South Beach is dangerous

Mavs coach Avery Johnson is understandably upset at the suspension of his key sixth man Jerry Stackhouse, and went on the radio yesterday to vent a bit.

He’s also clearly embraced the reality that the Mavs may not be completely keyed in down there in Southern Florida, what with all the tans and boobs and parties and boobs and such.

“This is what I call ridiculous. The league is so inconsistent. I’ve been holding my tongue all year about the foolishness, just the foolishness that goes on there. They’re so inconsistent. I’m just embarrassed to have to deal with some of the things that I have to deal with. Because we are in a position we have no authority and we’re always reminded of that, we’re just coaches. It’s just a bunch of bologna, for lack of a better word. It’s just sickening.

“Our fans should be upset, our players will be. Mark is just humiliated. All of the stuff that players do to our teams, we’ve seen worse. DJ Mbenga puts a hard foul, LeBron James’ headband goes off, he got suspended.”

Hey, hey, HEY. No reason to bring the uninvolved and innocent into this one, Coach. That said, he has a point, and it all goes back to Reggie Evans not getting a suspension for the package-grabbing of Chris Kaman a few rounds back.

Maverick Moneyball has an excellent analysis on what Avery’s saying – the point is that Stu Jackson (who handles suspensions, etc) has basically given the refs a pass to not call things on the spot, since he’s going to clean it up as he sees fit later. We agree – don’t neuter your refs – they’re not dogs and cats.

As for the Mavs lack of general Mavsishness, Coach Johnson has moved the team to a motel outside the city.

We didn’t want to say anything, but this has nothing to do with the party atmosphere of Miami, and everything to do with Dirk stealing shampoo bottles from the rooms. They’ve been booted. We know it sounds crazy, but that’s only because we didn’t make it up. We fabricated it.

More later – like tomorrow, when the huge Game 5 actually takes place.