Nellie Wins 1,000th Game

Mavericks head coach Don Nelson couldn't wait to get his 1,000th career victory, but not for the reason you might expect. It had nothing to do with basking in the warm glow of historical accomplishment, nothing to do with ego.

"That way everybody will stop talking about it," Nelson said.

Fat chance of that.

Nelson ascended into the rarified air of the basketball coaching fraternity when the Mavericks beat the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday night, giving the long-time coach his 1,000th career victory.

Nelson now joins the august company of Lenny Wilkens and Pat Riley as the only three NBA coaches to hit that magic milestone.

"I was his assistant in Milwaukee when he got his 500th win, and I thought that was pretty terrific," said long-time friend and assistant coach Del Harris. "It's so hard to do. Just staying in the league long enough, just being able to survive long enough to win 1,000 is quite a feat.

"This is one of the great individual accomplishments in sports. The number is nice, but the fact that you're in the top three of anybody who has ever done this is even more incredible."

The first game

The first game of the Don Nelson coaching career was a 117-114 loss to the Lakers at Milwaukee on Nov. 23, 1976.

The first starting lineup to take the floor under the new coach:

F Junior Bridgeman

F Bobby Dandridge

C Elmore Smith

G Brian Winters

G Quinn Buckner

The reserves included Mickey Davis (brother of former Mavericks guard Brad Davis), Gary Brokaw, Swen Nater, Lloyd Walton, Alex English, Glenn McDonald and Scott Lloyd.

The first win

The first win didn't come until the fourth game of Nelson's tenure. On Nov. 30, 1976, the Portland Trail Blazers visited the Bucks, and Milwaukee walked away with a 115-106 victory. One down, 999 more to go.

THE MILWAUKEE YEARS

Nelson really made his name as one of the more innovative coaches in the NBA with his handling of the Bucks during the 11 seasons he coached in Milwaukee. He drafted Sidney Moncrief and Marques Johnson. He also traded the ever-underachiving Kent Benson for Hall of Famer Bob Lanier. The Bucks won at least 50 games seven times and won seven consecutive division titles. And of course there were those fish ties that Nelson wore in support of Wisconsin's agricultural community, which is to say most of Wisconsin.

Milwaukee milestones

100th victory: March 7, 1979, the Bucks beat the visiting New Jersey Nets, 133-98.

200th victory: Feb. 9, 1981, the Bucks throttled the visiting Chicago Bulls, 128-109.

300th victory: Jan. 16, 1983, the Golden State Warriors were the victims, falling, 109-108, at Milwaukee.

400th victory: Jan. 13, 1985, came at the expense of the Denver Nuggets, 140-116.

500th victory: Nov. 26, 1986, the Bucks beat the visiting Washington Bullets, 122-103.

NBA Coach of the Year: 1983 and 1985.Saddle Up the palomino

Nelson's well-documented affection for veteran players got its first true test when Milwaukee owner Herbert Kohl wanted to trade aging stars such as Sidney Moncrief. Nelson balked and irreconcilable differences were born between owner and coach, resulting in Nelson's resignation May 27, 1987, and the elevation of Del Harris to head coach.

THE GOLDEN STATE YEARS

Nelson moved to the West Coast and took over the job of executive vice president for the Warriors for the 1987-88 season. The next year, he became head coach and general manager and the man responsible for rebuilding the moribund franchise. In six-plus years as coach, Nelson was 277-260 and led the Warriors to the playoffs four times. He drafted such All-Stars as Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, Tyrone Hill, Latrell Sprewell, Chris Gatling and Anfernee Hardaway. The latter Hardaway was traded to Orlando for Chris Webber, who went on to win Rookie of the Year honors and also helped get Nelson fired about halfway through the 1994-95 season by ripping his coach to the Warriors' ownership.

Golden State milestones

600th victory: Jan. 21, 1990, the Warriors went into Boston Garden and beat the Celtics, 120-115. It was the 1,004th game of Nelson's coaching career.

700th victory: Feb. 22, 1992, the visiting Warriors beat the LA Lakers, 126-124.

800th victory: April 16, 1994, the Warriors beat the Utah Jazz, 109-105.

NBA Coach of the Year: 1992

Marriage: Perhaps the best milestone of all was Nelson's marriage - on the Warriors' court at the Oakland Coliseum - to Joy Wolfgram on June 19, 1991.

Saddle up the palomino redux

Cut loose by the Warriors, Nelson packed up and headed back to the East Coast, where he took over as head coach of the New York Knicks. Nelson replaced Pat Riley, who had led the Knicks to four 50-plus win seasons, two Atlantic Division titles, two trips to the Eastern Conference finals and the 1994 Eastern Conference championship. It was a tough act to follow and probably a bad match from the start. "The thing I'm most proud of is that in the other three places I've been, I've been able to build something special right from the ground up," Nelson said. "I wasn't in New York long enough to build anything. Of course, I wasn't there long enough to screw anything up, either." The Knicks fired him 59 games into the 1995-96 season and replaced him with Jeff Van Gundy.

WELCOME TO TEXAS

The Mavericks hired Nelson as general manager Feb. 7, 1997, and he wasted little time laying waste to the existing roster. On his first day, he waived Oliver Miller. In the first week, he traded Jamal Mashburn to Miami for Kurt Thomas, Sasha Danilovic and Martin Muursepp. The next day he signed Erick Strickland. Two days later, he acquired Shawn Bradley, Khalid Reeves and Ed O'Bannon from the Nets for Jim Jackson, Chris Gatling, Sam Cassel, George McLeod and Eric Montross.

Back to the bench

On Dec. 4, 1997, the Mavericks fired head coach Jim Cleamons, and Nelson returned to the bench as head coach. The Mavericks were 16-50 under him the first season and 19-31 in the 1998-99 season abbreviated by the lockout. The turnaround began in the 1999-2000 season, when the Mavericks improved to 40-42. Nelson painstakingly assembled the right pieces, including point guard Steve Nash and forward Dirk Nowitzki to complement Michael Finley. The turnaround reached a crescendo last season when the team went 53-29 and made it all the way to the Western Conference semifinals before losing to the San Antonio Spurs. It was the team's first playoff appearance in 11 years.

Dallas milestones

900th victory: Jan. 23, 2000, the visiting Mavericks beat the Detroit Pistons, 99-91.

950th victory: Jan. 10, 2001, the Mavericks beat the Timberwolves, 106-86, at Minneapolis.

1,000th victory: Dec. 29, 2001, defeated the Atlanta Hawks at American Airlines Center. It was the Mavericks' ninth consecutive victory, the second-longest winning streak in franchise history.

Return from cancer: Nelson's biggest victory of the 2000-2001 season came away from the court when he underwent prostate cancer surgery in early January. Son Donnie was interim coach for 21 games, going 13-8. Those victories were creditied to his father's record, but none of the wins could compare to beating cancer.

THE BEGINNING

He wasn't even going to be a coach. When Nelson's 14-year playing career was complete - a career that started with the Chicago Zephyrs in 1962, included two seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers and then blossomed as a member of five Boston Celtics championship teams - Nelson was going to be a referee. But Larry Costello, the coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, convinced him to sign on as an assistant coach with the Bucks for the 1976 season. Eighteen games into the season, the Bucks were 3-15 and Costello resigned. The new coach of the Bucks was that aspiring referee, Don Arvid Nelson, who proclaimed himself "numbed" by the events that made him a head coach.