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- Remember that window, that window of opportunity the Dallas Mavericks geared their championship hopes around?

Closed.

Slammed shut by Chris Paul and the New Orleans Hornets, who won Game 5 Tuesday, 99-94.

Pending further developments -- and we expect there to be many -- the Mavericks will have to use the dog's door. Which only seems appropriate.

Two short years after they were two victories from the NBA championship, the Mavericks were overwhelmingly exposed as disorganized, inconsistent, air ball-firing pretenders in this opening-round playoff series.

Their descent from the NBA penthouse to that other house is complete. They're not an elite team anymore, and please correct any fool that tries to argue otherwise.

The Mavericks stumbled into the playoffs this season and here, against a fresh new team and in a rejuvenated city where triumphs like this truly mean something, the Mavs were deservingly chased out.

They barely had time to... ahem... practice.

This time, they couldn't blame their sudden exit on Don Nelson and the luck of the NBA postseason draw. This time, they couldn't blame it on Dwyane Wade parading to the free-throw line.

No, this time, the defeat came with no footnotes attached.

"They're a good team," Mavericks coach Avery Johnson said of the Hornets. "They're a better team. They took it to us. They came on our home floor and won Game 4.

"We just didn't have enough of our men playing well at the same time."

Johnson's brief epitaph was correct. But the reasons behind it are likely to brew storm clouds in the days and weeks ahead.

"We haven't been able in the latter part of the season to keep up with the better teams," Johnson assessed.

"And we paid the price for it."

Lots of teams stumble. They right themselves, the coach blows a whistle, and they carry on.

But Johnson's team has plunged so far, so quickly, and seemingly shattered into so many pieces, the prospects of starting fresh simply by convening a training camp seem plainly naïve.

Window of opportunity? Against the Hornets, the Mavericks couldn't even find the doorbell.

Fingerprints were everywhere. But when it comes time to assign the blame for one of the franchise's most bitter seasons, Johnson will be given plenty and Josh Howard has stepped forward and accepted the title of team fool.

Tell me, what sort of player ignores his coach's instructions and schedules a birthday party in the middle of the playoffs, as Howard did Sunday?

No wonder Avery was livid and canceled Monday's practice.

Howard's common sense and shooting percentage both ended the season at new lows. His radio comments about illegal drug use were ill-advised, at best -- and career-altering, perhaps, at worst.

But the birthday party thing was just selfish.

When he was asked after Tuesday's game about the melodrama that dogged the Mavericks in this series, Dirk Nowitzki admitted that it became a distraction.

"Yeah," Nowitzki said, "obviously it was very disappointing what happened here in the playoffs with everything. It was bad timing.

"In the playoffs, it's time to just really concentrate about basketball and focus on it, and not let any distractions come up."

Howard was not disciplined by Johnson. But after hitting his first four shots, Howard reverted into previous scattershot form, missing eight of his next 10.

Down the stretch, he was where he deserved to be -- on the bench. Johnson went with Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Brandon Bass and Devean George (Jerry Stackhouse had been ejected), and the Mavs -- running on all heart, just when we wondered if they had any -- managed to fight enough to keep the ending close.

"Our men that we had in there in that fourth quarter, they poured it out for us," Johnson said. "They laid it on the line."

Five players, maybe six. A coach whose message wavered in and out throughout the second half of the season.

Johnson didn't sound as if he had coached his last game with the Mavericks, but as the guys down the street at Harrah's Casino might say, the odds aren't with him.

"I'm sure there are going to be some changes," Nowitzki said. "Right now you're disappointed, and you don't want to say stuff when you're emotional and disappointed.

"So we'll just let this one sit for awhile. I'm sure we've got to look at it again over the summer, but it's not the time right now."

Owner Mark Cuban, however, might not be so patient.

Cuban agreed to roll the dice in February and OK the mega-trade for Kidd, and then saw his once-NBA Finals team dissolve into disarray.

"We went for it," Nowitzki said. "I mean, honestly, things didn't look great before the trade."

With the franchise's wrists tied by existing contracts, notably Kidd's, Cuban's most impactful move almost seems obvious.

Teams don't fall from the NBA penthouse to that other house. Windows of opportunity don't slam so emphatically shut.

Not without the head coach being fired -- a move that, in light of these past three months, makes abundant sense.
Gil LeBreton, 817-390-7760
glebreton@star-telegram.com