DALLAS (AP) – Five weeks after Don Nelson handed over his whistle and made Avery Johnson coach of the Dallas Mavericks, the man nicknamed “The Little General” will be in charge of a playoff game for the first time.

Uh, scratch that. Make it the first playoff game he’ll be in charge of while wearing a suit.

Only six years ago, Johnson was the starting point guard on San Antonio’s championship team. He was still a postseason starter as recently as 2001.

Sure, David Robinson and Tim Duncan were the main reasons the Spurs were so good, but Johnson was the on-court leader who brought out their best – just like he’s doing now for Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavericks. Dallas is 16-2 since Johnson took over, and has won nine in a row going into the playoff opener Saturday against the Houston Rockets.

So while Johnson is a playoff coaching novice, no one in the Mavs locker room is wondering whether he can handle the pressure of the postseason.

“As a player, he’s been there,” guard Michael Finley said Friday. “Although he’s in a different role, the atmosphere and intensity is the same as when he was a player. His experience worked fine for us in the regular season. Hopefully that same experience will continue in the playoffs.”

In the last 50 years, only three rookie coaches have won an NBA title. The last two – Paul Westhead in 1980 and Pat Riley in 1982, both with the Lakers – overcame the added hurdle of getting the job during the season. So what Johnson is trying to do has been done before. Just not very often.

“All I’m thinking about is the first quarter of Game 1,” Johnson said. “Coaches are always concerned. I don’t think you’ll see many coaches smiling on the sideline because they’re excited about the playoffs.”

Johnson reached the playoffs 10 times over his 16 seasons. Put an asterisk by two more when Dallas left him off the roster but used him an extra assistant coach. His halftime speech in Game 7 of a first-round playoff series against Portland in 2003 is widely credited for helping spark the Mavs’ victory. They went on to reach the conference finals.

Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy remembers Johnson the playoff performer all too well. It was Johnson’s jumper from the corner in the final minute of Game 5 in the 1999 Finals that gave the Spurs the championship over the Van Gundy-coached New York Knicks.

As coaches, Van Gundy and Johnson are both demanding and defensive-minded. They have something else in common: Both got their first jobs by succeeding Nelson, with Van Gundy replacing him on the Knicks in 1996. Out of respect for his former boss, Van Gundy was hesitant to say too much about the job Johnson has done.

“They have a well-balanced team in the time since he turned it over to Avery,” Van Gundy said. “Those are the type of teams that can advance in the playoffs.”

Experience among the players is an interesting topic this series.

Houston’s top 10 players all have played in the postseason, yet no starter has made it to the conference finals. Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming haven’t even gotten out of the first round, with Yao’s only action coming in a five-game loss to the Lakers last year.

“In the past, I believed that I was always a first-round team and if we advanced to the second round, then we overachieved,” said McGrady, who is 0-for-4 in playoff series. “But this team, I feel like we’re contenders.”

Dallas has only Nowitzki and Finley from the core of its conference finals teams from two years ago. Instead, there are two starters who until this season rarely even sniffed the playoffs.

While toiling for Golden State, center Erick Dampier saw just one playoff game and that was when he got a ticket to a San Antonio-Memphis matchup. Jason Terry, exiled in Atlanta, traveled the country to soak up the postseason from the stands.

When he was traded to Dallas, Terry immediately began thinking about getting to be part of the show. Then training camp began and Johnson started preparing him for it.

Yes, that was in October. And even though Johnson was just an assistant coach then, he made it a priority to teach Terry the nuances he had to have down by April.

Lately, Terry said, “every word that comes out of his mouth” has been about the playoffs.

“Every situation we do in practice, every time out in a game, we’re thinking playoffs,” Terry said. “Knowing his track record – he’s got a championship under his belt – he commands so much respect from the players and everyone in the organization. We listen to what he says and take it to heart.”

AP-ES-04-22-05 1904EDT