Zgoda's short takes: Nov. 4

By Jerry Zgoda, Star Tribune

Last update: November 3, 2007 - 8:40 PM

• Maybe former Timberwolf Ricky Davis really wasn't joking when he declared there is a new Big Three in the league after he was traded to Miami. Davis took 19 shots and scored 23 points in the Heat's season-opening home loss to Detroit while Shaquille O'Neal took six shots and scored nine points. "I'd like more than six shots if we're going to win, especially until Dwyane comes back," O'Neal said, referring to injured star Dwyane Wade.

• Intense Dallas coach Avery Johnson appears to be dialing things down this season, asking less of his players in practice after the Mavericks won 67 regular-season games and then lost to Golden State in the playoffs' first round last spring.

"He's a lot different than he was his first year, and he's taking a really different approach than he took with us last year," point guard Devin Harris said of the third-year head coach.

The Mavericks last week signed Juwan Howard, after the Timberwolves bought out his contract.

• Denver star Allen Iverson apparently, really has left Philadelphia completely behind him. His suburban mansion, listed at $6.3 million, is for sale there after last season's trade to the Nuggets, and he recently sold at auction just about everything but that crossover dribble. Gone: a pair of bronze lion sculptures (sold for $5,400), his fur coats, some of his wife's designer clothes (with the tags still on) and his son's gas-powered mini-Maserati. "I'm definitely a Denver guy," he said.

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