The dreaded back-to-back-to-back would seemingly hit just about all NBA teams equally, because even the youngsters in Oklahoma City or the bounders on the Clippers' roster would have difficulty overcoming the travel, expectation, and physical and mental fatigue that comes from preparing for three opponents and playing nine hours of live NBA basketball in a 72-hour span. For the defending champion Dallas Mavericks, full of veterans on a team that played deep into June last season, that sort of commitment is something else entirely. Sports Illustrated's Lee Jenkins penned a terrific piece on the sort of months-long preparation the team put into preparing for such a tough turnaround (and subsequent turnaround on that third night) that can in a second go to pot because a scheduled-to-rest player gets a case of the giddies, or Grant Hill (the big jerk) accidentally knees your best player in the thigh. In one snippet, Dallas Mavericks head athletic trainer Craig Smith and team head coach Rick Carlisle were left wondering if it was time to abandon a plan devised months before (after the NBA's truncated schedule was released) to sit Jason Kidd for part of a back-to-back-to-back. And though Kidd (who turns 39 this week) is the very definition of a heady veteran, he's also a player and by function a competitor who still has to be talked out of acting the part of a firebrand playing his second NBA season. Here's Jenkins' lowdown :
More...
More...
