Carlisle tells Dallas Mavericks training will be tough

May 15--The Mavericks want a looser hand on the sideline, a coach who will let them run and do what they do best.

That's fine, Rick Carlisle said Wednesday.

But they better be ready to pay the price.

At his introductory news conference, the Mavericks' new coach said his team is in for a meat-grinding training camp full of sprints and sweat when they convene in October. While making it clear that some of the players who finished the season won't be here then, the ones who are will get a punishing month of workouts.

"They're going to find out that playing faster and with momentum isn't just a matter of going out there and having a little more fun," Carlisle said. "It is a lot of work. This will probably be one of the tougher training camps these guys have ever had.

"The physical commitment to being an uptempo team is something that very few guys have experienced. We made a commitment to run my last year in Indiana, and the players were shocked how difficult training camp was.

"The thing that Jason Kidd does better than any point guard probably in history is push that thing ahead. If you're going to play at a faster tempo, there's unbelievable physical commitment to doing that."

The point can be argued whether a team with the 35-year-old Kidd and several other key players over 30 can handle a training camp that forces players to run, run, run.

But if Kidd's talents are to be emphasized, it's essential. Dirk Nowitzki knows Kidd was not at his best in Avery Johnson's isolation offense.

"We just had to get a change here," said Nowitzki, who sat in on Carlisle's news conference at American Airlines Center. "We need somebody now who can get the best out of this team, the best out of everybody.

"We need to find a way to make Kidd more efficient for us. By just dropping the ball in the post and being a weakside shooter, I don't think that suited his game. In the half-court offense, besides posting him a little bit, we've got to find other ways to have him put a stamp on the game. That's the coach's job."

Carlisle took questions on a variety of topics, including: