Two teams still hoping to jumpstart their seasons hook up Wednesday night when the Dallas Mavericks and Sacramento Kings face off at American Airlines Center.Though the season is only about a quarter old, the Mavericks (4-16) and Kings (7-13) appear headed to the lottery. Missing the playoffs is nothing new for Sacramento, which is working on a decade-long postseason drought.The Kings had high expectations. Instead, this DeMarcus Cousins-led squad has dropped three games in row and eight of the last 11. Sacramento, 11th in the Western Conference, ends a five-game road trip in Dallas.The Kings lost 106-98 at New York on Sunday. Sacramento battled back from a 21-point deficit to make it a game in the fourth quarter before running out of gas.I think well be fine, Darren Collison told the Sacramento Bee. Weve just got to figure out how to compete at a higher level. Not from a physical side, but a mental side, and try to limit our mistakes mentally.Cousins is off to a great start, averaging a career-high 29.1 points and 10.5 rebounds. The seven-year pro is third in the NBA in scoring and 11th in rebounding.Closing out games is point of contention for the All-NBA center.Most guys, adrenaline gets going in those last couple of minutes, Cousins told the Bee. Youre going to find out who has the most heart in those last situations, and (Sunday) it was them. I dont think theres any one thing you can do or talk it over. Its who wants it the most in those last couple minutes.Dallas has failed to qualify for the playoffs only once since 2001. Unless something dramatic happens with this injury-ravaged club, this season will be about ping-pong ball positioning.The Mavericks are without Dirk Nowitzki, Andrew Bogut and J.J. Barea. Bogut injured his right knee in Mondays 109-101 loss to Charlotte. Seth Curry (knee) is making progress, but is officially listed as questionable against the Kings.Dallas led for much of the second half before faltering down the stretch. The Hornets outscored the Mavs 34-23 in the fourth quarter to pull away.Two days after their best performance of the season in a 107-82 rout of Chicago, the Mavs fell flat with the game on the line. Dallas coach Rick Carlisle pinned the collapse on a lack of effort late.Why we fell into that, Im not sure, he said. Maybe we were resting on the laurels of our one-game winning streak.Charlotte outrebounded the Mavericks 55-35. Losing Bogut in the first quarter didnt help, but Carlisle didnt use losing his starting center as an excuse.The thing thats most disappointing is the rebounding numbers, he said. After really going toe-to-toe with Chicago and playing even on the boards, we got wiped out (Monday) by 20, which shouldnt happen. That points to effort.Dallas won two of its previous four games before Monday, and was competitive in the other two. That qualified as progress in a campaign thats off to the worst start since Mark Cuban bought the team in 2000.Losing their edge in the fourth quarter against Charlotte -- the Mavs were up 11 in the third -- didnt sit well in the locker room.We just went cold for whatever reason and we just cant do that, Wesley Matthews sad. We have to be crazed dogs from the tip to the final buzzer and that is how we have to play. That is how we have been playing. We have been that way for the last, however many games, we showed that identity.The Mavericks won 22 of the last 27 regular-season meetings against Sacramento, but the Kings claimed three of the four games last season. Cheap Adidas Stan Smith . Toronto has dropped games to Indiana and Miami since a five-game winning streak and closed out a three-game road trip at 1-2. 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LOS ANGELES -- Clay Helton, whose first season as head coach of No. 20 USC begins against No. 1 Alabama on Saturday night at AT&T Stadium (8 p.m. ET, ABC), is replacing more than just a coach. He is replacing an era.When Pat Haden, the former Trojans athletic director, took interim off of Heltons title last November, USC formally stopped trying to extend Pete Carrolls nine-year tenure of glitz and glamour.USC is not Hollywood, Helton said.Wait just a minute, Coach. Or should we say Cut!?John Wayne played for USC, for heavens sake. Frank Gifford and O.J. Simpson glided through the Trojans line and into TV careers. During Carrolls wildly successful tenure -- two national championships, three Heisman Trophy winners, seven conference championships and 28 All-Americans -- USC became Reggie Bush and Kim Kardashian. Matt Leinart and Lindsay Lohan. Snoop Dogg and Will Ferrell on the sideline.Thats exactly who the new head coach of USC isnt. Carroll, the bling coach, is gone. His successors, Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian, melted in front of TMZs lights. They proved ill-equipped to handle the pressures of trying to win with their hands tied by NCAA probation. The devastating penalties took away 30 scholarships over three seasons and resulted in USC being stripped of two Pac-12 titles and Bushs Heisman.The probation is over, too, and there is a sense of a fresh start at USC. Sarks replacement, Helton, hunts alligators. Hes courtly and self-deprecating, two traits that every Southern parent demands. His mantra is faith, family and football, and those items are not just in alphabetical order. And the only Kim hanging around the Trojans these days is Heltons father. Kim Helton was the head coach of the Houston Cougars for seven seasons and spent 12 as an NFL assistant.To repeat, USC is not Hollywood, at least in the mind of its new head coach.When you think of the names Marcus Allen and Ronnie Lott, Marv Goux, a legendary [assistant] coach here, you just think of toughness and physicality, Clay Helton said. Those are the things that have won championship after championship here.The image of Carrolls teams was of a regular lunchpail crew, if you buy your lunchpails at Prada.It is customary in college football to hire a new coach who is the opposite of the old, failed predecessor. A disciplinarian follows a players coach. A defensive guru takes over from a guy who kept all the talent on offense.So, ditch the limo; cue the Ford F-150. Lets all pretend that USC has left La La Land (meaning Tinseltown, not the new Emma Stone-Ryan Gosling romantic comedy).Take the new discipline inside the Trojans locker room. Before Helton took over, if a player skipped a class, he got two hours of physical drills. Now, if a player skips a class, his whole position group gets the extra work.You had guys who would book it in their weekly schedule, their two-hour punishment, quarterback Max Browne said. They may miss class, and on Friday afternoon, I might die for those two hours, but Ill be able to sleep through a class for the rest of the way. Its one thing if you miss a class, you get punished yourself and only yourself. But when your teammates are also getting punished? Thats a whole other element.Take the feeling of family. Clay hired his brother, Tyson, to coordinate the Trojans passing game. You can cry nepotism, at least until you see that for the last two seasons, he ran the Western Kentucky offense in which Brandon Doughty threw for 9,885 yards and 97 touchdowns.Tyson Helton brought offensive line coach Neil Callaway with him. Callaway was on the Auburn staff when Clay Helton signed there as a quarterback in 1990. Callaway spent four seasons as Kim Heltons offensive coordinator at Houston. Kim Helton spent five seasons as Callaways offensive coordinator at UAB.Callaway started for Bear Bryant on the Alabama team that beat USC in 1977. He spent more than two decades as an assistant at Auburn, Georgia and Alabama before he went to UAB. Callaway has a voice thats part syrup, part metal grinder. Actually, he just grinds up players.He brings us Southern hospitality, Southern gentlemanship and very much a Southern toughness, Clay Helton said. I just knew that experience, that knowledge, that toughness and physicality was something that I really wanted for our culture.Helton warned his offensive line.I said, Guys, just understand, Helton said. Youre going to think this guy is literally the devil. But after a month youre going to love him, because youre gonna know hes going to make you better as a player.After three sessions of spring practice, offensive tackle Zach Banner cornered Helton in the locker room and said, Coach, know this. Were taking Coach Callaway out to dinner and youre never going to see him again because were going to kill him.We gott a good bunch of guys, Callaway said of his players.dddddddddddd I dont mean theyre all angels. I aint saying that. But all the kids are into ball. Its important to them.There aint been a whole lot of Trojans assistant coaches saying aint lately.Take the way that Helton and his staff are coaching. The players understand why theyre so tough.He loves us, you know what Im saying? Toa Lobendahn said of Helton. A big thing in life for me is giving out love. I feel hes a big proponent of that. The way he treats us and respects us and even coaches us, thats the way we want it to be.The only time Ive ever seen him get [upset] is if weve done something outside of football -- if weve left our dining area dirty and [the custodial staff] had to clean up for us and he had to hear about it, or we left our players lounge dirty.Hes probably the most genuine guy Ive ever met, not even just [in] football but outside of it, Browne said of Helton.All of which shows how Helton is wrong. USC is still Hollywood, but under Helton, its rated G. Frank Capra would have loved him.Helton was practically born in a college football stadium. Kim was a graduate assistant at Florida in 1972, the year Clay was born.Heck, the first year of my life were living in the Swamp, Helton said. Were living in the dorms right at the stadium. I grew up in the profession.As a quarterback at Auburn and then for his dad at Houston, Helton proved he would be a better coach than player. As soon as he graduated, Duke head coach Fred Goldsmith, an old colleague of Kim, made Clay a graduate assistant. A year later, at age 23, Helton became the Blue Devils running backs coach. He went into the family business. The construction business lost a hardhat.I think my mom is still mad at me, Helton said. I was nine hours short of a mechanical engineering degree. I had enough hours to get an interdisciplinary math and science degree.Helton spent 10 seasons as an offensive assistant coach at Memphis, rising to the job of offensive coordinator. He coached All-America running back DeAngelo Williams. And in his last season, 2009, as the Tigers plummeted to a 2-10 record that cost head coach Tommy West and his staff their jobs, Helton made an impression.When Memphis lost to Tennessee and first-year head coach Lane Kiffin, 56-28, the Tigers rushed for 210 yards and threw for 193. After the season, Monte Kiffin, the Vols defensive coordinator and Lanes dad, called Helton.He said, Clay, yall did the best job against us. Do you mind taking me through what you saw? Were going to play Virginia Tech [in the Chick-fil-A Bowl]. I feel like theyre going to do some of the things that you did. What did you see? So we ended up talking for a couple of hours, Helton said.Helton left Memphis and landed at Arkansas State. Weeks later -- so soon after the move that Helton was still sleeping on the floor of his new Jonesboro office -- Monte Kiffin called again. Lane had gone to USC and he needed a quarterback coach. Helton agreed to interview after signing day.Not thinking that I have a chance in hell, he said, laughing. Got through signing day, came out here, and something just clicked. ... Probably some guys said no, and youre the one left standing. Something clicked. Like I told everybody, I felt like I won the lottery coming out here.Helton weathered the storms of coaching under Kiffin and Sarkisian. When interim head coach Ed Orgeron refused to coach the Trojans in the 2013 Las Vegas Bowl, Helton took over. And when USC fired Sarkisian after five games last season, Helton took over again. The Trojans went 5-2 over the rest of the regular season, and the day after they beat crosstown rival UCLA to clinch the Pac-12 South championship, Helton lost his interim status.If you want to see people who think they won the lottery, watch the video of the teams reaction when Haden told the USC players their new coach would be their current coach. It looks like every World Series celebration youve ever seen, minus the champagne.With all of Heltons new responsibilities, Browne said his head coach hasnt changed one bit. The feeling around the team, though, changed a lot.Less on edge, I guess, Browne said. Just to be going out and playing a game, playing football, I think it was nice to just kind of move on from all that. It just seemed more free, and I dont want to say that because it makes it sound like it was unstructured. It wasnt unstructured. But it seemed like guys were just going out there and having fun.If there is to be a Clay Helton era at USC, the lights, camera and action begin Saturday night. USC football is still Hollywood. Theres just a new guy in charge of the studio. ' ' '
