"Dirk Nowitzki worked out for 45 minutes Tuesday, including some 3-on-3 scrimmaging, proving his healing powers are indeed accelerated, but at this point, perhaps only Nowitzki truly knows if he's capable of playing in tonight's critical home game against the Golden State Warriors."

"Avery Johnson won't have a good idea until today, and he won't know for sure until shortly before game time on Wednesday, but it seems that Dirk Nowitzki is close to returning to the lineup. "

"Dirk Nowitzki will not join the Mavericks on this road trip, but the Mavericks are hopeful he will be back in uniform later this week. Nowitzki will miss his third and fourth games tonight and Monday after suffering a high left ankle sprain and a mild left knee sprain a week ago."

"Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki, the reigning MVP, might return to action sooner than expected. He was initially thought to be out for two weeks because of the high left ankle sprain and sprained knee he sustained against San Antonio."

" Dirk Nowitzki is making nice strides as his sprained left ankle and knee recuperate, but he's not ready to start jumping on airplanes. The Mavericks forward stayed behind Wednesday as the team left for Denver and a three-game Western trip. "

" For his 43rd birthday, all Avery Johnson wanted was one more point than the Los Angeles Clippers. He got a bonus gift in the form of good news about Dirk Nowitzki's early recovery. "

"The scope of Dirk Nowitzki's impact on the Dallas Mavericks can seem staggering. Consider these numbers posted by the franchise scoring leader entering Tuesday's game against the Los Angeles Clippers:"

" The panic about whether Dirk Nowitzki is out a week, two weeks, three or longer paled Monday in comparison to the more important piece of information from the Dallas Mavericks forward. "I was really lucky," Nowitzki said. "

"Dirk Nowitzki is out indefinitely and, strangely, Jason Kidd suddenly finds himself at the helm of New Jersey West -- a struggling club with no guarantee of making the playoffs."

"Based on all evidence, the Mavericks were going nowhere anyway. As of yesterday, however, it became a shorter trip than even expected. Next stop: Lotteryville. The regular season ends April 16. But that's merely a scheduling formality. It's over. Now, or forever how long Dirk is out over the next three weeks."

" Give Avery Johnson this much: He may not coax the best out of his point guards, but he sure slings a mean metaphor. Just when Dirk Nowitzki's injury provided the rest of the Mavs an excuse to fold, Johnson magnified their dilemma. "

" An MRI comfirmed that Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki suffered a moderate high left ankle sprain and a mild left knee sprain during Sunday's loss to San Antonio. No timetable has been set for Nowitzki's return. The Mavericks, who are in seventh place in the Western Conference, have 12 games left in the regular season."

"With a dozen games remaining and the Mavs having spiraled to a second three-game skid this month after Sunday's 88-81 loss to cold-shooting San Antonio, the Mavs' collective psyche, so often dismissed as fragile, will be put to arguably the ultimate test of the coach Avery Johnson era."

" San Antonio's 88-81 victory Sunday afternoon, coupled with Nowitzki's injury that owner Mark Cuban said probably will sideline the superstar about two weeks, leaves the Mavericks in the precarious position of hoping to hang on to a low playoff seed."

" In the last 15 seasons, the NBA's most valuable player has repeated as winner of the award only twice. It's not going to happen this year. Dirk Nowitzki will fall somewhere behind Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Chris Paul when ballots are collected in early April. "

" The pressure to lead the Mavericks has been Dirk Nowitzki's and his alone since Steve Nash headed to the desert to a few years ago. It beat him down in the playoffs last year, leaving him a shell of the player who deserved to win the league's MVP award. But it's no longer his burden to bear alone. It's shared by Jason Kidd and Avery Johnson. "

" Dirk Nowitzki knows many will judge his Mavericks legacy by more than scoring numbers. He plans to evaluate it the same way. "

" And along the way, Dirk Nowitzki became the leading scorer in franchise history. It's too early to say the Mavericks snapped out of their funk with Saturday's 111-91 victory over the Nets. But they did snap a three-game losing streak and carved another notch in the win column in this fierce Western Conference playoff race. "

"Dirk Nowitzki wasn't exactly apologizing for his flagrant foul that sent Andrei Kirilenko to the hospital on Monday night during Utah's 116-110 win at EnergySolutions Arena. But the Dallas Mavericks star genuinely seemed to feel bad about it. Nowitzki freely admitted his hard foul in the first quarter on Kirilenko was on purpose. He was, after all, trying to avoid giving up an easy basket. He just didn't mean for it to be as damaging as it ended up being."

