NBA -- Mavs Fire Cleamons; Nelson To Take Over

DALLAS - Jim Cleamons is out and Don Nelson will soon be in as coach of the Dallas Mavericks.

Cleamons was fired today after the Mavericks lost 12 of their past 13 games. He is the first NBA coach to lose his job this season.

Assistant coach Charlie Parker will coach the team tonight against the New York Knicks. Then Nelson, a three-time NBA coach of the year and the sixth-winningest coach in league history, will take over the league's worst team of the 1990s on Saturday when the Mavericks play Houston in the first regular-season game in Mexico.

Cleamons, whose overall record with Dallas was 28-70, received a four-year, $5 million contract when he was hired in May 1996 to become an NBA head coach for the first time.

The Mavericks also fired two assistant coaches - Butch Beard, a former New Jersey Nets coach who was Cleamons' top aide, and Sonny Allen.

Nelson, who was hired as general manager in February, had been lobbying for Cleamons' dismissal for months and owner Ross Perot Jr. finally agreed.

NOTES

-- Washington Wizard guard Rod Strickland sympathizes with Latrell Sprewell. Like Sprewell, whose contract was terminated by Golden State because of his attack on P.J. Carlesimo, Strickland had philosophical differences with the coach when they were with Portland in the 1994-95 and '95-96 seasons. "There were times when I felt like choking him," Strickland said. "He's got a pretty annoying personality."

-- Milwaukee forward Glenn Robinson was cited for disorderly conduct and obstructing the issuance of a citation after a weekend incident in which Milwaukee police ticketed vehicles for illegal parking outside a nightclub a block from the Bradley Center.

Compiled from Associated Press, Dallas Morning News and Bloomberg News Service.