Collison and Mavs need to play better defense

PHILADELPHIA -- There was one glaring thing that kept happening over and over again as the Dallas Mavericks watched re-runs of Saturday's 115-89 humbling loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. 

"We didn’t help the guys that were getting beat off the dribble, and rightfully so, we’ve got to help,'' point guard Darren Collison said. "This is a team thing.

"You can’t guard anybody one-on-one. We’ve got to just do a better job of just staying in front of the ball individually and we’ve got to do a better job of helping each other out.''

Now that the Mavs (7-7) know what they've got to do defensively, the plan now is to go out on the court and do it when they face the Phidelphia 76ers (8-6) at 6 tonight at Wells Fargo Arena. The Sixers certainly won't be a pushover, especially with coach Doug Collins calling the shots.

"Philly, especially at home, they play really well at home,'' Collison said. "And I think they got a lot of good guard play starting with Jrue Holiday, Nick Young, Evan Turner, all those guys can play, so we’re going to have our hands full.

"But we’re going to be up for the challenge. We’ve just got to make sure we do what we do on the defensive end and not what we didn’t do in that game against the Lakers."

-- Dwain Price

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