"It was Lamar Odom's job to defend Dirk Nowitzki on Sunday, and it was a big challenge. While Nowitzki struggled to get nine points on 4-of-16 shooting in the first three quarters, he had 21 points on 6-of-10 shooting in the fourth quarter and overtime."

" Through four games, the Mavericks have been singing praises about Jason Kidd, that he's even more impressive as a teammate than he was as an opponent. Turns out, the feeling is mutual. "

"For those who get off on me being slapped silly, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban branded my disclosure that Avery Johnson broached trading Dirk Nowitzki a "ridiculous assertion." He was a trifle more tender in an e-mail soon after reading the column than he was in his blog that labeled my source "an out-and-out liar." "

"Dirk Nowitzki is too mentally timid to lead the Mavericks to the NBA championship. At least that is the conventional wisdom of those who chronicle the goings-on of the NBA. That, too, was said to be part of the motivation behind the Jason Kidd trade."

"While the NBA ensured everything was on the up-and-up (yeah, right!) regarding Keith Van Horn (salvaged from the league's well-stocked free-agent mothball fleet) before approving the Nets-Mavs trade, I'm here to tell you the move on Kidd has as much to do with Avery Johnson's dissatisfaction with Dirk Nowitzki as a leader as with Devin Harris' point-guard shortcomings. According to an infallible source, the Mavericks' coach pressed team owner Mark Cuban to deal Dirk after the NBA's MVP came up shamefully small against the Warriors in last season's upsetting first-round elimination, but was overruled. "

"The pursuit of Jason Kidd got stronger and more focused every time Mark Cuban and Avery Johnson saw Dirk Nowitzki dragging two or three defenders on his arms when he went up for a shot."

"Dirk Nowitzki spent the weekend in The Big Easy celebrating the individual achievements of the All-Star participants. But it still is somewhat of a foreign concept to the German-born star. "Basketball is a team sport, but a lot of it is about individuals in this league," Nowitzki said. "We all know that. When the Mavericks play (the Los Angeles Lakers), it's always, 'Dirk vs. Kobe (Bryant).' It's not promoted as a team sport here like it is in Europe, where it's always five-on-five.""

"The concept changes tonight during the All-Star Game broadcast with the first player-produced spot. Dirk Nowitzki is the NBA's headliner."

"Teammates for a day, Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd lent a hand Friday in the rebuilding of a boys private school that had been destroyed when a levee broke after Hurricane Katrina. The two left wondering if they'll soon be teammates on the court and were in agreement that the past 72 hours have been the strangest of their careers."

"Buddies Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki don't get much time to hang together anymore. Even when the Suns and Mavericks play, the teams are in and out and the two are lucky to have a night to share when they are not limited to a postgame chat like Thursday."

"Dirk Nowitzki saw his string of 15 consecutive games with at least 20 points snapped Sunday. It was another reminder that things are coming harder, not only because the Dallas Mavericks are going against the top teams in the Eastern Conference but because they are trying to function without point guard Devin Harris. "

"Wallace typically plays well when he's matched against Dirk Nowitzki. Nowitzki (23 points) got the best of him in Dallas earlier this season. Even though he more than evened the score -- Nowitzki finished with 15 points (3 for 18) -- Wallace insisted it wasn't a personal issue."

"Dirk Nowitzki's 31-point, 11-rebound, six-assist, three-blocked shot effort at Boston almost single-handedly beat the Celtics. Nowitzki, however, mulled the one rebound and the one bucket he couldn't come up with in crunch time Thursday night."

"Who's the Mavs' MVP at the season's midpoint: Dirk Nowitzki or Josh Howard?"

" While Kobe Bryant dominated for stretches, he was stopped stone cold in the third quarter after Nowitzki's powwow as the Mavericks pulled away, then held on down the stretch for a foul-marred 112-105 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers."