Making the Point

If he was frustrated (and how couldn't he have been?), Terry didn't let that paralyze him, and he didn't let it show. As a starter, Terry has been everything the Mavs have looked for since Nash left town--a capable shooter and a deft ball handler who's worked the offense smartly. Suddenly, he was having 9-for-10 shooting nights against the Lakers or dropping 14 assists against the Celtics or hitting game-winners against the Kings. Suddenly the Mavs had found the point guard they were looking for all along, and they began winning, too, moving ahead of Minnesota and Sacramento in the standings (two teams everyone considered to be better than the Mavs when the season began).

"By inserting him into the starting lineup, I think it really gave him some confidence," Michael Finley says about Terry, who is averaging 11.6 points and five assists. "I think it said to him that the coaching staff believed he could do the job. When he was coming off the bench, maybe he lost a little of that confidence. Now that he's starting, he has more of that confidence in himself back, and that's important. Now he can do what the coaching staff asks of him. He shoots when we need him to shoot, or he passes it. He's playing the way we need him to play. This is exactly what we need from him."

Despite the winning and the praise from teammates, there's no guarantee that Terry will keep his starting role. With Nellie, anything is possible--a shift in the lineup or a trade, anything he deems necessary. When asked how much of the team's season-high five-game winning streak was the result of Terry's emergence, Nellie offered a tepid testimonial, saying that the point guards in general had played well, but that no one man was responsible. That's Nellie.

"You know, coming in, I didn't expect anything except to play for a good team," Terry says without rancor. "That's the way it goes. Whatever they want me to do, I have to do. [Nellie] sees this team the way it is--we're a work in progress. I just have to understand that, do what they ask and go from there.

"I mean, hey, no one has ever handed me anything. Even when I played [in college] at Arizona, people doubted me. But that's OK. I just have to find a way to prove them wrong."