A very curt coach

Understandably, coach Rick Carlisle was in no mood to chit-chat before tonight's game. A good tail-bruising like Tuesday in San Antonio will do that to a coach.

And in case anybody forgot, Milwaukee is the same team that smashed the Mavericks by a season-worst 34 points last month.

"And they're better now,'' Carlisle said. "They play better and they're a harder team to play against. And they were plenty hard to play against last time.''

The Mavericks have no room for error tonight. This is not a game they can afford to mess up.

--Eddie Sefko