No pressure trying to live up to being the No. 1 seed, like last season when the Mavericks became the only top seed eliminated in a best-of-seven first-round series - a year after they lost in the NBA Finals.
“It’s definitely different,” Dallas forward Dirk Nowitzki, the reigning NBA Most Valuable Player, said Thursday. “Last year the pressure was on us, and this year we kind of go out and play and have fun. Hopefully we can do that.”
Plus, by beating the New Orleans Hornets in the regular-season finale Wednesday, Dallas avoided starting the playoffs against Kobe Bryant and the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers.
“I don’t think we wanted to start in L.A.,” Nowitzki admitted again.
Now the only way the Mavericks and Lakers can meet this postseason is if both win two series and get to the Western Conference finals.
The seventh-seeded Mavs (51-31) will still start the playoffs on the road for the first time since 2001. Game 1 is Saturday night in New Orleans against the Hornets, the Southwest Division champions who lack significant playoff experience.
“We hope it’s an advantage,” Mavs swingman Jerry Stackhouse said. “It can go both ways. You can have a team that inexperience starts to show during the playoffs, or they’re so carefree from their inexperience that they go out and play lights-out.”
The Mavs have plenty of postseason experience, this being their eighth straight playoff trip. Nowitzki, Stackhouse, Josh Howard and Jason Terry have all been involved in at least half of them. Point guard Jason Kidd, the key midseason addition, has started 100 career playoff games with two trips to the NBA Finals with the New Jersey Nets.
But there have also been notable postseason failures, and those were recently. Dallas blew a 2-0 series lead in the 2006 Finals, then won a team-record 67 games last season before it was upset by the Golden State Warriors in the first round.
“What happened last year, that’s behind us,” Howard said. “Now, we’re just trying to win games. We’re flying under the radar, guys are more loose and looking to have fun. The pressure is off.”
Howard and the Mavs know what to expect in the playoffs, but they will be a new experience for MVP-caliber point guard Chris Paul and many of the Hornets, who were one of the league’s biggest surprises and best teams throughout the regular season.
“It’s just a situation where we’re not the team being talked about,” Mavericks coach Avery Johnson said. “Hopefully, down the road we’ll give somebody something to talk about.”
The Mavericks are 12-11 since March 1. They had consecutive losses last weekend to sub-.500 teams Portland and Seattle before rallying to beat the Hornets 111-98 in their finale.
“It was good for us to win and get some momentum,” Nowitzki said.
“It was important for us to win this game for our confidence, so we can go in on a high level,” Terry said. “Now we go down there, where we lost two games. We know that. But we also know we’re a good team and we can beat them. Game 1 is big.”
Dallas and New Orleans split their four games during the regular season, with the home team winning each time. The Mavs’ last game in New Orleans - coach Avery Johnson’s hometown - was Feb. 20, when they lost 104-93 in the first game after the All-Star break and Kidd’s debut in his Mavs return.
“We’ve always believed we were going to be in the playoffs,” Kidd said. “Now that we’re there, it’s time for us to just have fun with it and find a way to win some games.”
Kidd capped the regular season with his 100th career triple-double, the 13th this season but first since rejoining the Mavs, the team that drafted him. Kidd had 27 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds, an impressive showing for the veteran against talented youngster Paul in a playoff preview.
“More than sending a message, we’ve been kind of nudging Kidd to play that way for a while,” Johnson said. “He understands I like him to play that way. I love him to be aggressive."
