Rick Carlisle steps down as Mavericks coach, one day after GM departs

Dallas becomes the seventh team with an coaching vacancy, joining New Orleans, Washington, Orlando, Indiana, Portland — and Boston, where Carlisle played for the team that won the 1986 NBA title.

And now the Mavericks need a coach and a GM, in an offseason where they’re also expected to offer 22-year-old Luka Doncic, the team’s best player and now a two-time All-NBA performer, a $201 million extension.

Carlisle went 555-478 in Dallas, taking a team built around Dirk Nowitzki to the title in 2011 — the first, and still only, in Mavericks history. Dallas made six playoff appearances in the 10 seasons that followed, never getting out of the first round in any of them.

But Dallas owner Mark Cuban insisted after this year’s playoff run ended — the Mavericks went 0-3 at home in what became a seven-game first-round loss to the Los Angeles Clippers — that Carlisle was safe and would be back.

Carlisle, apparently, had other ideas. Carlisle told ESPN that he had “a number of in-person conversations” with Cuban in recent days, then came to the decision that it was time to go.

“Rick informed me today about his decision to step down as head coach,” Cuban said. “On top of being a tremendous basketball coach, he was also a friend and a confidant. Rick helped us bring the O’Brien Trophy to Dallas and those are memories I will always cherish.”

George takes over for Clippers

Paul George delivered exactly what was needed to move the Los Angeles Clippers one step closer to their first conference finals berth.

With Kawhi Leonard sidelined with a knee injury, George responded with one of the best postseason performances of his NBA career with 37 points, 16 rebounds, and five assists to lead the Clippers to a 119-111 victory over the Utah Jazz in Game 5 of their Western Conference semifinals series Wednesday night in Salt Lake City.

George became the first player in franchise history to post at least 35 points, 15 rebounds, and five assists in a playoff game.

“It was no secret. I knew I had to be big tonight and gotta be big going forward,” George said.

Marcus Morris scored 25 points and Reggie Jackson added 22 for the Clippers. Los Angeles won its third straight game to push the top-seeded Jazz to the brink of elimination. The Clippers shot 51 percent from the field in Leonard’s absence after he played a critical role in helping them win Games 3 and 4 in the series.

Simmons’s foul shooting foul

Ben Simmons’s foul-shooting woes so far in the playoffs aren’t just obvious.

They’re basically unprecedented.

The Philadelphia guard is 22 for 67 from the line so far in this postseason. He’s down to 32.8 percent after going 4 for 14 in Philadelphia’s Game 5 109-106 loss to Atlanta in the Eastern Conference semifinals on Wednesday night — and nobody in NBA playoff history, with that many attempts in single postseason, has ever been worse.

The next lowest percentage, among those with at least 67 foul shots in a postseason, is Shaquille O’Neal’s 37.4 percent for Miami in 2006 — when the Heat wound up winning the NBA championship anyway.

“Obviously, I’ve got to knock down free throws,” Simmons said. “I’ve got to step up and do that.”

Game 6 of the series is Friday in Atlanta, with the top-seeded 76ers now in a win-or-go-home scenario since they trail the best-of-seven 3-2.