By JAN HUBBARD Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Posted on Thu, Nov. 15, 2007 Star-Telegram.com

When San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich first decided that the Spurs could be successful by working less, he had to explain it to the players.

They did not understand.

The radical downsizing came last season on days of all home games. Instead of meeting for the traditional morning shootaround, Popovich told the players to rest and simply report for the night game.

At first, Popovich said, the players looked at him like he was speaking Russian, which he can do thanks to four years of studying the language at the Air Force Academy and a stint as a military intelligence officer in Eastern Europe.

"You're supposed to shoot around on the day of the game," was how Popovich interpreted their looks.

The Spurs already had a light work schedule. In a league where off-day practices are routinely two hours or more, Popovich had a maverick approach.

"When we're rolling into the season," Popovich said, "a practice more than an hour is a rarity for us."

Instead of being governed by tradition, Popovich created his own. Short practices on off-days, no practices on game days and a belief that in the marathon 82-game season, rest would pay off.

"I don't have any empirical formula to prove that it added up," Popovich said. "I have no proof that this is a brilliant piece of strategy on my part."

Well, yes, he does. In June, the Spurs won their fourth title in nine years.

"Yeah, but if we'd lost," Popovich said, "everybody would have said it was because we didn't practice enough."

As fascinating as Popovich's approach is, it becomes even more interesting for those who follow the Mavericks because of changes made by Avery Johnson this season.

Johnson is as intense as any military officer. He had to be to survive 16 seasons in the NBA at 5-foot-10, 175 pounds. As a player, he was driven and as a coach, he is demanding.

But Johnson took a look at his team in the off-season and, despite winning 67 games last year, saw a team that was physically and mentally tired at the end of the season.

So he pulled back. In training camp, he had two practices the first two days and then gave the team a day off. He has continued giving the team more days off this year than he has in the past, although he will point out that on many off-days, players come to the practice facility to do weight training. But even Johnson will smile and say that he has become a calmer coach this year.

Johnson won't say, however, whether the Spurs' reduced practice schedule led to his calmer approach.

"We try to learn from all championship-caliber teams and obviously they're one of them," Johnson said. "They've won four titles in nine years, so I think everybody wants to be like them."

Johnson played five years for Popovich in San Antonio and the two are mutual admirers. Johnson contributed mightily to the Spurs' first title in 1999, when he hit an 18-foot baseline jumper with 47 seconds left to give the Spurs a 78-77 victory and a 4-1 series win over the Knicks.

During the summer, Popovich called Johnson and told him the Spurs were retiring his jersey number in December. When asked if Johnson picked his brain during any of their off-season conversations, Popovich smiled and said, "We talk about a lot of things, and we share a lot of ideas about basketball. Let's just say we learn from each other."

Popovich has the luxury of working his players less because he has the most experienced -- and oldest -- team in the league. Ten of the 14 players on the roster are 30 or older. Six of them have double-digit years of experience. And the core group has been together for three titles.

But the Mavericks are also a veteran team. Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, Josh Howard, Jerry Stackhouse, Devin Harris and Erick Dampier are in their fourth season of playing together. Dallas has seven players with eight or more years of experience and six of those are 30 or older.

One 30-something who has played for both coaches is Michael Finley, who, along with Manu Ginobili, had the most difficult time adjusting to Popovich's more relaxed schedule.

"I'm a gym rat, so for me, it's an individual adjustment," Finley said. "But for the team overall, it's good. Coach knows what kind of group of guys he has. Even though practices may be limited, he knows we will work on our individual game."

When asked if he thought Johnson had adopted at least part of Popovich's philosophy, Finley said, "People forget Avery's just in his second or third year as a head coach and he's learning as well as his team is developing. You learn from some of your mistakes in the past. Maybe in the past, he worked his team out too hard and they ran out of gas at the end, so he's trying to pull back a little bit. We'll see if this experiment works for him."

Popovich often says, and repeats, that he has learned a lot from Johnson, and if that's true, then Johnson is pretty smart because the Spurs have won four titles.

But you can always get smarter. If Johnson has listened and learned from watching the Spurs and talking to their head coach, then perhaps he is as smart as Popovich says he is.